In NSW, unlike Queensland, Victoria and the ACT, there is no right to protest, protests must be approved by police and you can be jailed for climbing on ‘a structure.’ On this episode of The Sydneyist podcast with Elizabeth Farrelly speaks with Professor Simon Rice about our increasingly draconian protest laws in NSW. Are we becoming a police state? Is NSW courting totalitarianism?

Many of our cultural advances have arisen through protest. Mass demonstrations have changed attitudes to war, racism, land rights and feminism.

In theory, peaceful public protest is core democracy. Yet NSW, unlike Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, has no express right to protest. 

Peaceful demonstrators here can now be jailed for merely climbing on a building or structure or blocking a main road.

Emeritus Professor Simon Rice is an expert in protest law who last year successfully sued the state for his rough and wrongful arrest during a peaceful campus protest.

Join Elizabeth Farrelly in conversation with Professor Rice as they discuss WHY PROTEST MATTERS and how the law should be changed to enable it.