The NSW Supreme Court has refused a bid from the police to prohibit a protest across the Sydney Harbour Bridge tomorrow. The pro-Palestinian march will now go ahead as an authorised event.
00:00The New South Wales Police and Transport Authority say work is already underway to safely facilitate this march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge tomorrow afternoon.
00:12They say they accept the judgement that has been handed down by the Supreme Court, ultimately rejecting police's application for a prohibition order against tomorrow afternoon's march.
00:23Now that prohibition order wouldn't have made this protest unlawful, nor would it have prohibited people from taking part in the protest.
00:32Instead it would have stripped those people who participated of certain legal protections, including from offences like blocking traffic and roads.
00:42But today's decision means that this is now an authorised public assembly,
00:47meaning more than 50,000 people are now expected to dawn on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and cross it in protest against what's taking place in Gaza at the moment.
00:58Here's what some of those pro-Palestinian organisers had to say.
01:02This is going to be a historic day.
01:05This will go down, I think, as one of those moments in history when the people of the world,
01:11and in our case the people of Sydney and New South Wales, stood up to be on the right side of history.
01:16People across this country will be marching in what we think will be the largest anti-war march in Australia's history
01:23to demonstrate that the people in this country will not stand idly by and watch on as a genocide takes place.
01:30Now the Palestine Action Group say this is a win for the freedom of expression and the right to protest.
01:36And they've reissued their invitation to the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Premier Chris Minns to attend tomorrow's event.
01:45They say it will be historic and make global news, seeing so many people cross over such an iconic Australian symbol,
01:54sending a powerful message to the world.
01:57In the meantime, police are continuing to figure out the best way that they can safely facilitate this protest taking place.
02:04Here's what police had to say a short time ago.
02:07Our concerns about public safety haven't changed.
02:09The fact of the matter is now we will call upon these organisers to really speak to their people,
02:15speak to the people that are coming into this protest to ensure they do listen to us,
02:19that they work with us so that we can do our very, very best to make sure that people are kept safe.
02:25Now New South Wales Police maintain their position that they feel that there is still a public safety concern
02:30withholding tomorrow's March in the afternoon across the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
02:34but saying they are scrambling to try and get in resources to make sure that they can facilitate that as safely as possible.
02:42In regards to an appeal, police say that their lawyers are still looking through the judgement and the reasons,
02:49but because of how close it will come and looking to make sure that this is taking place as safely as possible
02:55and that they can get the information out to the public as soon as possible,
02:59they're considering losing this battle, letting it slide and letting the protest happen tomorrow afternoon.
03:06Now in the meantime, the Palestine Action Group say they are working with police on some more propositions about what could take place tomorrow.
03:15One of those issues that was raised in court was about Lang Park being the starting point for this protest
03:21and now police raised concerns that it was too small of an area.
03:24Now we understand that the organisers are having conversations, active conversations with police
03:29about potentially starting this march on the bridge so they can safely move across
03:33and also minimising the amount of time that the bridge will need to be closed for.
03:38Now transport authorities say that the train services will continue to operate as normal,
03:43but it's likely that the entire bridge will need to be shut down because of this march
03:47and that will have flow and effects all the way into Sunday evening.
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