The NSW Government’s Crimes Amendment (Places of Worship) Bill 2025 creates an offence with a potential two years imprisonment and/or a $22,000 fine for blocking, impeding or hindering access to places of worship. It grants NSW Police the extraordinary powers to arrest and move on people in or near a place of worship for any reason. 

Concerningly, these offences could be used to charge members of the faith protesting their own organisation, sexual abuse survivors demanding justice and any snap rally or assembly that happens within a vicinity of a place of worship, such as Town Hall.

The NSW Government has not consulted with legal, civil liberties and human rights organisations on the legislation. The Australian Constitution creates an implied freedom of political communication. These laws are clearly unconstitutional and will be subject to challenge.

Comments attributable to Timothy Roberts, President NSWCCL 

“This is a serious overreach of power by the NSW Government. These laws are clearly unconstitutional and will be rightly challenged at great expense to the taxpayer.

“New South Wales is becoming a police state, where the NSW Government is dangerously limiting freedom of speech and threatening any political dissent with serious jail time. Just for impeding a person entering a place of worship, regardless of the reason,  any person will face up to two years imprisonment. 

“Religious institutions exercise significant and overt political power in Australian politics and this makes them a legitimate site of protest in a democratic society.

“Protest is an essential way for ordinary people to stand up to those with far more power than them. That includes religious institutions, who overtly engage in the political system. 

“This complete overreaction from the Minn’s government to the current climate, would have banned the relatively recent protests from survivors of institutional abuse. These protests are an example of how public assembly is important in bringing people's attention to important issues.

“Criminalisation should always be a last resort. There is a real risk that laws like this will give birth to more hate and more violence.  They will have a chilling effect on protest and speech, pushing dissenting voices from all corners of the political spectrum into the margins at a time when we should be having these important conversations, including challenging racial vilification, in public.

“We are living in extraordinary times. Our democracy will not irrevocably be damaged in one foul swoop - it will be a slow bleed, a death by a thousand tranches of repressive legislation, and by thousands of arrests of people standing up in defence of their civil liberties.”

Comments attributable to Professor Luke Macnamara, Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales

“The right to protest is being steadily eroded in this country – one bill at a time. The NSW Government’s Crimes Amendment (Places of Worship) Bill 2025 is the latest example. The right to gather and protest peacefully should never be conditional on the permission of the police or the organisation at whom the protest is directed.

“This Bill seeks to place religious institutions ‘off limits’ as targets of protest. That the Government knows this blanket approach is an overreach is revealed by the fact that, under the bill, protests that form part of industrial action will be exempt from these new draconian criminal laws and police powers.  So, a protest outside St Mary’s Cathedral in support of better pay and condition for teachers in catholic schools is OK, but protestors in the same location calling for better support for victims of child sexual abuse might be moved on or arrested?

“The NSW Government must provide strong support to members of the Jewish community rightly concerned about antisemitic incidents. But this can be done without trampling on the rights of the people of NSW. Protest and democracy go hand in hand.”

Comments attributable to Anastasia Radievska, Australian Democracy Network 

"At a time when democracy is under threat, communities need to know that they can come out and protest without the threat of 2 years imprisonment for actions like chanting near a place of worship. This anti protest bill is opposed by faith groups, LGBTQI+ equality groups and communities around NSW. We need targeted approaches to racist violence, not attacks on democratic rights.”

Comments attributable to Revend Dr Josephine Inkpin, Minister with Pitt Street Uniting Church Congregation, recently retired 

“Laws preventing protest in the vicinity of places of worship would unjustly restrict our ability to bear witness to our values, which is integral to our mission and identity as believers. Further, many common Sydney protest march routes pass by places of worship, including our Pitt St church.

“Protest can cause inconvenience but that is not the same as violence. Unfortunately, the Minns Government appears to conflate the two.”