The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has said it is up to the state’s police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, when to activate controversial new powers to ban protests – although he made it clear he would like them triggered quickly.
The new laws, were assented to on Wednesday after being passed in a late-night sitting of the NSW upper house and affirmed on Wednesday morning by the lower house.
Introduced in response to the Bondi beach terror attack, the laws give police powers to ban protests for up to three months after a terrorist event. The laws also include enhanced controls on gun ownership, including limits on the number of guns a person can own, a ban on rapid fire guns and prevent appeals when a licence is refused by police.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
The limit of four guns for recreational shooters and 10 for professional shooters and farmers will apply to new purchases as of Wednesday afternoon.
The premier said gun owners who already own more than the new limits will have a short time to comply. The NSW government is planning a buy-back scheme similar to one rolled out after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. The details have not yet been announced but it will be jointly funded by the federal and state governments.
Guardian Australia has asked the NSW police commissioner when he intends to activate a ban on protests in the state.
On Tuesday, three groups who regularly organise demonstrations in Sydney said they intended to launch legal action challenging the laws on free speech grounds as soon as they were passed, although none of the groups had plans for any immediate protests.
Minns says activating the ban is necessary, saying he wants “to make sure we’re in a position to keep the people of New South Wales safe”.
“I don’t resile from the fact at all that in these circumstances of heightened tensions, words can lead to actions,” Minns said. “And I think the vast majority of Australians that live in NSW support us in relation to these changes.”
He said he wanted healing and that had been the message behind his visit to a mosque in Rockdale in Sydney on Tuesday.
“[It was] an opportunity to send a really clear and unambiguous message that an attack on a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, or anyone who doesn’t have a religion at all, is an attack on all of us, and we cannot tolerate it,” he said.
“These laws are in place to keep and protect everyone and that’s got to be the message here. We’ve got to come together. As difficult as it is, as many disagreements as we have, our only real prospect of getting through this in the long run as Australians is to pull together.”
He also foreshadowed more legislation when parliament returns on 3 February to deal with hate speech and symbols including chants at protests that he considers objectionable, such as “globalise the intifada”.
An amendment to the bill, moved by the Greens, requires a firearms holder be a person who, to the knowledge of commissioner of police, has never been investigated by a commonwealth or state law enforcement or intelligence agency for terrorism-related offences or for association with members of a prescribed terrorist organisation.
The amendment also states that a gun licence should not be granted to a person who lives with a person who has been investigated for terrorism related offences.
One of the alleged Bondi gunmen, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, came to the attention of Asio in 2019 and lived at the same address in Bonnyrigg as his father, Sajid Akram, the other alleged gunman, who was killed at the scene.
Despite moving the amendment, the Greens abstained from supporting the final bill because of the anti-protest powers.
“A healthy democracy does not crack down on peaceful protest,” Greens MP Jenny Leong said.
The bill passed with the support of Labor and the Liberals, but was opposed by the Nationals and the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party.
In a statement, Liberal leader, Kellie Sloane, whose seat includes Bondi beach, said: “The NSW Liberals supported the passage of this bill because community safety must always come first, and the parliament has a responsibility to act in the wake of such a serious and confronting terrorist attack.
She reiterated her criticism of the rushed process.
The Premier also told NSW to expect enhanced security on Sydney streets during the Christmas and New Year break.
“You can expect police to have a bigger presence and also to have the weapons in place that they deem appropriate to keep the people of the state safe,” Minns said.
“That might be not what you’d commonly see with police officers in the street, but they’ll respond to the challenges that they have and they’ll respond to the assessment that they make. And we’re not going to make any apologies for that.”
#NSW #premier #police #commissioner #decide #states #protest #ban #powers #South #Wales #politics