NSW Police Watchdog Must Be Given the Power to Require Evidence of Brutality

The New South Wales Law Enforcement Conduct Commission has paused its investigation into Operation Makalu, its probe into NSW police officers having openly bashed and brutalised civilians protesting the visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog on 9 February 2026, because the policing agency is refusing inquiry evidence requests, and the watchdog is now calling for law reform in this regard.

The LECC announced the pause to the controversial inquiry on 15 September 2026, so public hearings supposed to take place last month have been deferred. And this is no minor development, as the Herzog incident garnered more than 800 complaints: the most in the watchdog’s history. The LECC too warns that NSW police is being obstructive and overly defensive in terms of such requests.

This issue involves multiple provisions within various sections of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission Act 2016 (NSW) (the LECC Act), empowering the NSW Police Force to challenge or to refuse evidence requests from the watchdog on citing privacy concerns, operational sensitives or the need to avoid identifying specific officers.

And that this issue relating to evidence has come to a head in respect of this police watchdog probe is no surprise, as the incident involved 3,000 NSW police officers beating up 20,000-odd demonstrators, and then key figures, like the NSW premier, the police minister and the police commissioner, all refusing to apologise and rather suggesting that officers were just following orders.

NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson has been the key figure in NSW parliament pushing for the reform that the LECC itself has called for in both its 2024-25 and 2025-26 annual reports, and she’s even gone as far as attempting to move an amendment to progress the change on 24 September. And despite her reform being voted down by the state, Higginson is continuing the push into the present.

Shutting down reforms

“Labor premier Chris Minns has pioneered an extraordinary law-and-order agenda, which has included an unprecedented expansion of police powers, yet he seems to be unwilling to provide the necessary oversight of the police by the independent Law Enforcement Conduct Commission,” Higginson said in a 5 October 2026 press release. “This is a dangerous situation.”

“Police commissioner Mal Lanyon’s public statement that there has been ‘no reluctance’ from police to share information with the LECC is quite simply detached from evidence,” she added. “The LECC’s chief commissioner has described police’s approach towards information sharing as ‘difficult’ and ‘overly defensive’. It seems we have a police commissioner either in denial or avoiding the truth.”

Higginson drilled NSW special minister of state John Graham on this issue, during August Budget estimates, and the minister responsible for oversight bodies, rejected the Greens member’s calls for reforms to the LECC’s evidence gathering powers, as he stated that NSW Labor was not entertaining the proposal for the watchdog’s ability to elicit information to be made more substantial.

This is despite multiple recommendations that the LECC’s evidence gathering powers be strengthened, which include the first recommendation of the 2024 report from the NSW parliamentary committee into the Ombudsman, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission and the Crime Commission, which involved calling for the LECC’s powers to obtain evidence to be clarified.

“I have raised the LECC’s clear requests for the powers that it needs with the minister responsible, John Graham and he has been clear there is no proposal on the table to implement them,” Higginson continued on Monday. “I have attempted to change the laws myself in parliament, and the Minns Labor government has teamed up with the NSW Liberals to oppose these essential… measures.”

The dubious law

The 2024 parliamentary inquiry report notes that the LECC was still raising the issue regarding obtaining evidence on requesting it from the NSW Police Force at that time, as it had too been doing in 2022. The watchdog further outlined that this is hampering its legislative functions. And the committee suggested that amending and clarifying the powers in the LECC Act could solve the issue.

The report underscores that this problem is stemming from the fact that there is not one clear power facilitating the watchdog’s access to require evidence to be handed over by NSW police. Instead, there are various powers that relate to specific types of documents to be requested. So, the LECC can’t clearly request certain items, whilst the police agency ardently challenges requests when made.

The LECC is requesting a power equivalent to that of the LECC Inspector, the official in charge of oversighting the police watchdog, as it is able to request documents from the LECC, under section 124(2) of the LECC Act, which makes the inspector “entitled to full access” to LECC documents. So, basically, the watchdog wants full access to NSW police documents relating to its investigations.

Higginson unsuccessfully attempted to move some amendments to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2026 on 24 September. These would have included the insertion of section 27(2A) into the LECC Act, which would have made it possible for the watchdog to request information from NSW police and be “entitled to access the information and documents”.

Higginson’s proposed new subsection 102(2A) of the LECC Act would have prevented the NSW police from refusing requests to information in its control by the statutory oversight body, and this prohibition on request refusals would have been extended to cover the NSW police commissioner and the NSW Crime Commission.

But NSW Labor and the Coalition voted down the amendments to facilitate NSW police information to be handed over to the NSW police watchdog to monitor that the law enforcement agency is not acting beyond its powers.

The push for reform continues

Despite minister Graham knocking back suggestions that the NSW police watchdog powers be strengthened so that it can request evidence in possession of the NSW Police Force, in order to properly carry out its statutory functions, plus the voting down of her amendment to progress this, Higginson has continued her vocal campaign to press this matter this week.

The Greens MLC pointed to the 2024 NSW Supreme Court case that involved the NSW Police Force being ordered to hand over key documents to the LECC, after it had appealed to withhold evidence relating to the police shooting death of Krista Kach, when officers had fired beanbag rounds that ultimately killed the civilian in September 2023.

Yet, since February this year, the LECC evidence power issue has become more problematic, due to the fact that NSW police officers were caught en masse beating, punching, wrestling, assaulting and pepper spraying civilians in a coordinated manner, which implied that officers were permitted to use excessive force, after the protest crowd had refused an order to disperse from the protest site.

NSW premier Minns, police minister Yasmin Catley and NSW police commissioner Lanyon have all repeatedly refused to apologise for the police violence and insisted that officers were just following orders. This means that the mass bashing of the public captured on numerous video clips has been sanctioned by the state. And further, this suggests such excessive force might be used again.

Over the months since February, further evidence suggesting the police are guilty of a chorus of serious misconduct has kept rolling in, with the most serious piece of footage having been leaked to abolitionist group Watch the Cops, who posted it online only to see the clip go viral. And Higginson raised this with Graham in August to highlight the urgency around progressing the reform.

“You’re joking. That is shocking,” Higginson said to the special minister of state, after he admitted that the Minns government is not even contemplating the multiple requests to reform LECC powers, and she provided him with the example from the leaked NSW police body-worn video clip captured during the February anti-Herzog rally that was leaked to Watch the Cops.

“I watched a video yesterday that literally has police officers walking down the street expressing with glee, these words on his body-worn camera footage, ‘I fucking pumped that cunt’,” Higginson recalled.

“A female officer says, ‘So funny’,” the Greens justice person continued. “The male officer then says, ‘Then I punched him in the head when he was down.’ The female officer laughs, saying, ‘I saw that.’ This is the police in NSW right now.”

Image: Sue Higginson supplied. Chris Minns by NSW state is licensed under CC BY 4.0. NSW police by Paul Gregoire