FAQs

Form 1s are a “Notice of Intention to Hold a Public Assembly” that you can submit to police to inform them you are planning a protest. You don’t need to submit a Form 1 to hold a protest, but if you do, the only way police can reject it is to appeal to the Supreme Court to make that ruling.

The best way to understand Form 1s is when you think about an approved street march. Usually, if you walk down the street obstructing traffic, you will be committing an offence of obstruction. However, if you are obstructing traffic as part of an approved protest, police cannot give ‘move on’ directions to people participating in that rally or street march and then try to arrest you if you do not. 

Another example is last year's blockade, where we had a Form 1 approved for a 30hr blockade on the harbour. This meant people were immune from being charged with obstructing ships. When our Form 1 ran out (at 4pm on the Sunday), people were then asked to leave the shipping channel, and when they didn’t comply with that order, that is when they were arrested.

If a Form 1 is approved, it means some police powers are suspended. Specifically, it means that people participating in the protest are immune from ‘obstruction’ charges and ‘move on’ orders.

Without a Form 1 authorised assembly, the police are able to exercise a ‘move on’ order, but what we are talking about is very specific. Police are able to give a direction to a person, if that person is “obstructing another person or persons or traffic.”

Rising Tide submitted two form 1s for the 2024 People’s Blockade:

1. Land based: 8 days including the park, beach and carpark

2. Water based: a 50 hour flotilla blockade in the Newcastle Harbour

We submitted these Form 1s so that we could work with the police and set clear boundaries on our protest and to ensure participants joining us from all around the country will feel safer.

During the court case, on legal advice, we reduced our Form 1s to 4 days on the land and 30 hours on the water (to be consistent with what the police allowed last year).

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of NSW Police and rejected both of our Form 1s. 

Our Form 1s were ruled ‘prohibited’ by the judge. ‘Prohibited’ in this context is a very confusing and misleading legal term and does not mean it is unlawful to protest. Actually, it does not even mean the event is prohibited.

In his ruling, the judge said that the order does not “render unlawful the conduct of either the assembly on land or the use of light craft in the channel.” So, to say it again, this does not mean that the People’s Blockade is unlawful, banned or prohibited.

This ruling does not change the fact that it is completely legal to gather in public places (like the park and beach), paddle in the Newcastle Harbour and to protest.

No! 

The People’s Blockade is still a lawful event, and it remains completely legal to gather in public places, paddle in the harbour and protest. If you do not break the law or disobey police, like at any other event – you will not face legal risk. It will, however, be especially important that you comply with police directions to avoid legal risk and to follow our Participants’ Agreement, which includes a point about avoiding deliberately antagonising police and about speaking about them in neutral terms. 

We will have a Lead Police Liaison who will have direct communication with the police officer heading the police operation. We expect to negotiate a safe outcome for all participants to participate on the water without risking arrest - remember, if there was a scenario where the police didn’t like where you were, they must give you a warning first, and you simply comply.

The police have said: “We request that people who still attend this event refrain from entering the harbour on kayaks or other vessels with the intention to obstruct other users of the Port, or engage in other forms of civil disobedience. We also encourage all participants to follow the directions of police.”

Not having a Form 1 means that police are now able to exercise their power in regard to people obstructing marine traffic. The act they will be drawing upon is 15(A) of the Maritime Safety Act: Power to give directions in relation to safety on navigable waters.

This means the police can issue you a direction to “move-on” from where you are if they believe on reasonable grounds that you intend to stop ships moving by being in or near navigable waters.

Navigable waters means the shipping channel, which is shown on the map below. As per this image, the shipping channel, shown by the dotted lines, is about 150m from shore.

We’ll be talking more to the police to gauge how they will respond, but when we had a press conference the afternoon that the court ruling was announced we did a little paddle out. The police were there on the water and didn’t stop anyone going into the water. They briefed us beforehand that we couldn’t go into the shipping channel (marked by two buoys) but that we could paddle close to the shore, and there were no issues.

An important point here is that they MUST give you a warning first, and they must tell you that failure to comply is an offence. That is to say, you are ONLY breaking the law if you refuse to obey their direction (or you are actually blocking marine traffic).

At this stage, we hope the program will run as planned. You can check out the draft program here.

Absolutely! As we’ve mentioned, unless you are breaking the law or disobeying police orders, there is no legal risk.

They’ll still be a full program of kids' activities, theatre and music.

No. The Canberra Wave is in a different location and is being organised separately, so it isn’t impacted at all by this court ruling. You can find more about the Canberra Wave here. It is going to be a spectacular finale on the final sitting days of Parliament for 2024 – you don’t want to miss it!