Controversial protest laws rushed through by NSW Premier Chris Minns after a series of fake anti-Semitic attacks and intense lobbying from Jewish groups have been ruled invalid.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Anna Mitchelmore found on Thursday that the new laws, which give police the powers to move on protesters “in or near” places of worship, were too broad and “impermissibly” burdened the implied right to freedom of political expression under the constitution.
The laws were challenged by far-left activist Josh Lees on behalf of the Palestine Action Group, whose lawyers said the vagueness of the “in or near” wording of the legislation created a “chilling effect” and that the laws were discriminatory in that they targeted certain types of political speech in ways that favoured some viewpoints over others.
NSW Solicitor-General Michael Sexton SC argued that the laws had an “obvious and legitimate purpose” of protecting religious communities while entering or leaving places of worship, but Justice Mitchelmore did not accept his submissions.
“[The law] is directed at protest activity, removing a limitation on police giving directions in relation to an apparently genuine demonstration or protest,” she wrote.
“Protests and procession routes in areas of civic significance will likely place protestors in close physical proximity to places of worship, and the marginal burden imposed by [the law] goes further than the constitutionally valid baseline in a meaningful way.”
The protest laws were part of a suite of legislation passed in February, including new restrictions on “hate speech”, that was rammed through parliament by Mr Minns following the Dural caravan hoax – a criminal con job which Mr Minns described as a terrorist event before an investigation was complete – and a series of other similar incident staged to look like attacks on the Jewish community, some of which were allegedly orchestrated by Iran.
The revelations that the explosive-laden caravan was a hoax sparked a parliamentary inquiry into whether Mr Minns knew there was no terrorist threat but passed the laws anyway. The inquiry is yet to hand down its findings.
Mr Minns also cited “700 anti-Semitic attacks” while advocating for the news laws, a number that was later corrected to 367 “incidents” only for police to admit earlier this month that dozens of those were either duplicates or did not meet the criteria for anti-Semitism.
The Premier, who has repeatedly said freedom of speech need to be restricted to protect multiculturalism, said in a statement about the ruling that while it was “disappointing” it did not mean protesters had “free rein” outside of places of worship.
“The decision has no impact on the offence introduced recently in the NSW government’s places of worship laws that make it a crime to impede, harass, intimidate or threaten a person accessing a place of worship,” he said.
Header image: Chris Minns speaks at an anti-Semitism summit in February (Sky News Australia).
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