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The New South Wales supreme court’s ruling is not merely the invalidation of a law. It draws a clear constitutional line: the state cannot suppress protest under broad justifications such as “social cohesion”.

In a decisive judgment, the court struck down protest laws introduced by the government of Chris Minns after the Bondi attack, placing a firm limit on state power. This is not a technical ruling. It is a direct rejection of a political logic that sought to redefine protest from a democratic right into a risk to be managed.

The law did not explicitly ban protests. Instead, it granted police broad powers to issue administrative declarations covering entire areas, effectively allowing authorities to restrict or prevent public gatherings. With repeated extensions, what was framed as an emergency measure became an ongoing mechanism to disable protest in the public sphere.

These powers did not remain theoretical. They became a tool for suppressing demonstrations, including the dispersal of peaceful protests, police interventions based on vague assessments and arrests widely described as arbitrary.

This use of power became particularly evident during the visit of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to Sydney, when large protests took place against the devastating war in Gaza. Authorities relied on these expanded powers to manage and restrict those demonstrations at a moment of heightened international sensitivity. At that point, the law was no longer a general framework but a direct instrument for handling a specific political movement.

The court found that the problem was not only the breadth of these powers but their effect. They did not regulate protest; they deterred it. That is where the issue became clearly constitutional, as it struck at the heart of political communication in the public sphere.

The way the law was enacted, through an expedited process, with open-ended powers and repeated extensions, reveals that this was not simply an error of judgment. What occurred was the use of a moment of fear to expand executive and police power at the expense of the political right to protest.

From a peace and conflict studies perspective, this is a clear example of securitisation: the transformation of a political issue, such as protest, into a matter of security. Once that shift occurs, exceptional measures become easier to justify yet rarely remain temporary.

The court’s decision returned protest to its proper place: a political act, not a security threat.

Although the law did not name any particular group, its application was not neutral. One of its most significant effects was to restrict space for pro-Palestine demonstrations, particularly at a politically sensitive moment tied to the war in Gaza. This makes the law’s impact fundamentally political, not merely administrative.

This places Australia’s multiculturalism under real scrutiny. Multiculturalism is not only about diversity; it is about protecting the right of that diversity to express itself politically in public, even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient for those in power. When that right is constrained, multiculturalism risks becoming an empty slogan.

The legal challenge came from civil society, activists and protest groups, including those leading solidarity efforts for Palestine. They argued that the law created a “chilling effect” that discouraged people from protesting, and that its low thresholds allowed it to be used beyond any genuine necessity. The court, in substance, agreed. The defence of democratic freedoms came from the street, not from the state.

Had this ruling not been delivered, the trajectory was clear: the normalisation of exceptional powers, a gradual expansion of police authority and a real erosion of the public sphere without any formal ban.

From a conflict studies perspective, closing public space does not produce “cohesion”. It produces accumulated tension. Protest is not a flaw in democracy; it is one of the means through which democratic societies manage conflict peacefully.

This ruling is not about a single law. It defines the limits of what the state can do when it finds public dissent uncomfortable.

It reaffirms a basic principle: the public sphere is not a space subject to the comfort of power but an open arena for expression and accountability. It also shows that the values Australia claims to uphold – freedom of expression, the rule of law and multiculturalism – are not tested in times of calm but in moments of sharp disagreement.

After this decision, supporting Palestine is no longer just a political stance. It has become a defence of democracy itself. When the right to protest for Palestine is protected, so too is the right to dissent, to challenge authority and to take part politically. That gives this ruling significance beyond its immediate context.

This is more than a legal correction. It is a restoration of the public sphere.

Fear cannot be turned into permanent law. “Social cohesion” cannot be used to silence dissent. Politics cannot be reduced to what power finds acceptable.

Democracy is not measured by how quiet it is but by its ability to tolerate the street, even when it is loud, uncomfortable and disruptive – and perhaps, for that very reason, essential.

• Shamikh Badra is an independent Palestinian-Australian researcher and writer. He holds a master’s degree in peace and conflict studies and is a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong