Police fear ‘crowd crush’ at Sydney Harbour Bridge protest as up to 50,0000 people expected, court hears
Jordyn Beazley
The supreme court hearing between the Palestine Action Group and the New South Wales police began a short time ago to hear arguments over whether the pro-Palestine protest that would involve marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge should be authorised.
The court heard that up to 50,000 people could attend the march on Sunday, which plans to begin in Lang Park and march across the bridge to the US consulate.
Photograph: AAP
Acting assistant police commissioner, Adam Johnson, who is on the stand, told the court he was worried about public safety and the potential for “crowd crush”.
The protest organiser’s barrister, Felicity Graham, asked Johnson what police will do if 50,000 people gather at Lang Park on Sunday.
Johnson replied:
It will be a real challenge whether it’s prohibited or not prohibited.
If the protest is prohibited, organisers could still proceed with the protest. However, participants would not have immunity from being charged under the summary offences act.
Updated at 02.41 EDT
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What we learned Friday 1 August
And with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big headlines:
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Garma festival begins! It has been 25 years since the annual Garma festival’s humble beginnings, and the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which organises the event in north-east Arnhem Land, is paying homage to those who started it.
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Independent NSW MP Alex Greenwich said he supports the pro-Palestine protest planned for Sydney Harbour Bridge, saying it “would send a powerful global message”.
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A controversial plan to reinstate spit hoods in the Northern Territory’s youth detention centres passed parliament last night, as well as a slate of other changes to the territory’s Youth Justice Act.
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Australian goods imported into the US will continue to attract the country’s baseline 10% tariff, with Australia dodging any tariff increase in the latest round of Donald Trump’s global trade war.
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Father Chris Riley, the founder of Youth Off the Streets, died at his home on Thursday, the group said. He was 70.
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A protest against antisemitism, also planned for Sunday, will be stationed outside the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. Christian-led group called Never Again is Now said they had lodged an application with the NSW police to hold a rally, which was designed to draw attention to hostages still unaccounted for.
Thank you for spending part of your day with us. We will be back on Monday to do it all again.
Updated at 03.45 EDT
Large chunk of sandstone cliff collapses at Bronte beach
A massive rock has fallen on to the sand at Sydney’s popular Bronte beach, NSW lifeguards have confirmed.
“A portion of the cliff at the North side of Bronte has fallen on to the beach. Lifeguards and officials are strongly advising the public to stay clear of the area,” NSW lifeguards said in a post on social media.
“We will update you when we know more but for now please stay well clear.”
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Updated at 03.21 EDT
That’s all from me, Cait Kelly will be picking up the blog from here.
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Police asked in court how they would respond if 50,000 protesters gathered at Sydney’s Lang Park
The supreme court has heard that “the reality” police face is that tens of thousands of people could still attend the planned march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge regardless of whether the court authorises it or not.
The barrister for the Palestine Action Group, Felicity Graham, told the court this means it needs to understand what the police’s response will be.
Graham asked acting assistant police commissioner, Adam Johnson, what police’s plan was if 50,000 people descended upon Lang Park, where the march is planned to start.
He said:
50,000 people at Lang Park whether it’s authorised or unauthorised has significant public safety risks.
Later, he said in response to a similar question: “Our plan is, if it’s not an authorised assembly, to encourage people not to come there because it will be dangerous.”
Asked what police would do in the event people still attended, Johnson said:
We would do our best in the circumstances to maintain public safety to the general public and to the people attending that location as well, and it would be difficult in either case.
If the court does not authorise the protest and issues a prohibition order, the protest may go ahead. However, participants would not have immunity from being charged under the Summary Offences Act.
Graham asked Johnson if police require this prohibition order so that police can arrest people for obstructing a road if necessary.
He responded: “Well, not necessarily. Arrest is our last option. Generally, people are generally compliant when we communicate with them in the first case, for their own safety as well.”
Updated at 02.54 EDT
Pro-Israel protest planned for Sunday outside Sydney Harbour Tunnel
A protest against antisemitism, also planned for Sunday, will be stationed outside the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.
A Christian-led group called Never Again is Now said they had lodged an application with the NSW police to hold a rally, which was designed to draw attention to hostages still unaccounted for after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
Organiser Mark Leach said:
Instead of demonising Israel, the world needs to demand Hamas return the hostages, many of whom have been subject to torture – and real starvation, as we saw from those who have returned home.
That is the only way to end the war.
We recognise blocking both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Harbour Tunnel may inconvenience people and impact emergency services, but after two years of almost weekly anti-Israel protests without interruption, as the Marxists organising the Bridge protest noted all of a sudden, it’s about “the right to protest”.
Updated at 02.38 EDT
Henry Belot
Australia’s largest superannuation fund has divested more than $26m of shares in poker machine giant Aristocrat from its “socially aware” option, after sustained criticism of its support for the gambling industry.
The decision was made after a review of investments to ensure the fund was meeting the expectations of its ethically minded members.
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Krishani Dhanji
Independent parliamentary review finds many electorate offices seeing increase in violent behaviour
An independent review has found parliamentarians and their staff are facing an increase in violent or threatening behaviour by constituents.
A review of parliamentary resourcing by the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (PWSS) found 85% of parliamentarians and staff who engaged in the review have dealt with constituents who were violent, threatening or acting volatile. Almost half said they’d experienced that violent or volatile behaviour more than once a month.
The PWSS consulted 217 parliamentarians and staff across 68 offices, received 499 full survey responses, and 124 partial survey responses for the review.
Of the individuals consulted by the review, the report states almost three-quarters (72%) are seeing a “steady increase” in the number of security incidents including from “protest activity and violent and threatening behaviour from constituents”.
It also found ICT was a key issue for electorate offices, and hampered staff being able to complete their work. The report states:
Many staff were unable to run issued software such as communications and media products, or load photos or videos, because their computer would crash when attempting to complete these tasks.
The report also states staffing levels overall are “not adequate to meet all the parliamentary and electorate work demands placed on staff in some offices”.
Updated at 02.20 EDT
NSW SES urges state’s regions to prepare for weekend washout
The New South Wales State Emergency Service is encouraging residents in the Hunter, Mid North Coast, Coffs Coast and New England regions to prepare for a weekend washout.
Heavy rainfall, damaging winds and large surf are expected across much of the north coast and adjacent ranges this weekend.
With conditions to worsen from Friday night into Saturday, residents are encouraged to stay informed and act early.
NSW SES Assistant Commissioner Nicole Hogan urged people to prepare:
Check your gutters, trim branches, and secure outdoor furniture or trampolines before winds pick up. These simple steps can prevent serious damage.
Due to the forecast rainfall, some roads could become flooded and impassable, so above all, never drive through flood waters. If the road is flooded, stop, turn around and find another way.
Updated at 01.49 EDT
Extra police called in for pro-Palestine protest in Melbourne
In Melbourne, extra police are being called in to quash concerns about pro-Palestine protesters causing havoc in the city.
Pro-Palestine protesters are expected to march through Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday, aiming to block the King Street Bridge.
Victoria police Supt Troy Papworth said officers had tried to engage with organisers in an effort to alter the planned action, but those attempts were unsuccessful.
Purposely blocking a major thoroughfare through the city is a risk that we just can’t take and we won’t stand for it.
We’ve tried to engage with this group and strongly encourage them to change their plans and not occupy the bridge.
If people engage in criminal behaviour, they can expect to be arrested and dealt with.
– with AAP
Updated at 01.50 EDT
Police fear ‘crowd crush’ at Sydney Harbour Bridge protest as up to 50,0000 people expected, court hearsJordyn Beazley
The supreme court hearing between the Palestine Action Group and the New South Wales police began a short time ago to hear arguments over whether the pro-Palestine protest that would involve marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge should be authorised.
The court heard that up to 50,000 people could attend the march on Sunday, which plans to begin in Lang Park and march across the bridge to the US consulate.
Photograph: AAP
Acting assistant police commissioner, Adam Johnson, who is on the stand, told the court he was worried about public safety and the potential for “crowd crush”.
The protest organiser’s barrister, Felicity Graham, asked Johnson what police will do if 50,000 people gather at Lang Park on Sunday.
Johnson replied:
It will be a real challenge whether it’s prohibited or not prohibited.
If the protest is prohibited, organisers could still proceed with the protest. However, participants would not have immunity from being charged under the summary offences act.
Updated at 02.41 EDT
Petra Stock
Good afternoon, Petra Stock here, taking the blog for the afternoon.
Updated at 01.07 EDT
Nick Visser
That’s all for me, thanks for sticking with us so far. Petra Stock will guide you through the news from here.
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Offer to delay march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge by three weeks remains
An organiser of a pro-Palestine protest that would involve marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge has said the offer is still open to delay the rally by three weeks if the police are willing to work with them.
Earlier today, spokesperson for the Palestine Action Group, Josh Lees, spoke outside the supreme court ahead of a hearing that will decide if the protest will be “prohibited” or “authorised”.
Josh Lees, an organiser of the pro-Palestine Harbour Bridge protest. Photograph: Dean Lewins/EPA
If the protest is prohibited, organisers could still proceed with the protest. However, participants would not have immunity from being charged under the summary offences act. Lees said:
We put forward a whole proposal for 24 August, we would have our march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge that would march identical routes to the World Pride March in 2023.
Lee said that if the court sided with police, there was a “real possibility” there would still be thousands of people who turned up on Sunday determined to march across the bridge regardless.
It’s important to be clear here, if we lose the authorisation of this protest that does not deem a protest unlawful … It’s not prohibited in any genuine sense. People have the right to protest, to gather and assemble, and it’s not an unlawful act.
Updated at 00.58 EDT
Ben Doherty
‘Entirely preventable’ malnutrition crisis has caused 74 deaths in Gaza this year, WHO says
The World Health Organization has recorded 74 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza in 2025, 63 of which occurred in July. Those deaths include 24 children under five. The WHO said in a statement:
Most of these people were declared dead on arrival at health facilities or died shortly after, their bodies showing clear signs of severe wasting. The crisis remains entirely preventable. Deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.
Save the Children Australia CEO Mat Tinkler said it was “simply a fact that virtually everyone in Gaza is starving and the government of Israel is responsible”. Tinker said “only serious intervention from the international community … will prevent further descent into mass starvation”.
The government of Israel has denied there is widespread famine in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: “There is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza.”
Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Australia, Amir Meron, said pictures of emaciated children in Gaza were “false” and claimed the children pictured had congenital conditions. Meron said:
We don’t recognise any famine or any starvation in the Gaza Strip. Israel has never acted in a policy of starvation. There is no such policy. There is no starvation in the Gaza Strip and there is no willingness of Israel that such a thing will happen in the Gaza Strip.
Updated at 00.54 EDT
Ben Doherty
Aid worker says conditions in Gaza ‘hell on Earth’
An Australian aid worker has described conditions in Gaza as “hell on Earth”, saying starving children have said they would rather die than continue to endure the famine being imposed on the occupied territory by the Israeli government.
Georgia Tracey, an Australian recently returned from Gaza, said children are telling aid workers they want to die, saying:
What kind of wicked world are we living in where we allow children to be so relentlessly attacked, starved and deeply traumatised that they would prefer not to live any more?
When a child tells us that they would rather die than continue to live in this hell on earth that the Israeli government has forced on them, how can we say anything but how sorry we are that humanity has failed them?
Save the Children runs child-friendly spaces inside Gaza. One of the activities inside its child-friendly spaces in Gaza is a “wishing cloud”. Previously, children have wished to attend school, for peace, or to see friends again. In recent weeks, however, Save the Children staff have reported children wished to die.
One child wrote: “I wish I was in heaven where my mother is, in heaven there is love and food and water.”
The sun sets over damaged buildings in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/APShare
Updated at 02.53 EDT
Rhino horns made radioactive to foil traffickers in South African project
A South African university has launched an anti-poaching campaign to inject the horns of rhinos with radioactive isotopes that it says are harmless for the animals but can be detected by customs agents, the Associated Press reports.
Under the collaborative project involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear energy officials and conservationists, five rhinos were injected in what the university hopes will be the start of a mass injection of the declining rhino population, which they are calling the Rhisotope Project.
Members of the Rhisotope Project install tiny radioactive pellets into the horn of a rhinoceros at a rhino orphanage in Mokopane, South Africa. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Last year, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary were injected with isotopes in trials that paved the way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low levels can be recognised by radiation detectors at airports and borders, leading to the arrest of poachers and traffickers.
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This man surfed more than 4,000 waves in 25 days
Blakey Johnston has broken a world record by surfing 4,097 waves in 253 sessions, over 25 days, at Urbnsurf Sydney, a wave pool for surfing. Each day was considered to be as physically challenging as running a marathon.
Johnston is no stranger to endurance challenges. A professional surfer since he was 16, he previously broke the world record of longest surfing session by surfing for over 40 hours, catching 707 waves. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The GuardianWhen spending so long in cold water – in this photo, the water was around 11C – booties and gloves are essential. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The GuardianJohnston’s philosophy has always been to stretch himself. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
Read more here: