NSW Police spend $130k opposing pro-Palestine protests on Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House

The eye-watering costs taxpayers have been forced to fork out after police attempted to block two pro-Palestine protests in Sydney earlier this year have been revealed.

The NSW Police Commissioner twice dragged Palestine Action Group and organisers Joshua Lees and Amal Naser before the NSW Supreme Court in a bid to stop protests planned for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

The march across the bridge, dubbed the March for Humanity, was allowed to go ahead by the court following a one-day ruling.

The Opera House protest, meanwhile, was barred under an unprecedented court order that would have potentially charged marchers with contempt of court.

Documents obtained by NewsWire under a Government Information Public Access request reveal the Police Commissioner spent $59,456.92 including GST on the court challenge.

A further $72,727.89 in taxpayer funds was spent on the failed attempt to stop the Harbour Bridge march in August during a one-day hearing.

Disbursements contained in the total expenditure include $4589 for summons filing and transcription fees, excluding GST, as well as counsel fees, which are protected by contractual privilege.

Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the decision to oppose the protests was made by NSW Police, but at the centre of it was public safety.

“Decisions regarding protest management and legal action are operational decisions made by police – they are the experts and best placed to make these calls,” she said.

“The top priority of the NSW Police and this government is to protect the people of NSW, and we back the tireless efforts of our police to do so.”

It comes as the NSW government mulls over sweeping changes to public assembly legislation following the Bondi Beach terror attack.

The proposal would allow police to ban protests in a certain area out of concern for social cohesion following a terror incident.

Speaking before the Bondi terror incident, opposition police spokesman Paul Toole said the taxpayer was being asked for foot the bill for “endless protests”.

“The costs are out of control,” he said.

“The disruption is relentless, and the government keeps turning a blind eye to this issue.

“It’s time to draw a line in the sand. If protesters want to shut down our streets, shut down critical infrastructure, then they should pay for it.”

The Coalition has proposed introducing a paid model whereby protest groups are given three “free” protests after which they could be asked to pay some police costs.

The government voted down the idea in parliament in August, with Premier Chris Minns warning it could be found to be unconstitutional.

However, Mr Minns has sought to bolster police powers around protest activity, including reintroducing a Bill around acts outside places of worship that was deemed unconstitutional earlier this year and other measures in response to a neo-Nazi rally outside state parliament.

“The Minns Labor government has an opportunity to legislate changes that actually support our police and to stop using critical infrastructure for their stage for these political protests,” Mr Toole said.

Greens MLC Sue Higginson said opposition to the pro-Palestine protests showed a “kind of tough political intolerance” and officers’ evidence in the failed bid to stop the Harbour Bridge march was “inadequate and insufficient and … terrible”.

“There was no public safety issue,” she said.

Mr Minns has staunchly opposed any march across the bridge despite overtures from organisers at the time that it could have been postponed briefly.

“That’s all he had to say,” Ms Higginson said.

“He didn’t have to say he supported it, he just had to say he didn’t want to stand in the way, but instead he jumped up and he said ‘No, no, no, no, no. We just can’t have this’.”

Ms Higginson attended the March for Humanity alongside several Labor MPs, who broke ranks with Mr Minns, as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Of the Opera House protest, Ms Higginson said the Court of Appeal ruling “left the law of protest and public assembly … in a bit of a shambles”.

She warned it could have a “chilling effect” on the Form 1 system, the mechanism in which protests are “authorised” or not by police in NSW.

“How will things go into the future, and how is the state going to weaponise its win in the Court of Appeal, and if so, what does that look like, and who’s going to end up hurt?” Ms Higginson said.

She joined Mr Lees, the Jewish Council of Australia, and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties on December 22 when parliament met for an emergency session to debate reforms post-Bondi.

He claimed people were attempting to link the pro-Palestine movement to the attack.

“What we’re seeing now, which is a concerted campaign being waged by some to try to link the horrific Bondi attack to the Palestine protest movement, is so ludicrous,” Mr Lees said.

“It’s so deliberately dishonest, and it is so outrageous.”