The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, is facing a revolt from union leaders after he said police should be able to ban protests if the force decided it was too expensive to patrol them.
Minns on Tuesday said police should have the ability to reject a “public assembly” application – which protest organisers are required to submit to lawfully stage a demonstration in NSW – based on the cost of patrolling the event.
“It’s my view that police should be able to be in a position to deny a request for a march due to stretched police resourcing,” Minns told 2GB radio. “Ultimately, this is taxpayer funds. It can only be distributed in a certain way.”
The premier ordered a review of police resources used at pro-Palestine protests which have taken place in Sydney’s CBD every weekend for the past year, after the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military offensive in Gaza.
Minns said he was not “talking about a union rally against the government over a wage deal” but did not clarify how police would pick and choose which repeat protests to block based on expense.
Asked by journalists on Tuesday how the government would define serial protesters, or distinguish between the union movement and other causes, Minns said that was why he had ordered the review.
He said it “needs to be remembered” that the organisers of major sporting events, concerts and festivals were required to pay police to patrol them under NSW’s user-pays policing system, whereas protest organisers did not have to.
The NSW opposition on Tuesday called on the government to change the law to impose user-pays policing on all repeat protests.
Minns said the weekly pro-Palestine rallies had cost NSW $5m in 2024. But the premier’s comments about banning events prompted criticism from union leaders who said no protest organisers should have to foot the policing bill.
The secretary of Unions NSW, Mark Morey, said “democracy should not be monetised”.
“Adding a financial hurdle to the freedom to protest undermines that very freedom,” he said.
“We might not like every protest but we should uphold the right to conduct them in a safe and coordinated fashion.”
The Australian Services Union NSW branch secretary, Angus McFarland, said police played a “valid role” in supporting people to safely participate in anti-war protests but the rallies should not be restricted.
He said the regular weekend rallies over the past year reflected “concerns across the community about the thousands of innocent lives lost since the war began”.
“These marches will no doubt end when the war ends,” McFarland said.
“Restricting the right to safely and peacefully protest could lead some people to ventilate their frustrations through other means that may create a greater risk to community safety and cohesion.”
The Public Service Association (PSA) general secretary, Stewart Little, said it would be “extraordinary” if the law was changed to introduce user-pays charges that affected the union movement.
“I don’t want to have pay police for protesting,” he said. “We certainly don’t want to have to increase our [membership] fees to pay for police.”
NSW has enacted the highest number of anti-protest laws of any state, according to a report released earlier this year by the Human Rights Law Centre.
The report highlighted a number of social and political changes that have been hard-fought for through protest. In NSW, this includes the enduring legacy of the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978 which was a protest against police violence.
In Melbourne in 1856, stonemasons downed their tools and marched to Victorian parliament after their demands for reduced working hours were not accepted by their employers. The protest led to the milestone establishment of an eight-hour working day which is commemorated with the Labour Day public holiday.
On Monday, the day before Minns’ 2GB interview, the premier posted on his Instagram account to wish people a “happy Labour Day”.
