a police watchdog investigation into police conduct<\/a>. Lanyon ended the restriction last Tuesday after Herzog had left the country.<\/p>\n\u2018Fox guarding the henhouse\u2019<\/p>\n
Hume told the court that preventing the use of the form 1 system in designated areas was counterproductive.<\/p>\n
The system is an optional permit system that protest organisers can use to gain immunity from being charged for offences like obstructing traffic in an area negotiated with police.<\/p>\n
Hume told the court these functions included providing a system for protesters and police to negotiate, giving the independent courts \u2013 rather than police \u2013 the power to reject a permit, and giving protesters the \u201cincentive\u201d of sticking to what was negotiated with police.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ensured that protesters have an opportunity to let off steam, to put it colloquially, contributed to peaceful resolution of disputes, [and] enhanced social cohesion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that the catalyst for the form 1 system being put in place was the first Mardi Gras in 1978 in which police violently arrested protesters.<\/p>\n
The court heard the new law had the effect of giving \u201cpolice a relatively broad and uncontrollable power to require protesters to cease protesting and disperse\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a degree of the fox guarding the henhouse. The executive gets to decide whether there can be a protest against the executive,\u201d Hume told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese laws, first, are fundamentally overly broad. They use a sledgehammer to seek to crack a nut. They burden, all protest, irrespective of the risk it poses, and irrespective of its expression of it. And secondly, they haven\u2019t been shown to be necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kinds of harms the state was concerned about are already addressed by the criminal law.\u201d<\/p>\n
State argues law was not made to discourage protests<\/p>\n
Brendan Lim SC, who acted on behalf of the state government, argued that the law was a \u201cconfined rolling back\u201d of the legal protections ordinarily offered by the form 1 system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rational justification for that is because the community is experiencing the aftermath of a terrorist attack,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n
He argued that the purpose of the law was not to discourage protests. However, this was questioned by justice Stephen Free, who sat on the appeal bench alongside chief justice Andrew Bell and justice Julie Ward.<\/p>\n
Free raised that the attorney general, Michael Daley, had said that the law was to \u201csignal to the community that assembling in public spaces in the designated area is discouraged\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lim said the purpose of the law was \u201cnot to make people stay home\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose is what the government is taking steps to do, protect the community, enhance social cohesion in the wake of a terrorist attack \u2026 [by] placing sensible limits on the authorisation of public assemblies,\u201d the court heard.<\/p>\n
Lim told the court there was a link between protecting the community and social cohesion because a \u201cpublic assembly might express support for or denounce a particular community or group, which can further inflame tensions and give rise to risks or safety\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Asio had raised concerns in recent published security advice about a \u201cpermissive climate for politically motivated violence\u201d and that it had developed from the \u201cnormalisation of extremist views\u201d, including views associated with \u201cmass public protests\u201d.<\/p>\n
Labor divided over law<\/p>\n
The law has come up numerous times in the state\u2019s budget estimates this week. The NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe \u2013 who attended the pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August \u2013 agreed under questioning that no members of Minns\u2019s cabinet had opposed the law.<\/p>\n
However, there were repeated warnings from Labor backbenchers that such a law would create a flashpoint rather than calm tensions. Four backbenchers went to the anti-Herzog rally, including Sarah Kaine, Cameron Murphy, Stephen Lawrence, and Anthony D\u2019Adam.<\/p>\n
A number of Labor branches have passed motions calling for the law to be repealed. At least a dozen passed motions questioning police conduct at the protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyers for three protest groups have argued that a Minns government law which effectively banned marches in Sydney\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-506310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}