You have probably seen the shocking scenes from Sydney Town Hall on 9th February, they were awful.
When the police moved with force against peaceful members of the community in the heart of the city, the images of the violence travelled around the country and globe.
While most of us were shocked and appalled, many of us were unsurprised that our democracy enabled the NSW Police to revert to beating innocent people in the streets again on behalf of political leaders.
Community members exercising their right to peaceful protest have been met with batons, physical restraint, chemical control and unwarranted aggression by the police many times in this state before.
From the brutal policing of Sydney’s first Mardi Gras in June 1978, when hundreds of marchers were assaulted and loaded into police wagons, becoming a defining moment for the queer rights movement in NSW and Australia, through to more recent attacks by police on First Nations people like in the aftermath of the 2004 death of TJ Hickey, where police deployed collective punishment against a community in mourning for a teenage boy.
These historical examples of the NSW Police being deployed as attack dogs against the community live in infamy, and leave deep and corrosive wounds – just as this most recent brutal policing episode has. And just like then, we remain resolute in the face of the victim blaming that is now flowing from NSW Labor and their Premier, Chris Minns.
Not sure if you caught the part where Premier Chris Minns said of the images and footage of the police violence, “I’m not going to condemn the police for doing what we asked them to do, which is to keep the public safe.”
He also said there was some “context” within which the violence had to be seen. He was telling all of us not to believe our own eyes. Folks, that is some scary stuff, when a Premier seeks to victim blame and gaslight – it’s what Trump does!
We have consistently warned that the anti-protest rhetoric of the Premier and his laws that have been successively rushed through the NSW Parliament would embolden police to escalate attacks against the community.
The Police ‘Force’ have unreasonable discretion in how and when they target lawful protests, and have again demonstrated just how violent they will be, emboldened by the anti-protest regime under NSW Labor led by Premier Chris Minns.
NSW has one of the most repressive protest regimes of any comparable democracy, something that legal observers, civil liberties groups and academics have all raised concerns about. But NSW Labor seems committed to introducing more laws intended to target a particular section of our community under the guise of “social cohesion”.
As Bernard Keane wrote after the Town Hall attacks, “Nothing says social cohesion like a punch to the head.”
Over the last three years, Chris Minns and his Labor Government have intentionally created a situation that is actively anti-democratic, anti-dissent. Minns has labelled peaceful protest as dangerous, extremist and unlawful. He even tried to blame the peaceful pro-Palestine protests for the murders of Jewish people on Bondi Beach.
His words and actions have given police and other violent people in the community the permission and the impunity to go out and commit hateful and violent attacks against parts of the community that they disagree with.
The result of all of this is a collapse in trust between the police and the community, as well as between different sections of the community itself. That’s the poisoned gift from Chris Minns to NSW.
Just a few weeks ago, I stood at a press conference calling out Minns and his authoritarian tactics with Jewish people, Muslim faith leaders, Blak Caucus members, queer advocates, and other representatives from civil society.
All of us together, peacefully calling out a premier who would destroy our relationships, tarnish us as extremists, and would deny the truth in front of him.
The truth is that the socially cohesive and peaceful society that he says he is protecting is the same community that he has set the police against, and passed laws to silence.
In the immediate aftermath of the police violence in Sydney, I called on the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) to establish a broad investigation into the entire police operation, allegations of police violence and a review of all charges of assault police.
In my many years as a lawyer, defending protestors, more often than not where a protestor is charged with resisting arrest and assaulting police, it is in fact the police who assaulted the protestor. The Premier was asked if he would support my call and he adamantly said no he would not and there should not be any investigation into the police violence.
Fortunately, the LECC is independent and clearly cares about the truth in policing and not what Premier Chris Minns thinks. They have heeded our call and announced the establishment of Operation Makalu, a broad and comprehensive investigation into what can only be described as a hellish and dangerously wrong policing operation.
What happened that awful night in Sydney is a symptom of an unhealthy democracy. While we are holding those bad actors that we can to account, we must start dismantling the laws that have been introduced by both Coalition and Labor governments which have specifically sought to suppress and punish people engaging in the act of peaceful protest. This must be a non-negotiable condition from the community to the government.
It has been a shock to me as a Greens MP to watch NSW Labor’s anti-protest regime imposed upon us all. Labor carries a proud history rooted in social democracy and the defence of working people, environmental protection, a tradition built on collective action, civil liberties and the right of ordinary people to gather and be heard.
That history now sits uneasily alongside a legislative framework that restricts peaceful assembly and expands heavy-handed policing powers.
Premier Chris Minns has proved to be a threat to our democracy and his own Labor party. He owes everyone an apology, one that is delivered not just in words but through concrete actions that restore rights, repeal unjust laws and begin the work of rebuilding trust.
Democracy is sustained only through on-going care, vigilance and humility. Democracy is at its best when leaders recognise that protest is a vital organ within a healthy political system, and that when people gather in our streets, forests and town halls they are participating in one of the oldest and most fundamental expressions of collective democratic life, whether you agree with the protest or not.
Protest has delivered so much of what we love and take for granted about our world and way of life. Protest strengthens our democracy, institutions and civil society, it does not threaten anyone except those who are fixated on control, order and power.
