Australia politics live: Greens MLC claims police at Sydney protest ‘just started assaulting people’; Liberal party room to meet amid leadership spill speculation

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The NSW premier, Chris Minns, is making the first of multiple appearances across the media this morning following the violent clashes between police and protesters yesterday evening.

He has told Channel Nine’s Today program that police were “put in an impossible situation last night”:

It’s worth remembering they did everything possible to avoid that confrontation, starting last week when they begged protest organisers to have it in Hyde Park, where it was safe and a march could take place.

I know that some of the scenes on media are short clips, but people have to understand the circumstances where protesters breached police lines and ran amuck in Sydney would have been devastating.

No. She’s wrong. I’m not going to throw police under the bus this morning. This is a situation that’s incredibly combustible. And the circumstances that weren’t shown on the news this morning or on TV last night because is what would have happened if protesters breached police lines …

It would have dangerous … as difficult as the scenes were to watch, it would have been infinitely worse if NSW police didn’t do their job last night.

I think the – the protest organisers, when both the police and the courts said to them, yes, you can protest, but you can either do it in a stationary way here in Town Hall, if you want to march, you can march through a different part of the city, should have heeded that advice.

But of course, some of the videos that we’ve seen have been very concerning. And I expect they’ll be investigated.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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