A motion by members of the Mardi Gras board to ban NSW Police from participating in the parade late last year was labelled a “slap in the face” by Premier Chris Minns. The motion failed in a close vote and the NSW Police float went ahead, with cops marching not in uniform or costumes, but corporate T-shirts. Our Premier’s comments were obviously intended to garner sympathy for police (who could simply march in any other float), but I wonder if a “slap in the face” might be exactly what they need. It seems the NSW Police Force has forgotten their history with Mardi Gras – so let’s refresh our memories.
In March of 1978, Ken Davis was a part-time student at the University of Sydney when he received a letter from San Francisco. Californian activists had contacted gay and lesbian groups all over the world asking for solidarity activities to be held on the 24th of June (the 9th anniversary of the Stonewall riots) in support of their resistance to a new law which would allow anyone who supported gay rights to be sacked from any job within the California school system.
Ken called a meeting between several University of Sydney organisations to plan a march and rally for the morning of June 24th. The trade unions, Young Labor, women’s movements and other student groups were all interested in the issue of police power, Ken recalls, but it was “the first time gay and lesbian rights had taken centre stage” in a coalition event.
Two weeks before the march, a few members of CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) including communist party member Lance Gowland, raised concerns about the daytime march. Homosexuality would not be legalised for another 6 years and anyone seen there was at risk of losing their job, housing, family and friends.
They proposed an alternative: a nighttime event that would feel more like a celebration than a traditional protest, where people could dress up and have fun. It was agreed— they received a permit, and Sydney University groups began advertising it through banners, posters and word of mouth.
The daytime protests went well —over 500 people gathered in solidarity, with minimal police presence.
Around 10pm, Ken stood in Taylor Square in a country Western frock, waiting for the street to fill up. He was nervous, and for good reason: despite his efforts, it was hard to know whether the Mardi Gras would experience much of a turnout. He needn’t have worried— by 10:30, over 1000 people filled Taylor Square, about a quarter of them in costume. There was a strong sense of freedom and exhilaration as they began to follow the lone sound truck (bedecked with a banner saying “International Gay Solidarity”) down Oxford street. People began joining the parade from bars and off the street as they danced toward Hyde Park.
Suddenly, as they approached the park, the atmosphere shifted. Perhaps it was that the march had passed into the jurisdiction of the notoriously violent and corrupt Darlinghurst Police, perhaps there was a shift change, or perhaps the police officers regulating the street party simply changed their minds.
They confiscated the sound system and arrested Lance, who was driving the truck, and the atmosphere rapidly morphed from one of freedom to one of fear. Nobody was dancing anymore. They were running.
The parade should have ended with speeches at Hyde Park, but upon reaching the park, the police had blocked it off and forced them toward William Street.
There were shouts of “on to the Cross!” and the party soon became a spontaneous march, with the chant of “Stop police attacks on gays, women and blacks” echoing up William Street.
As they approached Kings Cross the police began arresting people in earnest. Ken sheltered in a shop doorway with two friends. Darlinghurst police officers were throwing people into paddy wagons indiscriminately. These included lesbians and gay men, but also sex workers, drug users and homeless people from the Cross who had joined in off the street.
Not everyone stayed in the paddy wagons — many were pulled out by fellow protestors, allowing a number of people to escape. However, 53 people were taken to Darlinghurst police station.
Those who were arrested were brutally beaten and forced into overcrowded cells. Activist Peter Murphy was beaten so badly he “was pissing and shitting [himself], and started convulsing”, and expected to die. He was only allowed to access medical attention 10 hours later.
Outside, those who had managed to avoid arrest were trying to collect bail. The greyness of the day had finally broken into cold winter rain, and everyone outside the station soon became soaked. At some point hours later, 18 women were moved to Central police station, and it was only after 10am the next day that they finally received bail.
On Monday morning, the Sydney Morning Herald published the names, ages, jobs and home addresses of the 53 who had been arrested. The Herald has never apologised for this.
The 78’ers, as they have come to be known, had a permit for the street party that night. There was no reason for the police to intervene in Kings Cross— the crowd had already been dispersing.
The violent arrests of attendees were both illegal and deeply rooted in the culture of Darlinghurst police and NSW police as a whole. An apology issued in 2016 claimed that NSW Police’s relationships with the public today are “positive and progressive,” but I see overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In 2023, an officer was found guilty of assaulting an unarmed 16-year-old Indigenous boy in Surry Hills. In 2020, an inquiry into NSW Police practices found illegal strip searches to be a “recurrent issue”, including several instances of illegal strip searches of children. Key amongst the inquiry was the repeated failure of NSW Police to report and record which officers conducted these illegal searches.
Just last year, officer Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly murdered a gay couple using his government-issued weapon, and NSW sex crimes detective, Glen Coleman, was jailed for sexually assaulting a teenager inside a police station.
This is barely scratching the surface of the repeated violence perpetrated by NSW Police officers against the public they’re supposed to “protect”. Their behaviour on the night of the 1978 Mardi Gras was not unusual, but rather entirely in character. If the attempted ban from Mardi Gras was a “slap in the face” for NSW Police, as Chris Minns put it, then they’ll have experienced just a small taste of the violence their officers continue to perpetrate against the public every year.
