NSW Police are taking legal action to stop a proposed Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney this weekend after the premier said it couldn't be held safely during the coronavirus crisis.
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The Supreme Court challenge will be heard on Friday afternoon with the police commissioner seeking an injunction on the grounds the rally would breach COVID-19 health orders.
"All of us have given up so much and worked so hard to make sure we get on top of the virus," Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Friday.
"What this protest has turned into is a flagrant disregard of the health rules. We can't afford to have exceptions for anyone."
The Liberal leader said the protest initially proposed by Black Lives Matter organisers was far smaller than that which was now scheduled for Saturday.
The premier said she empathised with how people felt about the issue but asked them to express their views in a COVID safe manner, for example on Facebook.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said if the court action was successful and hundreds of thousands of people turned up in contravention of any Supreme Court order "then obviously all of the police powers available to us can be used".
"But we would much rather see a peaceful outcome," he said on Friday.
Greens MP David Shoebridge told AAP: "Whatever the police say, thousands of people will attend tomorrow."
"What's needed now is cooperation, understanding and peacefully working together, not court orders and the implicit threat of more police violence," he said.
But Health Minister Brad Hazzard said there only needed to be a few people in a large crowd with coronavirus to undo months of hard work limiting the virus' spread.
Ms Berejiklian warned: "The potential for a second wave and an outbreak of coronavirus is extremely high in NSW."
Federal and NSW frontbenchers, the state opposition and the prime minister on Friday have questioned the wisdom of allowing a protest while gatherings remain restricted.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: "I say to them, don't go."
NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay told The Daily Telegraph it didn't make sense to allow a mass rally "with potentially thousands of participants when the maximum number of people allowed to visit a private home remains just five".
Under current restrictions, up to 20 people can attend weddings and up to 50 can go to funerals, places of worship, restaurants, pubs and cafes.
Householders are allowed up to five visitors and outdoor gatherings are restricted to 10 people.
Saturday's rally in central Sydney is being held to protest the deaths of Aboriginal people in custody and is in solidarity with those outraged in the United States by the alleged murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
NSW Police Minister David Elliott earlier on Friday said anyone seeking to gather during a pandemic was "certifiably insane" and "nuts".
"If you attend a mass gathering and then expose any disease to a loved one, someone who is vulnerable, the elderly, you've acted completely inappropriately," Mr Elliott told 2GB Radio.
Federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he understood how strongly people felt about Mr Floyd's death but urged protesters to convey their message from home.
Four new COVID-19 cases were reported in NSW on Friday. All were returned travellers in hotel quarantine.
The state has recorded 3110 cases to date and no one is currently in intensive care. Nine days have passed without community transmission of COVID-19 in NSW.
The government on Thursday urged NSW residents to be cautious and observe social distancing this June long weekend.
Australian Associated Press