Israeli Presidential Visit - Matter of Public Importance
Ms SUE HIGGINSON: I move:
That the following matter of public importance be discussed forthwith:
Responses to far-right extremism, white supremacy and protest.
Ms Cate Faehrmann: After hearing some of the contributions to this discussion today and the Premier's defence of what happened last night, the most disturbing factor about all the protests is that the Premier is not saying that anything the police did warrants investigation or that anything any individual police officer did is concerning. Looking at the images and the videos of last night, we know people were injured. Tonight ABC News ran the story of a 69-year-old grandmother who had four vertebrae broken because she was slammed into the concrete. The Premier said this morning at a press conference that we cannot judge anything by 10-second clips and defended the police and their actions.
In a democracy that is healthy and does not want to become an authoritarian State, we need some level of agreement that some of the things the police did and the directions they gave last night were outrageous. When someone is dragged or thrown onto the concrete and four or five police officers jump on them, and then one police officer is punching them in the kidneys while they are helpless, can we not say that that should not happen? The Premier has said, "No, we have to watch everything". The police were apparently well within their remit of turning down the heat that Isaac Herzog's visit could cause. We know what the Premier caused through his outrageous actions to curtail protests by introducing anti-protest legislation renowned around the world as being the most draconian. New South Wales now has that reputation. Last night we became Minnesota, and that is a tragedy.