Revealed: How much taxpayers have been slugged to pay protester’s legal bills

The NSW government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public purse defending now struck-out laws from challenges by pro-Palestine activists – including paying more than $180,000 in legal bills to the state’s most notorious protester.

Details obtained by the Herald through freedom of information laws show the government spent more than $400,000 on legal fees and other costs associated with two cases launched by activists to overturn parts of Premier Chris Minns’ controversial crackdown on protests.

The government lost both constitutional challenges, the first launched by Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees in 2025, who successfully argued laws that restricted protests outside places of worship, regardless of whether the protest was directed at the religious group, were too broad and impermissibly burdened the implied freedom of political communication.

The government spent $98,456 defending that case, and was forced to pay Lees – once described by the premier as a “professional agitator” – legal costs to the tune of $184,584, the Herald can reveal.

The defeat forced the government to redraft the laws to focus on protection for worshippers from being harassed or prevented from accessing a place of worship.

Earlier this year, a group of pro-Palestine and Indigenous activists led by Lizzie Jarrett and Lees also succeeded in overturning protest laws introduced after the Bondi Beach shooting. The public assembly restriction declaration (PARD) law allowed police to stop protest marches in specific areas after a terrorist attack.

The government spent $117,455 unsuccessfully defending the law, which the NSW Court of Appeal deemed was invalid, noting the “broad and undiscriminating nature” of the crackdown.

“Perhaps most paradoxically of all, it would apply to a proposed public assembly in support of social cohesion,” the judgment said.

Taxpayers will also have to stump up for the activists’ costs in the case, which are yet to be settled. When the decision was handed down in April, Greens MP Sue Higginson estimated the government could be up for “tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

In the days after the Bondi attack as the parliament was recalled to pass new protest laws, Minns maintained he was “confident” laws would withstand the legal challenge, despite criticism from members of his own party.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Timothy Roberts said the outcomes of both cases were inevitable.

“This was completely predictable waste of taxpayers’ money, and frankly irresponsible,” he said.

He said the significant bill to the taxpayer and use of the courts’ time could have been avoided if the government took a “slower, more considered” approach to law reform. The NSW Police were forced to review charges made against protesters at the Town Hall protest in February after the PARD law was struck out.

The government also spent more than $27,000 defending a last-minute legal challenge by protesters against a Major Events Act declaration, which along with the PARD worked to restrict protest marches during the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The government was successful in that case.

The government has been contacted for comment.

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