Five Labor MPs defy NSW premier and vow to attend pro-Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge
Labor's Stephen Lawrence, Anthony D'Adam, Linda Voltz, Cameron Murphy and Sarah Kaine were among 15 NSW politicians who signed an open letter on Thursday evening calling on the government to facilitate 'a safe and orderly event' on Sunday.
Police were due to oppose the protest in the NSW supreme court on Friday afternoon. If successful, that move would strip protesters of certain legal protections and leave them vulnerable to arrest if they decided to proceed with a so-called 'unauthorised' march.
Lawrence said the state's 'slow and steady demonisation of protest' risked repeating the events which led to Sydney's first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras march in 1978 being met with police violence.
In a statement posted on Facebook on Friday morning, Lawrence criticised 'the passage of laws that allow police to be used to end protests the government doesn't like'.
'We have seen in these respects one long, unprincipled capitulation to reactionary politics and it is dangerous,' the Labor MLC said.
'I am a member of the Labor party, not the Liberal party. Our party is founded on protest and collective action. Attending is my way of sending a message that, in my view, we need to change course.'
Lawrence said while the circumstances of the protest were 'not ideal', the event had become 'absolutely inevitable' which he said was 'largely because of the way it has been mishandled'.
He said he wanted to attend Sunday's march to express his 'utter revulsion' at Israel's actions – which he said other countries, including Australia, had provided cover for.
The other NSW parliamentarians who signed the letter calling on the government to allow the march over the harbour bridge were independents Alex Greenwich and Jacqui Scruby and the Greens' Jenny Leong, Tamara Smith, Kobi Shetty, Sue Higginson, Cate Faehrmann, Abigail Boyd and Amanda Cohn. Libertarian John Ruddick was also on the list.
Greenwich, the state MP for Sydney, said he shared the 'widespread community horror' over what was happening in Gaza and said marching across the bridge would send a powerful message of solidarity.
'Having successfully lobbied the previous Coalition government to allow a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of LGBTQ equality during Sydney WorldPride, I know it can be done,' he said in a statement.
On Tuesday afternoon, the deputy police commissioner Peter McKenna announced the force had rejected an application from the protest organisers proposing a route across the Harbour Bridge to the US consulate, citing safety risks as the reason.
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He said at the time, police were open to negotiating alternative routes.
However, the protest organisers, the Sydney-based Palestine Action Group, said in a statement that the protest 'must go ahead' and vowed to fight in court for their right to stage a protected protest.
The premier on Friday morning said he expected 'everybody in NSW to respect the outcome of the court's decision'.
'I acknowledge there's a lot of people in Sydney, in NSW, that want to be part of a protest,' Minns told reporters. 'They're very concerned about what's happening in Gaza to Palestinians and they want to be heard.'
Minns said people who were planning to participate in the protest would still have 'every opportunity to be heard' even with an alternative route. Earlier in the week, he suggested a march over the bridge would cause the city to 'descend into chaos'.
Sydney's weekly pro-Palestine rallies have typically involved marches through the CBD.
A march across the Harbour Bridge could still go ahead on Sunday if even the court sides with police but protesters could face being arrested under anti-protest laws if they obstructed traffic, for example.
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