NSW’s anti-free speech Premier Chris Minns is facing calls to resign after his controversial protest laws were struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.
The NSW Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled on legislation rushed through parliament by Mr Minns after the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack that gave the Police Commissioner the power to ban protests for up to three months without judicial oversight, and were used until February 7.
Mr Minns, who has repeatedly said he does not believe freedom of speech is compatible with multiculturalism, has introduced strict “hate speech” laws and wants to ban “Nazi ideology”, justified the laws at the time by saying the were needed to ensure public safety.
But Chief Justice Andrew Bell, Court of Appeal President Julie Ward and Justice Stephen Free found the laws “impermissibly burdened” the implied right to political communication under the Constitution.
The appeal judges found that the legislation was “broad and undiscriminating” and “perhaps most paradoxically of all, it would apply to a proposed public assembly in support of social cohesion”.
“Quelling one particular form of political communication in the interests of protecting another part of the community from a sense of unease or threat (not associated with any proximate physical threat) is not a constitutionally legitimate purpose,” the court said.
Joshua Lees of the Palestine Action Group, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said after the ruling that Mr Minns should step down for ignoring repeated warnings that the laws violated the constitution, ABC News reported.
“He needs to end his war on democracy in New South Wales,” Mr Lees said.
Mr Minns said he was disappointed by the decision, but cited the Bondi massacre in claiming he believed the laws were “necessary and important for Sydney at the time”.
Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns SC said the laws were a “kneejerk reaction” to Bondi, and called Mr Minns restrictions on speech and protest undemocratic.
“Laws that effectively ban protest and other forms of freedom of expression, or which severely curtail them, are in most cases anathema to a democratic society,” he said.
An earlier set of protest laws brought in by Mr Minns in 2025 after a series of fake anti-Semitic attacks and intense lobbying from Jewish groups were also struck down in a similar ruling by NSW Supreme Court Justice Anna Mitchelmore.
Those laws gave police the powers to move on protesters “in or near” places of worship, and were also successfully challenged by Mr Lees.
The Minns government also used unappealable Public Safety Orders to ban nationalist activists from going within 8km of the Sydney CBD on Australia Day even though police are not supposed to impose PSOs to stop non-violent advocacy, protest or dissent.
Header image: Mr Minns at a Bondi Islamic terrorist attack memorial event (NSW Government).
The post Calls for NSW Premier to resign after anti-protest laws struck down first appeared on The Noticer.
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