Minns might have lost in court, but he knew failed protest laws were a winner

The decision by NSW’s top court on Thursday to strike down controversial anti-protest laws rushed through parliament after the Bondi terror attack is an embarrassing defeat for Premier Chris Minns.

But at the risk of being overly cynical, Minns is unlikely to mind too much.

In its decision, the Court of Appeal declared the laws – which allowed police to make a declaration restricting protests in a geographical area for a specific time after a suspected terrorist act – were invalid because they “impermissibly burdened” the implied freedom of political communication.

The restrictions were “broad and un-discriminating”, to such a degree that, the justices noted, they would also include demonstrations supporting social cohesion.

But if there is one thing this premier understands, it’s that people only really focus on what their political leaders — particularly at a state level — are doing during a time of crisis.

Covid-19 showed it, as did the Bondi massacre.

It creates a simple arithmetic for this government: act now, worry about the consequences later.

Or, maybe more accurately, act now and trust that the blowback from any decision like today’s will pale in comparison to the opprobrium which would accompany any perceived failure to act.

Minns’s popularity soared after Bondi, and polls showed that voters overwhelmingly backed Labor’s response to the massacre, including the protest crackdown. By convening parliament on Christmas Eve, the government made a public show not only of its solidarity with the city’s Jewish community, but its commitment to capital-a action.

Minns also created a perhaps not unwelcome contrast with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was being pilloried for his perceived failure to act on calls for a royal commission.

It’s worth noting that, to this point, no evidence exists that the Bondi killers were influenced by the local pro-Palestine movement and its frequent protests in Sydney. Maybe that will come, but clearly the premier did not feel burdened by its absence.

Minns framed the new laws as being about maintaining social cohesion, but he has also sought to tie the protest movement – which he obviously disdains – to the attack. In announcing his support for laws banning the phrase “globalise the intifada” — which, as we reported last week, the government still has not passed despite holding a quickfire inquiry over summer to justify the change — Minns said “words ultimately lead to actions”.

“In some instances, the organisers of these protests are unleashing forces that they can’t control,” he said on December 23.

There is a counterpoint to this. The events in Bondi in December, and the public displays of antisemitism in its lead-up, including a neo-Nazi rally held outside of parliament, created real fear in Sydney’s Jewish community. Bondi, in particular, has left a deep scar on our civil society. As Minns repeatedly said after the massacre, things are different now.

But we’ve been here before with this government. Last October, the Supreme Court overturned Labor’s laws giving police the power to move on protesters near any place of worship, regardless of whether the protest was aimed at the religious group.

As we reported, the government had faced internal warnings against it at the time. In a fiery caucus meeting, upper house MP Stephen Lawrence had described the bill in the meeting “as the most draconian protest law in decades”, sources said.

The government was forced to redraft the laws, but it didn’t matter too much.

By then, focus on what Minns had called, in the lead-up to passing the new laws, Sydney’s “summer of rolling hatred” had moved on and Labor had already received the credit for taking action.

Similarly, when he quickly labelled the discovery of an explosive-laden caravan in sleepy Dural “a potential mass-casualty event”, Minns received acres of credit for his tough stance, while Albanese, again the helpful foil, faced weeks of grilling about what he knew when.

When it later turned out the caravan was a con job set up by crime figures trying to either distract police or influence a prosecution, he was able to skate through the criticism without much difficulty.

Minns had been premier less than a year when the October 7 attacks occurred, and it’s fair to say that his leadership has been defined more by the disintegrating social cohesion which has occurred since then than anything else.

He may genuinely want to address that fraying social cohesion, but the evidence is mounting that this government’s eagerness to react to events is having the opposite effect.