There is a lesson for Chris Minns in the NSW supreme court’s declaration that police powers to deal with protesters near places of worship are invalid: laws curtailing civil liberties should never be rushed.
They should certainly not be pushed through in an atmosphere of panic and incomplete facts such as existed in the fevered days after the now notorious Dural caravan incident.
Justice Anna Mitchelmore ruled on Thursday that the police powers impermissibly burdened the freedom of political communication implied in Australia’s constitution.
Mitchelmore agreed with the Palestine Action Group that the laws were vague and could apply to any protest near a church or place of worship, regardless of whether the protest was addressed towards a religious community or focused on a place of worship.
Some of the most popular places for protests in Sydney are near religious places: the town hall is next to St Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral; Hyde Park is across the road from the Great Synagogue on one side, and St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral on the other.
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The laws as drafted meant that if a protester obstructed worshippers, even inadvertently, they could be in breach.
The protest that was the catalyst for the laws was not against a religious event, but a speech held at the synagogue by a member of the Israel Defense Forces.
Minns was warned by several lawyers in his caucus that the bill was too vague and probably unconstitutional. They were ignored.
At almost every opportunity, Minns chooses a conservative path. It’s an approach that is straight out of the former premier Bob Carr’s playbook: get the cops on side and ensure there is absolutely no opportunity for the opposition to fault Labor’s toughness on crime, while playing to the cheer squad in the tabloid media, talkback radio and at Sky News.
In the rush to claim the conservative position, Minns has made several embarrassing gaffes, including citing “700 instances of antisemitic attacks” over last summer, which subsequently proved to be inaccurate both in the number and nature of many of the incidents.
I suspect the law-and-order drumbeat does not resonate so well with young people who get their news from sources other than the conservative media, or even commercial television.
Worse still, this approach comes with costs over time.
This week the NSW coroner, Teresa O’Sullivan, made a rare public comment about the 12 Indigenous deaths in custody this year, the highest number ever in a year.
“This is a profoundly distressing milestone,” she said.
Figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody has risen 18.9% in the past five years.
“These figures reflect the entrenched over-representation of First Nations peoples in the criminal justice system – a systemic issue that compounds the risks and vulnerabilities contributing to the rising number of deaths in custody,” O’Sullivan said.
The attorney general, Michael Daley, responded by pointing to the work the government is doing to remove ligature points in jails and with a vague reference to Closing the Gap initiatives.
The government’s response this week to a particularly ghastly domestic violence incident was to promise even tougher sentences.
But anyone who has experienced domestic violence knows it is a far more complex problem.
Criminal justice questions demand a considered and long-term response. It’s time for Minns to stop threatening tougher penalties and do the harder, more nuanced policy work.
Anne Davies is Guardian Australia’s NSW state correspondent
