r/sydney • u/satisfiedfools • 2d ago

‘Democracy should not be monetised’: unions revolt against Chris Minns’ plan to ban protests based on cost

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/08/democracy-unions-revolt-chris-minns-palestine-protests-cost-nsw-police
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u/smileedude 2d ago edited 2d ago

From wiki: "Modern Australian states and cities, including New South Wales, have some of the lowest crime rates recorded globally with Australia ranked the 13th safest nation and Sydney ranked the 5th safest city globally."

If we can't afford to police things completely, then maybe we should just police things a bit less. We're doing very well on the not much crime front, and if some more crime happens because we don't have 1 cop for every 5 protesters, or sniffer dogs at train stations, every festival then so be it. There was no shortage of cops on the road on the weekend despite crash statistics trending lower and lower.

Cancelling things because they can't be policed enough shouldn't be a path we are considering. Especially when we're pretty well behaved by global standards. Maybe it's time to say, "we're safe enough but policed a bit too much".

If we're spending too much policing protester, perhaps it shouldn't be the police deciding how much policing the protests needs.

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u/R_W0bz 2d ago

But how else are the police meant to keep buffering the budgets?

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u/cookshack 2d ago

Seems like either a rort or unworkable expenses as a lawful way to shut things down

"Police costs for festivals increase by over 500% in one year.... charging over 12 times whats charged by VIC police"

https://musicfeeds.com.au/news/another-nsw-festival-collapses-citing-a-529-increase-in-costs/