Police allowed Nazi Rally based on application
The NSW Police Commissioner has defended a decision to not oppose a Nazi rally at the NSW Parliament over the weekend, citing the content of paperwork and laws relating to protest applications as the reasons the Police did not oppose the Nazi event.
Greens MP and spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said “This problem isn’t going to go away for the NSW Police, they didn’t oppose a Nazi rally and now they need to explain why,”
“The Commissioner has pointed to the ‘current legislation’ as a factor preventing the Police from opposing Nazis from rallying on the street outside of the Parliament, but that’s complete nonsense - the legislation does not specify the conditions for Police to oppose a protest, only that they must do so within 7 days,”
“Someone in the NSW Police reviewed this application by Nazis to hold anti-semitic signs and speeches in the middle of Sydney, and clearly had no problem with it. Now, the community is rightly outraged, the Premier is threatening new anti-protest laws, and the Commissioner is blaming paperwork,”
“The NSW Police should clear the air here. What was actually written in the application from these Nazis, and which senior officer determined that the Police wouldn’t oppose an explicitly anti-semitic event?”
“I appreciate that the Premier and the Commissioner want to take the convenient road and blame everyone else, but if this is a legitimate oversight or mistake, then release the paperwork that the Commissioner thinks justified this rally being authorised,”
“If an intentional decision was made by a senior NSW Police Officer to allow a Nazi rally to go ahead unchallenged, then we need to know who this person is and they should be held to account for the harm they’ve caused,” Ms Higginson said.