Protests and power: How violence in Sydney streets put a premier under pressure

First he shared a prestigious award with his supposed nemesis, Dominic Perrottet, for civility in an election campaign. Then he extended invites to former NSW Liberal leaders to cut the ribbon on the metro, the brainchild of the Coalition.

Now Chris Minns heaps praise on Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane for her handling of the Bondi massacre at every opportunity. The NSW premier is, by all accounts, Mr Nice Guy.

Yet, with a little over a year until the next state election, rank-and-file Labor members are wondering who he wants to keep onside. The party faithful are not convinced it is them.

The handling of last Monday’s CBD protest, organised by serial activist Josh Lees against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, has exposed the simmering discontent among some in the Labor Party as well as several trade unions, who are outraged at what they see as the premier’s draconian erosion of civil liberties.

Four so-called rogue Labor backbenchers attended the anti-Herzog protest, which resulted in 10 people being charged after chaotic scenes broke out, and Minns has sought to paint the MPs as outliers who are not in the tent. But those MPs, two from the Left and two from Minns’ Right faction, are not alone.

On Friday, the South Coast Labour Council summoned their six local MPs, which include Health Minister Ryan Park and Planning Minister Paul Scully, to a “please explain” meeting. Only Anna Watson, MP for Shellharbour, turned up.

The meeting came after the Maritime Union of Australia’s southern NSW branch wrote to the council demanding an explanation from local MPs, and condemned the premier’s defence of police actions “in the strongest possible terms”.

“The totally reprehensible sign of burly NSW Police officers pepper-spraying and aggressively manhandling women and elderly people that posed no credible threat to them was particularly galling and cannot be acceptable in Australian society,” MUA branch secretary Scott Carter wrote.

“Minns is no Gough Whitlam,” says South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris, who said “bashing union veterans and grannies” at rallies would not motivate the Labor faithful to work the booths at election time.

“Wollongong can be a tough place for Labor politicians at the best of times, and workers and their unions have this strange expectation that our Labor leaders are put there to help us, not smash us.”

The premier has made his disdain for Lees and the Palestine Action Group’s protest efforts well known. Last year, Minns publicly insisted a march across the Harbour Bridge should not go ahead, before the NSW Police had even filed a court challenge.

Minns would not allow protesters to shut down the city’s “central artery”, he insisted, citing safety concerns. Multiple MPs, including senior ministers Jihad Dib and Penny Sharpe, defied their boss and marched with up to 300,000 people anyway, making internal disagreements over the handling of pro-Palestine protests clear.

In late December, Minns linked the protests to rising antisemitic hatred in the community as justification for crackdowns after the Bondi massacre. Hateful words lead to actions, he said, and vowed to outlaw the phrase “globalise the intifada”.

In the months since, some protesters, including former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, have continued to use the phrase.

Minns’ latest crackdown on the ability to protest included legislating to restrict marches after a terrorism event and declaring the visit of Herzog a major event, triggering extra police powers to move on protesters.

The morning after the chaotic scenes at Town Hall, when vision of police punching and charging at protesters were being spread like wildfire on social media, the premier did not deviate from his staunch defence of police officers.

The clips did not show the full context, Minns stressed, and officers were faced with exceptional circumstances trying to prevent the unruly protesters from clashing with mourners at Herzog’s nearby event. The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission is now investigating the actions of police.

The biggest political headache for the premier, however, has come not from these incidents, but from viral footage showing a group of Muslim worshippers, heads bowed in prayer, being aggressively moved on by officers.

Muslim community leaders called on the premier to apologise for the hurt and distress the disruption of such a sacred act had caused the community. Minns would not. Even after this masthead revealed a senior officer gave the go-ahead for worshippers to continue their evening prayers, Minns has refused to apologise.

After the Town Hall rally on February 9, Dib, a close friend of the premier, posted on social media that the scenes should not have happened, and assured the Muslim community he had met with Minns and the Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon to make their concerns known.

More than a week later, Dib joined Minns at a press conference where he launched a full-throated defence of the premier, denied any rift, and instead heaped blame on protest organisers for failing to heed police advice to hold their protest at Hyde Park.

“There’s no issue between us, and I think it’s really important that we’re so comfortable that we can have those conversations with that pure intent of saying, ‘what can we do to make things better right now and into the future?’” Dib said.

A senior Labor source, who asked to remain anonymous to speak publicly, said Minns was relying on Dib to calm tensions within his community.

“The ongoing ‘one siding’ and disrespect being shown to the Muslim community is really out of control and Minns’ use of Jihad Dib as a human shield this week has been unedifying,” the source says. “Cabinet ministers from both the Right and the Left seem to have no capacity to challenge the premier or put forward new policies and that is leading to every position being decided by what 2GB shock jocks would say about it.”

Senior Labor figures with an understanding of the operations of the Minns government are lamenting the complete control and command centre run out of the premier’s office. There, Minns makes all the decisions without challenge, enforced by his trusted lieutenant James Cullen, a long-serving Labor staffer.

In the competitive world of politics, where ministers want to retain their cabinet spot or MPs desperately hope to be promoted, it appears no one wants to rock the boat. Some MPs in the Left faction who marched across the Harbour Bridge last year have been in lock-step with the premier after the events of Town Hall.

Former transport minister Jo Haylen, who has been sidelined from cabinet after a travel entitlements scandal, wrote to a constituent insisting that she would continue to fight for the right to protest. She later told this masthead she was disappointed with the protest organisers for not complying with police suggestions to move the rally to Hyde Park.

Unhappiness with Minns’ protest agenda and workers’ compensation reforms will feature at the mid-year NSW Labor state conference, the last before next year’s election. The party leadership will want calm, with no dirty laundry aired, but the delegates are likely to have other ideas.

However, while the dissidents are growing in volume, there are still plenty in the Labor ranks who share the premier’s exasperation with the protests. Health Services Union NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said his members always did their best to avoid disruption to the public when taking to the streets to demand pay rises.

“They know that traffic jams have a real-world consequence and can prevent patients getting to hospital in time,” Hayes said. “Some of the protests we have seen recently don’t share this awareness. The premier has struck the right balance on this issue.”

Still, a growing ensemble of Left-leaning Labor branches are revolting – at least 10 have passed motions after the Town Hall rally showing support for protesters, many calling for an independent investigation and for protest laws to be repealed.

The Australian Services Union is among those expected to push the issue at the upcoming state conference.

“People being kicked and punched and attacks on people peacefully praying indicate that the laws in practice are undermining social cohesion and doing nothing to build unity across the diverse communities of Sydney,” said Angus McFarland, secretary of the Australian Services Union NSW/ACT branch.

“We need laws that strengthen and advance our democracy, not diminish it.”

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