NSW Supreme Court green lights pro-Palestine march on Harbour Bridge

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine protesters will march on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the first anti-war demonstration on the iconic landmark in its history, after the Supreme Court rejected a prohibition order from the NSW Police Commissioner and backed their right to protest Israel’s treatment of Gaza.

The Palestine Action Group won the historic verdict on Saturday after an urgent application for the prohibition order was heard by Justice Belinda Rigg in the NSW Supreme Court.

The decision is a blow to Premier Chris Minns, who had earlier opposed the protest and said police had not been given enough time to reorganise traffic and resources for it to proceed safely.

Justice Rigg said the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech ultimately outweighed any inconvenience caused by the protest, which will close the bridge from 11.30am on Sunday.

“The application by the commissioner should be refused,” she said in her judgment.

The decision has left NSW Police scrambling to call in hundreds of extra officers to patrol the route.

Protesters will now have the legal right to occupy the bridge and streets surrounding the planned route of the march from Lang Park, near Wynyard, to North Sydney. NSW Police had raised concerns about the potential for crowd crushes near Lang Park and were liaising with organisers over alternative starting locations.

The bridge will be closed in both directions between 11.30am and 4pm on Sunday. CBD streets including York Street and Clarence Street, the Cahill Expressway over Circular Quay and the Western Distributor, and Grosvenor Street, as well as sections of Pacific Highway, Blue Street and Lavender Street in North Sydney, will also be closed, Transport for NSW said.

Trains will still run across the bridge, and the harbour tunnel will be open to motorists. However, the Metro will be closed for planned trackwork, and bus services over the bridge will terminate at North Sydney or Wynyard.

More road closures could be expected as the situation continues, Transport for NSW said.

Organisers expect more than 50,000 people to attend the protest over the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, including claims of mass starvation and the destruction of the territory’s hospital system.

Palestine Action Group Sydney organiser Josh Lees said the symbolism of marching on the Harbour Bridge was essential to the planned march as it would send “an urgent and massive response” to the crisis in Gaza.

“This is going to be a historic day,” Lees said. “This will go down, I think, as one of those moments in history when the people of the world, and in our case, the people of Sydney and NSW, stood up to be on the right side of history. There is going to come a day in everyone’s lives when you are going to be asked the question: What did you do to stop the genocide in Gaza?”

The Israeli government has denied claims of genocide and starvation in Gaza, claiming the war is an act of self-defence.

NSW Police told the court the march was unprecedented in scale and posed a threat to public safety on one of the city’s major arteries.

“We have to scramble now, there’s no doubt about that,” Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna said after the verdict. “The Supreme Court has told us to allow this to occur, so we will.”

Justice Rigg said the inconvenience caused by the march to commuters was not a reason to refuse it on legal grounds.

“The fact that a protest could cause inconvenience is not enough to justify an order,” she said. “It is in the very nature of the right of peaceful protest that disruption will be caused to others.

“If matters such as this were to be determinative, no assembly involving inconvenience to others would be permitted.”

The march is the first time that an authorised protest against war will take over the Harbour Bridge. In 2000, more than 200,000 people marched over the bridge for Indigenous reconciliation. In 2023, 50,000 joined the WorldPride march for LGBT rights.

NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the public should prepare for “massive, massive disruption”.

“Our message is avoid the city, if you can,” she said.

Justice Rigg said she accepted Lees’ argument about the timing of the protest being critical to its purpose, citing the momentum of the humanitarian outcry over deteriorating conditions in Gaza as a key reason for its impact.

Palestine Action Group activist Rachel Evans said the group would not rule out marching on the bridge again after Sunday’s protest.

“The tide is turning,” Evans said after the court’s decision. “We need to push and push further. Once we’ve taken the Harbour Bridge, we might take it again.

“We want all ties with Israel broken.”

The decision follows a week of political upheaval for the state government after five Labor MPs defied Minns to sign a letter endorsing the march.

The letter called on the government to work with protest organisers to facilitate a safe march and detailed “in strong terms our disapproval of the ongoing starvation of the Palestinian people”.

Minns said on Friday that he recognised the outpouring of community anger over the humanitarian situation in Gaza after images of starving Palestinian children shocked the world.

“They want to be able to protest. I accept that,” he said. “The last thing we want, and the last thing police want, is chaos in Sydney streets.”

Greens MP Jenny Leong said the front door to her electorate office had been smashed on Saturday after she put up a poster for the “March for Humanity” protest.

“This is a clear attempt to intimidate us into backing down from our staunch support for the people of Palestine,” she said. “It won’t work on us.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Israel of breaching international law by stopping food from being delivered into the 13-kilometre-wide strip, housing 2.1 million people in an area half the size of Canberra.

The World Health Organisation said there had been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza last month, including 24 children under the age of five – up from 11 deaths total from January to June.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims 82 people died last month of malnutrition-related causes, including 24 children and 58 adults, taking Gaza’s death toll from the war, which began in 2023 after Hamas militants killed more than 700 civilians in southern Israel, to more than 60,000.

Albanese has also called on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages taken as part of the attacks on October 7, as Jewish-Australian leaders raise fears the protests will fuel antisemitism.

Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said Saturday’s court decision had caused “a lot of dismay in the community”.

“The court has allowed a professional protester who has cost the state millions of dollars to now paralyse our city,” he said. “We take comfort knowing that the vast majority of Australians want no part of this. We continue to pray for the starved and tortured hostages still held in Gaza, whose fate is ignored or belittled by the protesters.”

A spokesman for the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said they also acknowledged with disappointment the decision of the Supreme Court authorising the march across the Harbour Bridge.

“At a time of strained social cohesion, an iconic Australian symbol and key arterial road should not be used to bring a divisive foreign conflict onto our streets,” the spokesman said.

“It is imperative that tomorrow’s march does not provide a platform for some of the hate we have previously seen at weekly demonstrations in the CBD.”

An application for a counter-protest in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel by fringe pro-Israel group Never Again Is Now was withdrawn on Friday morning.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said he respected the freedom to protest but allowing the takeover of the Harbour Bridge set “the wrong precedent”.

“There are plenty of other places to protest,” he said.

with Kayla Olaya

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