Capital cities prepare for bridge marches as fears raised over emergency services impact

3 months ago 21

Anyone who intends to disrupt emergency services during a city protest on Sunday will be dealt with swiftly by police, is the message from Premier Jacinta Allan.

Thousands are preparing to descend on the King Street Bridge in Melbourne and Sydney Harbour Bridge in NSW to protest against Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Palestine and mounting concerns about mass starvation in Gaza.

More than 90 pro-Palestine rallies have been held in Melbourne.

“Anyone intending to disrupt emergency services or everyday Victorians going about their Sunday safely. Anyone who intends to disrupt that will be dealt with swiftly by Victoria Police,” Allan said.

On Saturday, the NSW Supreme Court gave protesters there the green light to proceed with their Sydney Harbour Bridge protest on Sunday following a push from police and government to abandon the march.

On Friday, police in Victoria warned pro-Palestine protesters planning to blockade a bridge in Melbourne’s CBD – also on Sunday – that their demonstration will disrupt crucial emergency services, and urged them to find another route.

Event organisers Free Palestine Coalition Naarm said in a statement posted to social media on Friday morning that the Melbourne protest was being held in solidarity with thousands of NSW demonstrators planning to march on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

On Saturday, the NSW Supreme Court ruled against blocking a pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, paving the way for thousands to walk on the global landmark in protest over the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, including claims of mass starvation and the destruction of the city’s hospital system.

The NSW police commissioner had earlier sought a prohibition order in the NSW Supreme Court against the Palestine Action Group’s planned march of 50,000 protesters on Sunday, arguing it was unprecedented in scale and posed a threat to public safety on one of the city’s major arteries.

Premier Chris Minns also refused to grant the group permission to march across the bridge, and said police were not given enough time to safely organise resources for the protest, prompting organisers to launch a last-ditch attempt to save the Sydney protest after NSW Police filed Supreme Court action seeking an order to block the protest.

A pro-Palestine protest at Hyde Park in Sydney in October 2024.

Justice Belinda Rigg on Saturday found any inconvenience caused by the march to commuters across the Sydney Harbour Bridge was not a reason to refuse it on legal grounds.

“The application by the commissioner should be refused,” Rigg said in her judgment on Saturday.

“It is in the very nature of the right of peaceful protest that disruption will be caused to others. If matters such as this were to be determinative, no assembly involving inconvenience to others would be permitted.”

The court’s decision means protesters will now have the legal right to occupy the bridge and streets surrounding the route of the march from the streets surrounding Wynyard Station in the Sydney CBD to North Sydney.

Premier Chris Minns does not want the protest to go ahead.

NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the public should prepare for “massive, massive disruption”.

Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees said the iconic bridge was essential to the planned march as it would send “an urgent and massive response” to the crisis in Gaza.

The Israeli government has denied claims of genocide and says the war in Gaza is an act of self-defence.

It has also denied claims that there is starvation in Gaza after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused it of breaching international law by stopping food from being delivered into the 13-kilometre-wide strip, which has 2.1 million people squeezed into an area half the size of Canberra.

The World Health Organisation said there had been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza last month, including 24 children under the age of five – up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims 82 people died last month of malnutrition-related causes, including 24 children and 58 adults, taking Gaza’s death toll from the war, which began in 2023 after Hamas militants killed more than 700 civilians in southern Israel, to more than 60,000.

Albanese has also called on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages taken as part of the attacks on October 7, as Jewish-Australian leaders raise fears the protests will fuel antisemitism.

In Melbourne on Friday, Victoria Police warned the Melbourne demonstration – which plans to shut down the busy King Street Bridge – would require hundreds of its officers to be redeployed from other policing duties across the state.

Rally organisers have vowed to let emergency services vehicles through, but police warned it was not enough to mitigate the risk.

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