Opera House protest: Police urge courts to rule against massive pro-Palestine rally

Police are sceptical that an estimated 40,000 people rallying for Palestine at the iconic Sydney Opera House can be kept safe.

The NSW Court of Appeal on Wednesday heard a last-minute police challenge to the Palestine Action Group rally on Sunday, planned to start in Sydney’s city centre and finish under the sails of the harbour-side Australian landmark.

Organisers initially suggested 10,000 people would attend before telling the hearing they now expected 40,000.

“If you’re telling me 40,000 - and I don’t think you can say it will be only 40,000,” Assistant Police Commissioner Peter McKenna said under questioning from the organisers’ barrister.

“But if you can tell me 40,000 - trying to move them into that area, that cul-de-sac, that peninsula, then I have significant concerns about that.

“It has disaster written all over it.”

The matter was elevated to NSW’s highest court after a constitutional argument was laid out by the activist group behind the protest and the NSW attorney-general entered the fray.

The state Labor Government has repeatedly taken issue with pro-Palestine protests, with Premier Chris Minns trying to stop a massive rally over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August.

But Mr McKenna said his force was focused on the facts on the ground, not the politics surrounding the movement.

“I’m sitting here, out of my concerns,” he told the court.

NSW has a permit system that allows protest participants to block public roads and infrastructure unless a court denies permission after a police challenge.

Palestine Action Group has been organising weekly rallies for two years since Israel’s military assault on Gaza began in 2023.

Police say the Opera House forecourt, which is mostly surrounded by water, is ill-equipped to handle a large, swelling assembly with loudspeakers blasting chants and mass groups of people filtering at different times.

“I don’t think people are going to come walk through and then just walk out again. That’s just farcical,” Mr McKenna said.

Police believe there is a chance the demonstration could attract a crowd resembling the estimated 100,000 to 300,000 people that turned out for the Harbour Bridge rally.

A court challenge to that rally failed, though police said the eventual rally came close to crowd crushes.

When pressed by the organisers’ barrister Felicity Graham on the overall success of that event, Mr McKenna said police were not willing to facilitate a similar scenario.

“When you’re starting to get into tens of thousands of people, they (protests) have been near impossible,” he said.

“Did we manage to do it on the day? Yes. But would we like to try and do that again? No, we wouldn’t.”

Dismissing the demonstrators’ suggestion of a compliant crowd and about 100 volunteer marshals as “a utopian scenario”, he said outside groups would try to disrupt it for their own purposes.

“There are people who in our society would love an opportunity to do some things at that location,” Mr McKenna said.

The NSW Premier has backed the police opposition, pointing to chaotic scenes outside the waterside venue in October 2023 after he lit the sails of the Opera House with the colours of the Israeli flag.

Police watched on as a snap protest involving Palestine supporters cursed Jewish people and chanted “where’s the Jews? (sic)“.