NSW Premier Chris Minns Has Been Referred to the State Police Watchdog

The premier has been referred over claims he’s been pressuring police to suppress “lawful public assemblies” when he doesn’t agree with what’s being voiced.

New South Wales Greens MLC Sue Higginson has referred NSW premier Chris Minns to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, as she considers the NSW Labor leader has “too much influence over police operational decisions”, and she raised particular concern around the state’s top minister’s attempts to suppress “lawful public assemblies”, when he doesn’t agree with their politics.

Consternation around the premier’s attitude toward law enforcement has been spiking, ever since NSW police officers brutalised the participants in the 9 February 2026 anti-Herzog rally on Gadigal land before Sydney Town Hall, but what led Higginson to complain was his interview in The Australian a fortnight ago, as she considers it revealed his “undue influence” over the NSW police.

In the interview, Minns outlined that the fallout from the controversial 9 October 2023 pro-Palestinian Opera House rally wasn’t his fault. He said that it was rather due to the “bullshit” strategy that police management insisted on, which involved allowing protesters to march “to let off steam”. Yet, because he was then a “baby premier”, Minns didn’t know any better, so he didn’t stop it.

Over his more than three years as premier, Minns has had a habit of trying to supress protests he doesn’t agree with. He has sided with the Israel lobby in considering pro-Palestinian rallies as antisemitic. The premier has passed two protest restricting laws that were later struck down by the courts as unconstitutional, and he unlawfully tried to ban a 2024 Rising Tide climate action.

The Greens justice spokesperson too set out in her 14 September 2026 letter to the sole NSW police watchdog, that she urges the LECC to investigate the way in which the premier is lording it over state police, both as a standalone inquiry and as part of Operation Makalu, which is the ongoing probe into the police violence against anti-Herzog protesters, which Minns has refused to apologise for.

Lawyer schools lawmaker

“This influence is accompanied by a fundamental misunderstanding of the laws of NSW, and a disparaging view towards democratic and constitutional norms that enshrine peaceful protest,” Higginson wrote to the LECC last Monday.

This is clear in the recent interview, she underscores, as Minns wrongly considered that the NSW police could simply shut down the 9 October 2023 protest march.

The Greens MLC asserts that “the right to protest is a fundamental democratic right, protected in part through the implied right to political communication within our Constiution”. She then set out that the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW), which governs policing powers, does not empower NSW police to shutdown lawful public assemblies or protest marches.

“No ‘government policy’ as determined by the premier has the power to impermissibly burden the implied right to political communication,” Higginson, herself a lawyer, continued, “including the right for people to assemble and march together in protest against or for something of deep importance to them and their humanity.”

The progressive politician’s assertions hint at the fact that the NSW premier has passed several laws to prevent protests in certain circumstances, which are laws that Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Less successfully saw struck down as unconstitutional via two NSW Supreme Court challenges. And Minns has repeatedly appeared in the press suggesting other ways to silence protest.

“Furthermore, the premier makes reference to ‘a certain group’ of people,” Higginson continued in her letter, “who ‘if you give them an inch, they will take a mile, and it becomes a greenlight for worse and worse and worse behaviour’”. The Greens parliamentarian further added that this reflects an “intolerant perspective against an unidentified section of the community”.

“A certain group of people”

The “certain group” that Minns did refer to in his recent interview is the state’s large pro-Palestinian movement, which spontaneously arose at the commencement of the continuing genocide in Gaza. The NSW premier has clearly not approved of the ongoing demonstrations of this group, and it’s become increasingly apparent that the reason for this is his long alliance with Israel.

The 9 October Opera House rally was controversial, as a small group within the broader rally chanted “Fuck the Jews”. This antisemitic chant drew the ire of the pro-Palestinian crowd, which asked them to leave. Yet, on the following morning, the Australian Jewish Association, a key Israel lobby group, posted a clip showing people chanting “Fuck the Jews”, which was later shown to be doctored.

Minns copped criticism over this protest, and since it occurred, he’s vehemently opposed to the pro-Palestinian movement. The premier has attempted to unsuccessfully block two Palestinian protests, including the hundred thousand-strong 2025 Sydney Harbour Bridge march. Although he was successful in preventing a 2025 two-year anniversary march to the Opera House.

Following the 14 December 2025 Bondi Beach mass murder, the premier implied that the local pro-Palestinian movement had helped to motivate that ISIS shooting incident by “unleashing forces it couldn’t control”. And he then passed a law, known as the PARD, which served to ban protest marches in a declared zone, following an act of terrorism, and the courts struck it down in April 2026.

The PARD law was in place on 9 February this year, when the rally against the state visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog took place. Twenty thousand demonstrators gathered and sought to march, however. And when the crowd failed to disperse, 3,000 NSW police officers set upon it with excessive force, to brutalise it en masse in an obviously preplanned and coordinated attack.

Yet, following the mass brutalisation of the public, Minns, the police minister and the NSW police commissioner have repeatedly refused to apologise for the beating, and have rather said that officers were simply following orders. The incident also involved officers setting upon a group of Muslim men praying, and the NSW premier has specifically refused the chance to apologise for this belligerence.

Indeed, a premier of a state creating a division between his government and a certain section of the community is poor political form.

Suppressing differing opinions

Higginson’s complaint to the LECC includes her concerns over the premier’s ongoing posturing against the pro-Palestinian movement. She says, “This reflects an intolerant perspective against an unidentified section of the community but is implicitly directed toward antigenocide protesters and the Muslim community at large”.

“The premier should not be allowed to use the NSW police as a tool by which to supress political communication with which he disagrees,” the Greens pollie continued. “The premier seems to be operating under the false impression that the… PARD laws were ‘in place’ and they ‘got us through the summer’.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court voiding the PARD, the premier said, “The NSW government absolutely stands by the decision to introduce this legislation. We believe it was necessary and important for Sydney at the time.” And in separate comments, the premier denied that “the only reason there were violent scenes on the night” was because the PARD zone had been declared.

Having the NSW premier refusing to apologise for the NSW police mass assault on the public, along with his condemnation of the findings of the NSW Supreme Court and his singling out of the pro-Palestinian movement, are all occurring at a time of ongoing social upheaval due to volatile global affairs, and they’re all further causing more division amongst the community.

As for the LECC, it is not required to take up Higginson’s request for it to investigate the NSW premier, but either way, it is quite significant that a serving parliamentarian was able to legitimately make such a complaint against the state’s top minister.

The Greens MLC further set out in her letter to the LECC that for the premier and the executive government to continue to consider that the PARD law was legitimately in force prior to the court striking it down, “is to proceed on a legally erroneous basis and compounds the risk of further misconduct by police in relation to these matters”.

“The integrity of police powers relies on their discretionary and cautious use, particularly when police are exercising their powers to influence political communication and free speech,” Higginson further added.

“To expose these powers to the direction of one man – the premier – is to erode trust in law enforcement and democracy itself.”

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