00:00Several hundred police officers are expected to be deployed throughout the Sydney CBD over the weekend with a number of rallies expected to go ahead including one tomorrow night rallying specifically against the state's protest restrictions.
00:16Now these protest restrictions were passed through Parliament on Christmas Eve in the wake of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack in which 15 people were killed and dozens more were injured.
00:26What these laws do is restrict Form 1 submissions authorising protests which means that they won't be approved for a period of up to 90 days in the wake of a terrorist declaration.
00:39It gives the police commissioner the power to restrict protests and public assemblies for a fortnight for a period of up to 90 days in the wake of a terrorist event.
00:50So they are temporary but they are currently what's at play here in New South Wales.
00:55Now Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna fronted the media today to provide some clarity on what the laws do and don't allow with these planned protests going ahead.
01:05It's really important to point out this is only a temporary process at the moment.
01:09It's 90 days at the most following a terrorist attack.
01:13I don't think it's unreasonable for the commissioner of police to say, you know what, we've had something so violent, so horrific happen in the streets of Sydney, how about let's all just take a break, let's just calm down and let's just make sure that we've got that social cohesion piece right and then we get back to business as usual.
01:31Assistant Commissioner McKenna stressed that the New South Wales police force isn't a political organisation and their focus is public safety.
01:39He said that the police force had facilitated more than a thousand protests over the past year and 25 static protests since these restrictions came into effect.
01:49He said that anyone wanting to protest over the weekend, who followed the instructions of police, who didn't obstruct traffic or footpaths and didn't intimidate or harass, had freedom of expression and they could protest.
02:03But he said anyone attending rallies, trying to do the wrong thing or committing offences could expect to face penalties.
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