{"id":38543,"date":"2026-04-22T02:20:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T16:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=38543"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:20:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T16:20:38","slug":"premier-minns-rejects-supreme-court-finding-and-doubles-down-on-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/premier-minns-rejects-supreme-court-finding-and-doubles-down-on-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier Minns rejects Supreme Court finding and doubles down on protest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Labor Premier Chris Minns has taken the extraordinary step of rebuking the Supreme Court\u2019s finding<\/u><\/a> that social cohesion is not a legitimate reason to restrict the right to protest, and accused a peaceful community opposed to genocide of being violent offenders.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Premier Minns has also restated his commitment to more likely unconstitutional laws to prohibit certain phrases that he disagrees with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greens MP, Solicitor and spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Premier has launched an extraordinary attack on our independent judiciary today, showing complete contempt for the Constitution, and our right to political expression – all in an attempt to violently subdue our democratic rights. He is walking a dangerous line and I don\u2019t think it will end well for him,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHundreds of witnesses have provided evidence about the unprovoked assault by Police against the community on the night of 9 February. The Premier is gaslighting our state by suggesting the community is to blame for the violence they experienced,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven Members of his own Labor Party witnessed unprovoked violence committed by the Police that night. The Premier should be reminded that people speaking in public is no justification for violent assault and control,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe actions by the Premier and the Police caused serious harm and the Police relied on powers that were unlawful. For the Premier and the Police Commissioner to double down in the face of this failure and say \u2018oh well we had the Major Event Declaration as back up\u2019, likely won\u2019t cut it in the Courts,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have no doubt the Major Events Declaration will now also be challenged in the current context. The Premier and Police Commissioner need to stand down and do the right thing. They need to accept that they got it wrong and stop these bad prosecutions against the community. The Premier should not squander this opportunity to de-escalate and do the right thing,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat night, a peaceful crowd of several thousand people declared a desire to march through the city to Parliament House, as is their right. In response to the Premier\u2019s orders, the Police kettled the crowd into a tight area and then proceeded to deploy chemical weapons and force against families, elderly people, and a community that has rallied peacefully for more than two years,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChris Minns is not above the law. He needs to stop undermining our democracy. First protest, now the courts, I am worried about just how far he will go to punish people that disagree with his vision for society,\u201d Ms Higginson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labor Premier Chris Minns has taken the extraordinary step of rebuking the Supreme Court\u2019s finding that social cohesion is not a legitimate reason to restrict the right to protest, and accused a peaceful community opposed to genocide of being violent offenders. Premier Minns has also restated his commitment to more likely unconstitutional laws to prohibit certain phrases … Continue reading “Premier Minns rejects Supreme Court finding and doubles down on protest”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38544,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38543\/revisions\/38544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}