Proposed Temporary Ban on NSW Protests Is a Slippery Slope to Permanency

The Bondi Beach massacre was an appalling hate crime targeting Sydney’s Jewish community. But the subsequent intermingling and implication of the local pro-Palestine/antigenocide protest movement in post-shooting public statements is an affront. Indeed, the psychotic father and son shooters appear to be ISIS-affiliated, and ISIS has no association with the Palestinian cause at all.

NSW premier Chris Minns appeared before the press on Thursday, 17 December 2025, three days after the mass murder that killed 15 on Gadigal land at Bondi Beach, to explain that he’s reconvening NSW parliament for two days prior to Christmas to pass gun control laws, which was expected. But Minns then suggested he is going to attempt to temporarily ban protests as well.

“I am firmly of the view… that protest right now in Sydney would be incredibly terrible for our community. In fact, they would rip apart our community, particularly protests about international events,” the premier told the press. He added that he understands overseas events might be concerning, but his concern is “what is happening in Sydney right now”.

The raising of gun control laws in response to a mass shooting is a logical step. A crackdown on protests doesn’t necessarily follow. To raise the peaceful protest movement that is calling for an end to Israel’s mass extermination of Palestinians is to find convenience in a tragedy, as Minns, NSW Labor and the Coalition have been increasingly suppressing protest since 2022.

The bipartisan shift to stamping out protests relating to causes inconvenient to the government commenced with climate change and has shifted to those opposing Israeli apartheid and genocide. The state has taken issue with the movement for Palestine since it broadly rose in late 2023.

The ultimate fear with Minns’ suggested rights-eroding temporary pause on civil society protest is that it will become permanent, or that periodic blanket bans on protests will become the norm.

“The premier is wrong”

“Connecting the horrific events of the Bondi attack in any way with recent protests continues the harmful trend of conflating criticism of the actions of the government of Israel with antisemitism,” ,” clarified NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Timothy Roberts. “This undermines the community harmony that the premier says that he is worried about.”

“The premier is wrong to suggest that the international nature of a concern in some way undermines its legitimacy for the people of NSW,” added the Sydney lawyer. “This ignores powerful examples in NSW history where ordinary people here stood against injustice overseas, like those opposing apartheid in South Africa.”

Roberts raises South Africa as people here once mobilised to call for an end to its 20th century apartheid regime, and the local movement for Palestine right now is not only calling for an end to Israel’s mass annihilation of the Palestinians of the land, but Tel Aviv is too operating a system of apartheid and its attempts to progress this regime is eroding international law and norms.

The NSW premier has repeatedly shown distain for the local Palestine protest movement. Minns is now proposing a new law that would allow the NSW police commissioner to stop taking applications for protests if a terrorism designation has been made under the Terrorism (Police Powers) Act 2002 (NSW). Such a designation opens up more pervasive investigative tools for law enforcement.

“It is disappointing that the premier could not resist his seemingly perpetual weakness of suggesting ill-considered law reform on the run in media conferences,” said Roberts, as he hit the nail on the head.

A time for practical measures

As former Australian prime minister John Howard was dusted off and commuted around to numerous press conferences on Monday, he warned ,”I do not want this debate, post this horrible event to be used – the focus on guns be used – as a pretext to avoid the broader debate about the spread of hatred of Jewish people and antisemitism.”

This is despite that the ex-PM is well known for having established the most progressive gun controls the nation, and the globe for a while, had ever seen. This perplexing shift by the local father of gun control reveals that Coalition players are seizing the opportunity the mass killing has provided them with to progress their far-right agenda, which had undergone a distinct death at the last election.

The NSWCCL president was not attempting to score political points when he asserted that “further restrictions on protests will not curb antisemitism or prevent the type of horrific terrorism we saw over the weekend” and he further stated that he completely supports the premier’s proposed gun law reform, as it is “a practical and proven measure in reducing the risk of mass casualty events”.

The council further emphasises that the conflation of legitimate speech and assembly “in any way with this horrific example of antisemitism is reckless and damaging political opportunism”, and it further called on Minns to “abandon any such erosion of our right to protest and return to the work of leading the NSW community in this time of grief without creating further division”.

Emergency measure fits the pattern

The NSW community has been stunned and in disarray over the past week in the wake of the senseless mass killing by a deluded father and son. Developments have been coming thick and fast, and the premier is now suggesting that protests, an outlet to express frustration and call for change, are too dangerous right now. Yet, this could create a pressure cooker situation with no outlet.

The Perrottet Coalition government progressed the first major attack on the right to protest in NSW, when it passed laws in April 2022, which led to a practical ban on unauthorised protests that obstruct major roads, tunnels and bridges in Greater Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle, along with a list of major facilities in this state, via the threat of 2 years in prison and/or a $22,000 fine.

The current premier was the head of the opposition at the time these laws were raised and his party waved them through.

NSW Labor further enacted a controversial move on power for NSW police officers to exercise when demonstrators are protesting near a place of worship in February this year.

The NSW Supreme Court has since struck down this law, however, as it did not simply pertain to obstructing congregants, but police could utilise it to move protesters out of an area on the understanding that they were blocking the path of anyone on the street. The state government has since enacted the legitimate power the second time around.

“Throughout his time in office, premier Minns has consistently demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of how to cultivate community harmony by regularly suggesting laws that erode our civil liberties in a misguided attempt to achieve it,” Roberts added, in describing a now routine playbook over the current term of NSW parliament.

“In attempting to restrict protest this way, the premier is further dividing a community that is already trying to heal in an environment worryingly filled with misinformation and hateful rhetoric,” the lawyer added in ending. “We cannot have a ‘summer of calm’ and ‘togetherness’ with a government eroding our democratic freedoms”.