The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, is understood to be considering changes to the form 1 system and land use policies to curtail protests in the Sydney CBD.
A poll of 1,022 Australians conducted between Tuesday and Friday last week revealed 62% of respondents nationally and the same proportion in NSW supported strengthening police powers to curb protests, with just 17% opposing; 38% said they “strongly support”.
The stronger powers were backed by nearly two-thirds of Labor voters nationally and three-quarters of Coalition voters. Only Greens voters showed less enthusiasm, with 38% supporting.
The poll results follow two years of regular protests in the Sydney CBD, organised by the Palestine Action Group over Israel’s war on Gaza. They have been peaceful in nature, but have drawn sharp criticism from the premier and some Jewish groups.
More recently, anti-immigration groups have also organised protests in the Sydney CBD, while in November a rally by neo-nazi group National Socialist Network, which was given authorisation by police, was held outside NSW parliament.
The premier has made it clear that he believes the protests need to stop in order to maintain social cohesion, particularly after the Bondi massacre on 14 December.
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In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, NSW parliament passed tough new gun laws and gave the police commissioner permission to restrict protests for rolling two-week periods for up to three months after the declaration of a terrorist event.
But the premier wants more permanent controls, particularly over regular protests in the city.
“We’re looking to change aspects of the law that we think are just putting an unnecessary burden on safety and security,” the premier said on Wednesday.
“I understand, and I accept, and I think it’s important to have public demonstrations in a big city like Sydney. I’ve never said the opposite, but there’s also got to be an understanding that the highest and most important obligation of a government is to protect its citizens.
“You’ve got literally thousands of NSW police that need to be deployed to marshal or protect public assemblies at the expense of investigating domestic violence offences or keeping the rest of the community safe,” he said.
Legislating without unduly burdening the constitutional implied right of political free speech is a challenge, but sources said the NSW government was considering a number of options to achieve its goal.
One option on the table is to give the NSW police discretion to refuse form 1 applications for protests after a certain number of applications.
A form 1 is not a permit to protest but protest organisers are encouraged to submit one, as it enables organisers and police to share information about expected numbers, routes for marches and security issues. In return for lodging the form, protesters are protected from prosecution under the Summary Offences Act, such as for impeding traffic or blocking pedestrians.
Critics of more restrictive rules warn protest organisers will be less inclined to lodge a form 1, making the police job more difficult. Numerical restrictions on application numbers would also be difficult to administer as protest groups are often unincorporated and groups may have similar issues but be legally unrelated.
Another option being considered is to use the planning laws and land use criteria to designate areas suitable for protest and to proscribe it at others.
The Opera House Trust Act already has restrictions in its bylaws on “demonstrations” displaying signs and using a public address system on its premises, though these do not appear to have stopped protests at the forecourt.
An idea that has been floated is to designate the Domain a protest site under land use rules.
A NSW parliamentary committee investigating whether slogans and chants should be banned is expected to report by Friday.
Changes already flagged include a ban on the phrase “globalise the intifada”, and potentially other phrases reportedly used at pro-Palestine protests.
The phrase, from the Arabic word for uprising or “shaking off”, is used by pro-Palestine supporters in reference to uprisings against Israel in 1987 and 2000. Some members of the Jewish community have said it is a call to violence against them.
The inquiry is meeting this week to finalise its recommendations to the government, allowing legislation to be tabled as soon as state parliament resumes next week.
Before the inquiry had received all its submissions, the committee chair, Labor MP Edmond Atalla, told Guardian Australia he would recommend the phrase be proscribed in his draft report, which is being reviewed by the Labor-majority committee.
Atalla was not available for comment about the model he had recommended. Both the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry recommended creating a new offence for what they called “hateful slogans”, including “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea”.
The office of special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, called for existing hate speech laws to be remodelled along the lines of Western Australian laws, which include lesser penalties where intention cannot be proved. The office also called for the creation of a new offence prohibiting conduct “that promotes, advocates or glorifies violence, destruction or death”, including phrases “which can be reasonably be interpreted as promoting violence”.
Constitutional law experts, including the University of Sydney’s Prof Anne Twomey, have said the proposal to ban particular political chants gives rise to potential constitutional issues, while groups including Palestine Action, the Jewish Council of Australia and the Australian National Imams Council refuted the idea that phrases such as “globalise the intifada” were inherently hateful or antisemitic and said a ban would curtail constitutional freedoms.
