Labor, Greens MPs vow to ignore protest ban to demonstrate against Israel President Isaac Herzog in Australia

Labor and Greens MPs at a State and Federal level face arrest by defying a police protest ban and marching through Sydney’s city streets to demonstrate against Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia.

Israel’s head of state is flying into Sydney on Monday after being invited by the Australian Government to comfort the Jewish community in the wake of the December 14 Bondi terrorist attack that claimed 15 innocent lives in a targeted, anti-Semitic attack.

But despite a ban on protests in Sydney’s city centre and the eastern suburbs, pro-Palestinian MPs from Labor and the Greens, including Muslim senator Mehreen Faruqi, are vowing to join thousands of activists marching from Town Hall to State Parliament on Monday afternoon, in a bid to spoil a four-day Australian tour that will also see the head of the world’s only Jewish state visit Canberra and Melbourne.

State Labor MPs Sarah Kaine and Stephen Lawrence are also planning to demonstrate in defiance of NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon’s two-week protest ban extension, enacted on Tuesday, that could see protesters arrested for picketing in a no-go zone.

New State Labor Government laws, introduced two days before Christmas, give the State’s top cop the power to prohibit marching demonstrations in designated areas three months after a terrorist attack. Police are planning to deploy more than 500 officers in the central business district.

NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson, who is planning to march, said the demonstration was justified, even in the face of a protest ban.

“My view, along with a number of members of the Parliament, including Greens MPs, Labor MPs, probably many others, support that protest happening,” she told The Nightly.

“Those anti-protest laws and the public assembly restriction declaration and the laws which that declaration relies upon are currently contested laws. They are laws that are being challenged in the courts of New South Wales.

“It may well be those laws are declared invalid.”

Left-wing activists opposed to Mr Herzog’s visit argue he is complicit in genocide, based on a UN commission of inquiry in September finding Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza. This is despite Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively being the head of government.

“This man is responsible for inciting the crime of genocide,” Ms Higginson said.

“I don’t think you can say that Benjamin Netanyahu made the decision singularly.”

Federal Labor MP and former Cabinet minister Ed Husic, the first Muslim MP elected to the House of Representatives, this week said he was “very uncomfortable” with Mr Herzog’s visit to Australia, citing a 2023 image of him signing an artillery shell in the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack that killed 1200 Israelis.

“A figure like that doesn’t necessarily enhance social cohesion,” he told the ABC.

NSW Police urged the Palestine Action Group to plan a rally in an approved protest area, with protests allowed at Hyde Park.

“We do not want to be placed in a situation where we are at Town Hall on Monday evening with a significant number of people enforcing the declaration,” acting Assistant Commissioner Paul Dunstan told reporters on Friday, adding “in excess of 500 police officers” will be deployed.

“That may and potentially will result in arrests. That can be easily avoided through consultation and working with us to enable protest activity in the right area at the right time.”

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said Mr Herzog came as a guest of Australia, having been invited by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Governor-General Sam Mostyn.

“Look, the President of Israel is visiting Australia, having been invited by both the Governor-General and the Prime Minister and he will be a welcome and honoured guest to our country,” he told reporters on Friday.

“It is an important bilateral visit . . . for Australia and Israel. But to have the President of Israel here, the equivalent of our Governor-General, is really particularly significant for Australia’s Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, and that’s obviously the context in which the Israeli president is coming to Australia.”

Tight security is expected to accompany Mr Herzog’s visit.