The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has said he is “confident” new laws to ban protests for up to three months can withstand a constitutional challenge from three groups who regularly organise demonstrations in Sydney.
The groups – the Palestine Action Group Sydney, Jews Against the Occupation 48 and the Blak Caucus – said on Tuesday they intended to launch legal action as soon as the laws were passed, although none had plans for any immediate protests.
The groups said they would have standing for the court challenge – likely in the high court – without having a form 1 permit for a protest rejected, because it is a constitutional case that will allege the legislation is an infringement of the implied right of free speech.
The legislation was on Tuesday morning before the NSW upper house. It was expected to pass parliament late Tuesday night.
Flanked by a dozen other representatives of groups and organisations opposed to the laws, the Palestine Action Group’s convener, Josh Lees, said: “The Minns government is trying to strip away the right to peacefully protest for everyone … potentially for up to three months at a time with no evidence at all to say that this is going to make anyone safer.
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“No one denies the fact that the Palestine movement, for the last two years and for many years before, that has been a peaceful protest movement protesting against the horrific violence and genocide playing out in Gaza,” he said.
“Those are the rights we’re fighting to defend today.”
Lees said the Palestine Action Group did not have a protest planned for the near future but his group “would need to resume protesting at some point”.
“Israel has killed over 400 Palestinians since this so-called ceasefire was announced,” he said.
Nick Hanna, a lawyer advising the group, said the legislation in its current state had the potential to effectively ban all protests for any cause, whether leftwing or rightwing.
“That is what’s obviously going to be deeply concerning to the Australian public, because we have a very proud protest history in this country, and many of the rights that we take for granted were won because of mass protest movements,” he said.
“It will ban processions, that is moving protests, but in relation to static protests, it will also allow the police to effectively move them on in certain circumstances,” he said.
Asked on Tuesday about the constitutional challenge, Minns said he was “reluctant to front-run the court”.
“All I will say is that we’ve run our legislation thoroughly through the crown solicitor,” he said.
“We are alive to the threat from the high court and a reversal of these changes. And in some cases, that’s tempered us in terms of rushing into bills. In other cases, we don’t think that we can wait.
“We’re confident that the laws will withstand a constitutional challenge,” he said.
The protest groups also took issue with the government’s plans to ban the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
“The definition of ‘intifada’ is … a shaking off or an uprising,” Lees said.
“When people say ‘intifada’, it’s a basic act of us supporting the uprisings of Palestinians against their oppression, against illegal occupation and genocide.”
Lees said the phrase was rarely used at rallies in Australia and Minns’ ban ran the risk of making the phrase a popular chant.
Minns said Lees’ comments were “almost troll-like”.
“We were repeatedly assured that yesterday’s protest was going to be a peaceful vigil for the lives that were lost last Sunday. Instead, we’re treated to calls or chants of ‘globalise the intifada’.
“That tells you everything that you need to know about what it can mean if we don’t have bright red lines in relation to protests in New South Wales in the context of a terrorism event.”
Minns’ comments referred to a demonstration organised by Australian Democracy Network on Monday night, when a crowd of 300 at Sydney’s town hall rallied against NSW’s protest laws and some people briefly chanted “globalise the intifada”. Lees was not associated with that demonstration.
The three groups bringing the constitutional challenge are being supported by a diverse range of groups, including the climate activists Rising Tide, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, the NSW Greens and Labor Friends of Palestine.
The Labor Friends of Palestine convener, Peter Moss, said the majority of ALP members supported the rights of Palestinian people and had passed motions in hundreds of branches and at conferences.
“So we know where the members stand – a long way from where Chris Minns stands in terms of his own MPs,” Moss said.
Moss referred to a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August to protest against Israel’s conduct in Gaza, a rally which Minns had opposed. Police estimated 90,000 people were at the march but organisers said as many as 300,000 turned out.
“On that march were 200,000 or 300,000 middle Australians – people from all corners of our community, including hundreds of Labor party members, federal, state MPs, local Labor councillors and rank-and-file members such as myself,” Moss said. “That’s the betrayal.”
