Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on banning Palestinian weekend rallies

Police in New South Wales have settled for a pro-Palestinian vigil set to take place this week, after earlier attempts with the state’s top court to ban two pro-Palestinian rallies fell through.

Next Monday marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the start of the conflict in Gaza - and police hoped to stop any rally taking place on that date.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says police have to compromise for a pro-Palestinian vigil instead, following the supreme court's ruling.

.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murray olds Lossie corresponds with us.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Now, hey Mars, very good morning. Hither muz listen.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
News just coming out of Australia right now. The rally
that was off and then on is now scrapped again.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well that's news to me because police have got a
news conference scheduled here in Sydney this morning closing business
last night. The rally was going ahead on Saturday. On Sunday,
I beg your part, and then a candle lit vigil
on the Monday evening was planned for Sydney's Town Hall

(00:31):
in the heart of a city on George Street. So
if that is new, you've actually surprised me because I'm
in here in the newsroom this morning and I've yet
to see any information from the Palestine Action Group. This
is the group that's been out there every single weekend,
every Sunday for the last fifty one weeks. And the
police went to the Supreme Court yesterday. It was at

(00:54):
two o'clock start here in Sydney. By five o'clock both
sides had reached a compromise that Yeah, through big rally
would go ahead. Police were worried, of course, about policing
this rally because tempests can get pretty pretty frayed. Flags
are being waived and people are charting and whatnot, so
police were a bit anxious. The compromise involved the march

(01:17):
not going anywhere near the Grand Synagogue here in town,
which is probably you know, hello, hello, how smart? I mean? Please? Anyway,
if that's the case, mate, that's news to me. Off
the phone, I'm going fell them.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Must I tell you what's going on here. It's actually
the same thing. It's just a different interpretation of it.
So it's going ahead. You understand. It's going ahead as
a vigil which is what the compromise is. And it's
being reported that the rally part has been scrapped, so
both of them are true. It's still going ahead. Rally scrapped,
vigils on therefore different but as you say, different route
as well. So is that the compromise is that may.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
That's my understanding. Yeah. The police said we don't want
either thing to go ahead. The Paliside Action Group said,
we'll bugger that. We can go ahead anyway with your police,
you know, whatever the Supreme Court has to say, the
rally will go ahead, and they had well, it depends
on you talked to last weekend, I reckon they had
thirty thousand people. Thirty thousand people, that's like the anti

(02:12):
Vietnam marches of fifty years ago. It's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
But the thing is that what upset them last weekend
was a whole bunch of people out there with his
baller flags. Right, so it's a terrorist organization's flags. Now,
you might have perfectly reasonable people sitting down and saying, Okay,
we're going to do this properly, we're going to have
a vigil, we're going to walk this, we stuff, But
can you really stop the kind of extreme elements turning up?
They may well just turn up.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well indeed they might, and you know, to their to
be fair to the organizers, the Palestine Action Group organizes
the leadership of this group. They said, listen, we tell
everybody you can't bring flags. Waving these flags is outlawed.
In fact, the New South Wales heather waving these flag
is the equivalent of waving a Nazi flag that's been outlawed.

(02:54):
I mean, the Nazi word was invoked this week just
gone because two years ago the New South Wales government
past law you can't wear Nazi insignia, you can't wear
Nazi uniforms. You can't do Nazi salutes and so on
in public, that's how abhorrent that is. Well, the push
this week was to class flags representing Hezbollah and Hamas

(03:16):
in the same way. Where that's got to in Parliament House.
I'm not sure where the government is at with that.
But look, it's a very very mobile, such a fluid
situation here, lots of moving parts, Fingers crossed. The weekend
goes ahead without any massive confrontations. At the same time,
of course, lots and lots of concern for people in Lebanon.

(03:39):
There are about fifteen thousand Australians we understand in Lebanon.
The government's got six hundred seats on flights seventeen hundred people.
As I say closed the business last night, there was
seventeen hundred Ozzies who were very very keen to get
the heck out of Lebanon and get home. So we'll
have to make checks on that this morning too. But
six hundred seats is what they didn't have yes this

(04:00):
time yesterday. So that's a couple of plane loads of
Australians getting out of there.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Mas you going to sit down to watch the Grand.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Final, Oh, you're kidding, of course, are you backing? Well,
look a lot of people are saying Penrith because it's
the start of a dynasty. This hasn't happened since Saint
George won eleven straight and that's going back many many
decades now. But I was the same w hang on
Pendus had three in a row. It's time for someone else.
And look, I think there's a cigarette paper between the

(04:26):
two sides. Clearly they're the best two teams all year.
The Jerome Hughes I sat down after he won them.
They had a really terrific montage of this young fellow
went for about four minutes. The Hughes season. My god,
that guy is a magician. He's fantastic. But then you
look at young Cleary behind the Penrith pack, big monstrous

(04:48):
pack that I've got, And look it's two very very
even sides I honestly got. I know he's going to win,
and if the Storm get up, I'll be reasonably happy,
even though they're from Melbourne. And if Pendrith get up,
we'll get on them because they've got a wonderful coach,
they've got a terrific halfback with a great team around them.
So I really think it's going to be a fantastic

(05:09):
game on Sunday night.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, that's the kind of game you want one. You
don't know how it's going to go. Muz enjoy it
very much and good to talk to you mate. Enjoy
your rank.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
You have two.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Very Old's Ossie correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.