NSW reviews Harbour Bridge march amid ‘cultural precedent' fears
Mr Minns on Monday said his government was investigating the implications of a Supreme Court's judgment against a police bid to shut down the Palestine Action Group's March for Humanity, fearing it could provide a legal pathway for follow-up protests.
'We're examining the judgment to determine whether this is a precedent or there's circumstances in relation to the judgment that specifically make it applicable to just that form one (protest) application,' Mr Minns said.
'No one should believe that it's open season on the bridge.
'We're not going to have a situation where the anti-vaxxer group has it one Saturday, and then the weekend after that Critical Mass takes over, and then the weekend after that we have an environmental cause, and then the weekend after that because of an industrial dispute. I think you'd accept that that's a situation that a big city like Sydney couldn't cope with.'
No other protest groups had yet lodged an application to march on the Harbour Bridge, Mr Minns said, and the Palestine Action Group had no plans for an immediate follow-up. Mr Minns and NSW police opposed the march in its lead-up, saying it would cause 'chaos'.
Constitutional lawyer and academic Greg Craven said NSW Supreme Court judge Belinda Rigg's decision on Saturday would carry a 'very weak' legal precedent in isolation for future bridge protests, but it gave authority to experienced protest organisers like PAG's Josh Lees.
'What you've got is a single decision of a single judge of the Supreme Court of NSW. So in strict legal terms, it doesn't bind the rest of the Supreme Court,' Mr Craven told The Australian.
'The weirdest thing about this is the extent to which Lees was treated almost as an expert witness. That is very unusual and the implications of that are huge, because it means that if you're applying for protests then, theoretically, you can get someone like Lees standing up, and he can simply justify the protest on his own personality.
'He's literally in a situation where he can now run protests with a stamp on it 'as approved by the NSW Supreme Court'. It's almost like a sponsorship.'
Mr Craven said it made the argument for large-scale protests more credible and was a 'crazy' legal achievement.
'Whatever you think of Lees or his group, it's an astonishing victory to be able to appropriate the biggest national symbol in Australia,' he said.
'To be able to enlist the judiciary – in an unbiased way – to give legitimacy to that, I think that's one of the craziest legal achievements that I've seen in my life.'
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin took aim at PAG for its role in the march, arguing it made the protest more divisive and 'ignored' the plight of hostages held by Hamas.
'Our national landmarks are there to bring Australians together. This march did not do that,' Mr Ryvchin said.
'While the majority of those who marched were no doubt there in solidarity with Gazan civilians and do not harbour pro-Hamas views, the organisers are the same group that held a pro-Palestinian rally as the October 7 massacre was still unfolding.'
The Palestine Action Group earlier on Monday said the March for Humanity had been misrepresented by police and politicians in the hours after it dispersed.
Protesters in NSW are required only to provide police a week's notice for any planned demonstration, during which time authorities can decide to challenge the authorisation of the protest in the Supreme Court – usually citing safety concerns, as was the case ahead of the Harbour Bridge march. James Dowling Science and Health Reporter
James Dowling is a reporter for The Australian's Sydney bureau. He previously worked as a cadet journalist writing for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and NewsWire, in addition to this masthead. As an intern at The Age he was nominated for a Quill award for News Reporting in Writing. Nation
Their lives were turned upside down by October 7 and the rise in anti-Semitism in Australia. In a new book, prominent Jewish women reflect on their experience. Politics
With AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw leaving the post because of the toll on family, Anthony Albanese has announced Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett will replace him. She pledged to 'keep Australians safe'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
6 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
‘We are out of time': Palestine representative makes impassioned plea to UN
Palestine Representative to the UN Riyad Mansour makes an impassioned plea during a Security Council briefing on Gaza, claiming peace is 'what the world wants'. 'Peace starts with ending the war in Gaza. Peace will prevail once Palestinian rights are fulfilled, and the Palestinian state is independent,' Mr Mansour said. 'Peace in the Middle East is not impossible; we have to work for it. 'The time we waste is measured in human lives, and we are out of time.'
ABC News
36 minutes ago
- ABC News
How Boundary Islet became Australia's shortest 'land border'
When Tasmania separated politically from New South Wales in 1825, it was decided that all islands south of Wilsons Promontory would belong to the new colony of Van Diemen's Land. But when the proclamation included more specific coordinates, it mistakenly put the border right through a 2-hectare granite island. The bungle created an 85-metre land border between Tasmania and what would later become Victoria. It is shown on official maps. The rocky island, 56 kilometres east of the southernmost point of mainland Victoria, is Australia's shortest land border. Maritime Museum Tasmania's Colin Denny said there was some skepticism about Boundary Islet and whether it was a legitimate border, so the organisation conducted its own research. "It's not as simple as it sounds, and we have to go right back to the discovery of Australia by Europeans to find out how the boundary came about," he told Joel Rheinberger on ABC Radio Hobart. Mr Denny said the issue arose when an order-in-council in the United Kingdom defined the new colony of Van Diemen's Land. "[The council] basically said the islands of Bass Strait would be part of Van Diemen's Land and north of there would remain New South Wales," he said. "It was very indeterminate." Governor Ralph Darling, who was overseeing New South Wales, wanted the border to be more definite and drew a line at 39 degrees 12 minutes latitude, based on it being below Wilsons Promontory. "The charting that had been done by various people was inaccurate," Mr Denny said. "When Governor Darling drew the line, it was found that it went through Boundary Islet." The blame lies with Captain John Black, who surveyed Bass Strait after Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated Tasmania and proved it was separate from the Australian mainland. Keeping in mind the technology used would have been sextants, circumferentors, and low-level theodolites, which led to wonky borders across the country. A spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE Tas) said the parallel latitude of south 39 degrees 12 minutes had been accepted as the Tasmania–Victoria border. "Boundary Islet is known as the North East Islet Nature Reserve," the spokesperson said. "It was historically known as North East Islet. Its name change was gazetted in 1990. "There was some ambiguity in the description of the location of the border in the historical proclamations of the colony of Van Diemen's Land upon its separation from NSW in 1825." The spokesperson said there were several border anomalies between Australian jurisdictions. The island is part of the Hogan Group, with Hogan Island being the largest island in the group. Hogan Island, which is 232 hectares, has been leased to graziers in the past, but is now a conservation area. In terms of inhabitants, there has been one formally recorded sighting of an Australian fur seal according to NRE Tas. Veteran travel writer Tony Wheeler can confirm there are actually many seals, after flying low over the island by helicopter while writing his book Australia's Islands. "Captain John Black, in his survey of 1801, had slightly misplaced North East Islet and the boundary runs smack through the middle of the 2-hectare island," Mr Wheeler said. "The constitution would have to be amended to correct the problem, and neither Tasmania nor Victoria seems too concerned about their curious meeting point." It's unclear whether the seals are Victorian or Tasmanian residents and would depend on which side of the island they choose to inhabit.
ABC News
36 minutes ago
- ABC News
Diggers and Dealers panel questions Australia's energy future and emissions target
Duelling perspectives on Australia's transition to renewables and whether it is dead in the water have played out on the floor of one of the country's major annual mining conferences. More than 2,300 delegates are in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 600 kilometres east of Perth, for the annual Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum, bringing the industry's practical and financial arms together for the 34th time in Western Australia's gold mining capital. While this year's gathering comes amid a surging gold price, questions over housing the industry's local workforce, and shaky futures for nickel and rare earths, organisers chose to shine a spotlight on the future and feasibility of Australia's shift to renewables. While miners, particularly in remote parts of Western Australia, have followed the state's smaller communities in setting up their own independent renewable energy infrastructure, the forum's keynote panel questioned the likelihood of renewables meeting the nation's total energy needs. The panel, featuring Canadian nuclear energy advocate Chris Keefer and Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) director of energy research Aidan Morrison, urged attendees to question the assumptions being made by industry and political leaders. "There is no serious intellectual defence for the prospect we'd meet net-zero targets in 2050," Mr Morrison said. He told the forum that the transition to a fully renewable grid was only being propelled by increasingly generous state and federal subsidies. "Forcibly intubated and resuscitated by government subsidies," he said. "It shows what it looks like to have a resuscitated zombie coming to life, the dead starting to walk again." Dr Keefer said nations such as Australia and Canada were getting caught up in a geopolitical fight over energy between China and the United States that they had no part in. "The levers of emissions reduction are not really in the hands of countries like Canada and Australia anymore," he said. "In Inner Mongolia, [China is] building what they call 'energy bases' — something like 6 gigawatts of solar, similar amounts of wind and batteries. "But also coal, mine-mouth coal, 4 to 5 gigawatts." The panel, moderated by broadcaster and CIS executive director Tom Switzer, also questioned the feasibility of renewables powering Australia's enormous grids on the largest possible scale. "As if we're some singular, big bucket where if it's sunny somewhere, it's immediately shareable somewhere else on the continent," Mr Morrison said. "If you think about that from a cold, hard engineering perspective, it is absolutely bonkers." Others at the conference were more positive about renewables and pointed to smaller, localised successes. Australia's first "net-zero" gold mine was announced at the forum late on Tuesday. Bellevue Resources managing director Darren Stralow said the mine, 40km north of Leinster in the northern Goldfields, recorded net-zero carbon emissions for the first half of 2025. "It's allowed us to work with some like-minded partners, to see if there's a benefit to that in terms of revenue, and to look to sell our gold in a bit of a different way." The mine is forecast to be 80–90 per cent powered by renewable energy, the highest penetration in Australia. For Regis Resources managing director Jim Beyer, renewables were a question of economics rather than advocacy. "For a remote mine site, renewables make good economic sense," Mr Beyer said. "At Duketon [1,000km north-east of Perth] we put in a solar farm and it saved us diesel. It is a similar story with wind and solar infrastructure at the remote Tropicana Gold Mine, about 1,000km east of Perth. "Power there runs off gas," Mr Beyer said. "But when the blades are turning and the sun's out … it's cost-sensible as well as carbon reduction." Resources Minister Madeleine King pointed to heavy renewable energy investment at the Kathleen Valley Lithium Mine and the Bellevue Gold Mine, while reiterating the government's position. "I don't mind people having an opinion; I don't share that opinion," she said, in response to the keynote panel's comments. Her West Australian counterpart, David Michael, said there would be no shift in the government's position on uranium mining, ruling out any further approvals following those granted by the Barnett Liberal Government in 2017. Deep Yellow's project at Mulga Rock, estimated to be Australia's third-largest untapped uranium resource, is the only project in WA free to proceed under current laws.
