As of Wednesday, 21 January 2026, senior New South Wales police officers had issued public safety orders (PSO) to at least 12 neo-Nazis in the Greater Sydney area, ordering them to keep a wide berth from the city’s CBD and its surrounds on 26 January 2026, as their presence at a planned antiimmigration rally on the Monday had been assessed as a potential risk to community safety.
The ABC reported that it had seen one of the subjects PSO paperwork, and what it imposed was a 24 hour restriction on the ‘little führer’ from entering within an 8 kilometre radius of Sydney Town Hall.
Two major rallies took place on Gadigal land on 26 January: the Invasion Day rally in Hyde Park and the antiimmigration March for Australia protest in Prince Alfred Park, near Central Station.
In issuing the PSOs, NSW police assistant commissioner Brett McFadden outlined that the subjects of the orders had previously behaved in a manner that had posed a risk and therefore, they were assessed as continuing to pose “a serious threat to public safety” and the imposition of the order was “reasonably necessary in the circumstances”.
The neo-Nazis who’ve had these restrictions placed on them, under the 2016-enacted PSO regime, had been members of the Nationalist Socialist Network (NSN), a continentwide white supremacist group, that disbanded just weeks prior, as its members risked being imprisoned, following the passing of federal laws that allow for the listing of prohibited hate groups on 20 January.
According to McFadden, the PSOs were progressed on the basis that it was assessed if these individuals did enter the restriction zone, they would be doing so in order to demonstrate, advocate and spread dissent. NSN members played a prominent role in the first 31 August 2025 March for Australia, which was an event that saw antiimmigration sentiment spill over into outright racism.
The PSO regime
The NSW Baird government passed the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Public Safety) Bill 2016 on 4 May 2026. Amongst other reforms, this legislation inserted the PSO regime into the Police (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW), or the LEPRA.
These laws were enacted alongside the serious crime prevention order (SCPO) regime, the investigative detention regime and creeping antiprotest laws.
Then NSW police minister Troy Grant explained, during his second reading speech on the bill, that modelled on South Australian laws, the PSO regime enables “a senior police officer to make a public safety order to prohibit a person from being present at a public event or at premises or another area if the person’s presence poses a serious risk to public safety or security”.
Section 87R of the LEPRA stipulates that when a senior police officer exercises this power they must consider whether potential subjects had posed a risk to the public before, whether the person belongs to a declared organisation, and further, if they’ve been subjected to a control order because of belonging to such an organisation or whether they have associations with an organisation like this.
Further, in banning individuals from certain events due to risk, officers must consider whether “maintaining freedom to participate” is more warranted, along with the actual locations they will be banned from, whether the prohibition is justified against the subject’s needs, the extent to which the order will mitigate risk to the public and whether a PSO is reasonable considering other options.
But senior police cannot ban a person from an event or premises if it is assessed that nonviolent protest is involved, or that the event is solely industrial action or if a premises is the individual’s principal place of residence.
Section 87S of the LEPRA contains the offence of contravening a PSO, which carries up to 5 years prison time. In terms of timeframe, a PSO covering premises or events can only be in place for a maximum of 72 hours. And PSOs covering events must confirm their location, dates and the periods in which the subject is restricted from attending.
Senior police must ensure a PSO subject is personally served an order, under section 87T of the LEPRA. And if the subject is under 18 or if they have disabilities, a guardian must also be served.
Creeping authoritarianism
As the PSO and serious crime prevention laws were before NSW parliament, then NSW MLC David Shoebridge insisted that these laws were “an affront to our democracy and an affront to our traditions as a liberal democracy”, adding that parliament had “traditionally respected the freedoms that will be trashed by these bills”.
UNSW’s Dr Vicki Sentas and Dr Michael Grewcock outlined in a 2018 paper, that the PSO and SCPO regimes were rolled out based on the suggested success of the 2012 consorting laws, which aim to keep organised criminals apart. But a 2016 Ombudsman review killed that argument, as it found the law had been disproportionately applied to Aboriginal individuals not belonging to organised crime.
The PSO framework was enacted on 31 March 2017, and by the 30 May 2017, 56 had already been issued.
The rollout of the PSO regime, along with three other bills contains laws placing restrictions on the movement of assessed civilians, were taken together as a broad shift towards authoritarian lawmaking in the state of NSW, which has paled into insignificance of late, when compared with the rights eroding antiprotest measures enacted since 2022, along with last year’s new hate crime laws.
The SCPO regime permits the NSW police commissioner, the NSW Director of Public Prosecution and the NSW Crime Commission to apply to a court to impose a SCPO against an individual suspected of a crime. The court can impose whatever prohibitions or restrictions as part of the order, such as bans on places and curfews. These can last for 5 years, and contravention carries up to 5 years in prison.
The investigative detention regime rolled out in 2016, provides police with the ability to take a suspect as young as 14 into custody to prevent terrorism, without the need of a crime having been committed. Police can apply for an order over the phone, which lasts for 4 days, and can be extended to 14 days. The suspect can engage lawyers while monitored and can be questioned 16 hours a day.
Then NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks warned at the time that whilst the laws involve legislated time limits, they could be reapplied to individuals repeatedly. He questioned the ability of police to haul in teenagers without any guardian supervision. And the lawyer described the antiprotest measures as prioritising private commercial interests over those of the public.
Pulling down the shutters
The appearance of this 2016 suite of authoritarian laws, including the public safety order regime, was vocally decried by civil liberties and legal groups. However, in now reflecting back to 2016, these laws presaged what was to come, with heightened clampdowns on protest in 2022, coupled with recently passed federal and state hate crimes that now appear to be threatening free speech.
The Perrottet government passed laws stamping out unauthorised protests that obstruct major roads, bridges and tunnels in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, as well as major facilities, by threat of two years in prison and/or a $22,000 fine. The NSW premier then passed protest laws to ban demonstrations near places of worship last February, with an accompany move on power as well.
An emergency sitting of parliament, following the Bondi Beach massacre, saw new laws passed providing for blanket bans on protests in specific areas, when the police commissioner considers street marches could dispel fear in the community, after an incident has been declared terror-related. The ban lasts for 90 days, with fear levels reviewed fortnightly to consider ending it.
NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon imposed a blanket ban covering a large part of Greater Sydney for a fortnight on 24 December 2025, which now continues on for the past week but only in the CBD and the Eastern Suburbs. These laws do not result in a prohibition on stationary rallies, but police can move on such protests in the ban region if it’s considered they might be causing fear.
This long pause to protest rights, which once before occurred under COVID but in a different manner, is coming on the back of persistent attacks on rights to protest. The 2022 laws were rolled out to stymie rising climate actions, however the current wave since early 2025 has been about blocking inconvenient truths relating to Israel’s mass murder and starvation program in the Gaza Strip.
The most recent attacks on political communication and the right to protest also come with a NSW incitement to hatred offence and a federal listing of prohibited hate group regime, and both provide such broad reach that whilst the federal laws caused the National Socialist Network to disband prior to passing, no one is really too sure how far these measures might be wielded to silence opposition.
