The Labor government in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has declared that it will ban a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this Sunday, opposing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Labor Premier Chris Minns has couched the edict in terms of the disruption to the public and threats to safety that the rally could cause. That is cynical and threadbare. In reality, the ban is the latest action of a government that has throughout its tenure attacked the right to protest in general, and public demonstrations of support for the Palestinians in particular.

The Sydney Palestine Action Group (PAG), which has organised demonstrations throughout the genocide, stated that it was calling this larger-scale protest, at one of Australia’s most recognisable landmarks, because of the urgency of the situation confronting the Palestinians.

All reputable human rights’ organisations, as well as the UN, have declared that Israel is starving Gaza through its blockade of food to the Strip. Dozens of people, many of them children, have perished as a result of malnutrition over recent weeks. More than a thousand Palestinians have been shot dead while seeking aid, primarily at the distribution points of the US and Israeli funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

That goes hand in hand with Israeli plans to confine all of Gaza’s more than two million residents to a concentration camp in the south of the Strip, as a prelude to their forced expulsion. In other words, the protracted campaign of ethnic-cleansing is approaching a horrific climax, in some of the worst atrocities since the Holocaust.

Minns’ immediate declaration that he will forbid a protest opposing these war crimes is a declaration of support for the Israeli mass murder, not only on the part of his NSW government, but the Labor Party as a whole.

The federal Labor government and its Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have, over recent days, shed crocodile tears over the catastrophic scenes in Gaza. But federal Labor has signalled that it will continue its complete support for the Zionist regime. Minns’ attempt to ban Sunday’s protest is fully in line with that stance.

Responding to the announcement of the protest, Minns declared: “We cannot allow Sydney to descend into chaos.” The event could result in “significant inconvenience” and “real public safety concerns.”

PAG has noted that the bridge has been closed for other events in the past. In 2023, it was closed for seven hours, as tens of thousands marched across in celebration of the LGBTIQ World Pride Day. The same year, the bridge was shut down to the public to facilitate the filming of a scene for an American action movie.

The PAG organisers responded to Minns by offering to delay the march by a week, if the official concern was the time required to facilitate a complex protest. Minns and the NSW Police have flatly rejected that offer, declaring that they will not agree to a march across the bridge “under any circumstances.”

Given that PAG submitted a notice of assembly with the requisite seven days’ notice, the police will have to initiate court action to prohibit the rally.

The police have a battery of draconian anti-protest laws that can be invoked. In 2022, Labor, then in opposition, joined hands with the NSW Liberal government to pass legislation that can forbid rallies on the vague grounds that they could cause “disruptions” to any “major facilities” or economic activity.

Labor has previously invoked the laws, which carry a maximum penalty of a $22,000 fine, or two years’ imprisonment, against peaceful protesters who rallied at Sydney’s Port Botany, against ongoing trade, including in weapons, with Israel.

In February, Labor passed further anti-protest laws, allowing for police to bar demonstrations if they are in the vicinity of a place of worship. Given the number of churches and other religious institutions, that can be the basis for outlawing any public assembly.

Those laws, together with “hate speech” legislation, were passed on the basis of a supposed wave of antisemitic attacks in Sydney, late last year and early 2025. Shortly after the laws were rammed through, police confirmed that the wave of attacks, involving graffiti and occasional arson, had been a hoax likely committed by criminals seeking to barter with the authorities.

The vague and broad hate speech laws are aimed at criminalising strident denunciations of Zionism, while the protest legislation is directed against pro-Palestinian rallies. In addition to eroding the civil liberties of the entire population, this transparent political discrimination is bound up with Labor’s support for the Zionist regime.

In October 2023, the Minns government lit up the sails of the Sydney Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag. That action, supposedly in solidarity with those who died in the October 7 Palestinian military operation, was carried out as Israel was already raining down bombs on Gaza. It was a deliberate provocation.

A small group of youths gatecrashed a large pro-Palestinian protest and briefly chanted antisemitic slogans outside the Opera House. Minns and Zionist groups falsely claimed that those slogans included “gas the Jews,” in a lie that was spread across the world to demonise opponents of the genocide globally.

In May last year, Minns was the keynote speaker at a Zionist function celebrating the 76th anniversary of the establishment of Israel through the mass murder and displacement of Palestinians. By the time Minns spoke, Israel had murdered tens of thousands in Gaza, and the International Court of Justice had ruled that it had a plausible case to answer for genocide.

Under those conditions, Minns described Israel as “a beautiful country, full of beautiful people.” Speaking of his support for the Zionist regime, he recalled that as a young careerist politician he had gone on a Zionist junket to Israel, alongside former Labor leader Bill Shorten and conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

While vaguely referencing “peace,” Minns spoke not a word of criticism of the mass slaughter of Palestinians, instead slandering opponents of the genocide as antisemites.

On that basis, Minns has repeatedly sought to shut down antigenocide protests. In October 2023, he approved police powers to search anyone in the vicinity of one of the first rallies against the assault on Gaza. In October last year, his government unsuccessfully sought to ban a protest on the grounds that holding an event in proximity to the anniversary of October 7 would be upsetting to Zionists.

Last month, NSW Police carried out a brutal assault on a small pro-Palestinian protest in the Sydney suburb of Belmore. The demonstrators were gathered outside the SEC Plating factory, which they allege is complicit in the genocide through its involvement in the global supply chain of F-35 fighter jets.

Police, without any grounds, demanded the dispersal of the protesters. A cop punched Hannah Thomas, a legal observer and former Greens candidate in the face. Minns responded to the news that Thomas may be permanently blinded from the assault by insisting that protests could not hinder commercial activities.

That statement and the declaration that a rally on the Harbour Bridge would be an “inconvenience” is a rationale for a dictatorial police-state, where any expression of popular opposition is deemed beyond the pale.

The federal Labor government has supported every attack on protests by the Minns government. That further gives the lie to the cynical crocodile tears of Prime Minister Albanese, over the mass starvation.

So too did the admission in the federal parliament this week by Labor’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong that her government continues defence exports to Israel, including for the F-35 jets that have played the central role in the mass bombardment of Gaza. Wong ludicrously claimed that the parts supplied by Australia were “non-lethal,” ignoring the fact that these are essential components of a fighter jet whose sole purpose is as a weapon of death.

While Labor claims that a pro-Palestinian protest would be an unacceptable “disruption,” it is currently hosting the Talisman Sabre war games. Involving 19 countries, and some of the most advanced weaponry in the world, it is nothing less than a dress-rehearsal of a US-led war with China.

The war games involve far more substantial “disruption” than a protest. US and allied troops have staged mock invasions of country towns and regional cities. Last week, parts of the Sydney Harbour were closed and a passenger ferry was commandeered for Talisman Sabre. It was stormed by British Royal Navy personnel, hunting for imaginary “terrorists.”