The right to proselytise, to preach, to seek to convert people to your religion or point of view, to stand on a soapbox and rant and rave and espouse your point of view proudly and passionately is a cornerstone of Western Civilisation, of Judaeo-Christianity, and of democracy.
The street preachers were a feature of ancient Greece and Rome. The soapbox at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park was always one of the delights of a trip to London. I also remember, when I lived in London in the 80s, you couldn’t escape the Hare Krishnas. Then there was this one character who used to wander up and down Oxford Street – all day and every day – with a large placard claiming that excess lust was caused by eating too many nuts, or something like that.
Now, so long as such individuals don’t physically pester you but rather rely on their eloquence or the power of their message to engage you in conversation, then that is a part of our civic life that we should treasure.
Not in modern Australia, however.
On Thursday, a Sydney street preacher attempted to merely walk around the forecourt of our most iconic building, the Sydney Opera House, holding a small placard that read, ‘Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.’ In smaller print beneath, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’
He did not have a megaphone or a milk crate. He was not even using his voice. Instead, he wandered around an open space without interfering or disturbing anyone. It was just him and his small placard.
Mike McCarthy is a bit of a character with his own YouTube channel called, Mike with the mic.
On Thursday, he wasn’t using his mic. Only the handheld sign.
Sydney Opera House security asked Mike to go elsewhere on the grounds that he was breaking a bylaw which says people cannot ‘distribute or display, by oral, visual, written, electronic or other means, an advertisement, sign, bill, poster or other promotional material’ on the Opera House premises.
I’ll get to that bylaw in a tick… But when Mike refused to move away with his sign, instead of just leaving it at that the Opera House called the police. It was a lengthy exchange, caught on film. After the police told Mike to move on, he asked what the crime was…
‘Tell me what crime I’ve done? You’re not? Well, okay… I’ve done nothing.’
When asked to leave he said, ‘This is Australia, right? The Constitution of Australia says I can preach religion anywhere in Australia. Alright? That’s all I’m doing. And I’m not even doing that. I’m just walking around looking at [the Opera House].’
The police explain that there are ‘bylaws governing this place’ to which Mike replied, ‘If I can’t walk anywhere in Australia with this sign, there is a problem.’
Next, the security characters stepped in and there was another exchange. In the end, Mike toddled off.
It is worth raising a few points. First, this confrontation was entirely unnecessary. Did the security guards really have to call the police to handle this character?
In my view, this was primarily about authoritarianism. The footage suggests this when, at one point, security essentially admits that the problem is not the sign, but the fact that the man holding the sign did not immediately obey instructions.
‘You’re going around in circles about me doing something wrong.’
‘You wouldn’t talk to me at stage one,’ replies the security guard. ‘You wouldn’t talk to my colleague at stage one. It’s not the sign as much as the issue…’
‘…I asked you which by-law it was. What was the exact regulation, and what did it mean?’
‘Displaying signs on site. Promoting commercial … promoting political views.’
I have frequently observed that one of the very worst aftermaths of the appalling Covid tyranny years is the petty authoritarianism of those with even a hint of power. By the security guard’s own admission, the police were called, wasting valuable police time to argue with an individual who literally posed no threat to anyone or anything near the Opera House steps.
It was the great writer and TV personality Clive James who made the astute observation that the problem with Australians is not that they are descended from convicts but rather that they are descended from prison officers. And that’s what we had here, yet again.
Australia has become the land of the petty authoritarian, eager to exercise power and authority over anybody they can. The land of red tape, green tape, and black tape.
The land that closes beaches to non-Indigenous people, and the land that stops people climbing its mountains and rock formations. The land of the petty bureaucrat. We saw it last week with Nahji Chu being hounded by Sydney City councillors over some pot plants on the pavement and of course we saw it time and time again during the Covid years.
For Mike, the confrontation in front of the Opera House went round and round in circles with the police and the security guards, the nub of which was that Mike the Preacher was in breach of the bylaws because he had a sign that was ‘advertising’ Jesus.
And he was attracting attention…!
In the end Mike toddled off and the cops and the security guards no doubt filed their reports about a job well done. But by now, of course, what had occurred to me about this particular event will no doubt have occurred to you.
The steps of the Sydney Opera House. Hmm… That rings a bell.
Something else happened on the very spot Mike the Preacher was turfed away from by police officers and security guards for holding a placard advertising his religion … something that happened back on October 9, 2023.
Yes, the very spot that saw the most grotesque scenes including crowds chanting obscenities towards Australian Jews, waving flags and placards and calling out religious chants.
An event described by The Spectator Australia as a Pogrom at the Opera, it is a night of infamy in New South Wales policing history.
No arrests that night. No security cards banging on about bylaws being breached. Nobody being harassed for waving massive flags and placards and letting off flares and screaming vile abuse in one of Australia’s most iconic spots. No heavy security dudes exercising their authority and getting upset about people arguing with them.
In fact, the only person the police did arrest was one man carrying a Star of David flag.
This is the disgraceful reality of Australia in 2025. The authorities ignore and even placate the most vile racism and Jew hatred, to the extent of hiring acoustics experts to claim the mob were chanting, ‘Where’s the Jews?’ rather than something even more sinister. But, hey, how dare Nahji put some pot plants on the pavement, Mark carry an Israeli flag, or Mike the Preacher wander around with a placard advertising Jesus.
Welcome to the land of the coward bullying heavy-handed petty authoritarian. Heaven help us…
