The New South Wales government and police have spent almost half a million dollars in legal fees on cases they lost against pro-Palestine groups, including when unsuccessfully defending constitutional challenges against protest laws expected to be struck down.
The costs, outlined in documents obtained by Guardian Australia via freedom of information legislation, include $117,455.50 of taxpayers’ money on a single challenge to controversial public assembly restriction declaration (Pard) laws. Those laws were enacted after the Bondi beach terror attack and were in place during a now infamous rally against the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, in February.
