Invasion Day rallies will be able to go ahead in Sydney, despite the extension of controversial protest restrictions for another fortnight.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon announced the decision tio extend the protest bans on Tuesday, less than six weeks after the Bondi terror attack prompted fears about public cohesion and safety.

“This is about making sure we enable people to protest, enable free speech, but make sure the community remains safe,” he said.

The affected area has been pared back from most of Sydney’s metropolitan area to encompass Darling Harbour, the northern city centre excluding Hyde Park and the eastern suburbs.

The amended declaration means the city’s annual Invasion Day rallies can go ahead as planned on January 26.

Protesters will march through the city’s south from Hyde Park as they draw attention to issues such as the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes, deaths in custody and systemic racism.

“We’re not here to cause any harm to the police or anyone in society,” Blak Caucus member Elizabeth Jarrett said before the decision.

“The police should respectfully stand aside and let us march.”

Lanyon agreed, saying he expected families would be among the tens of thousands of people marching on January 26.

Greens MP Sue Higginson noted street marches had been an accepted and anticipated element of Invasion Day rallies for nearly a century.

“It’s clear the Commissioner has recognised this and rightly bent to the will of the people,” she said.

An anti-immigration March for Australia has also been authorised to proceed on January 26.

“This decision today is not protest agnostic. Any person can now lodge a form one (application for protest authorisation),” Lanyon said.

But Higginson said it was important to ask why protest restrictions would remain for swathes of Sydney’s city centre.

“It seems fairly obvious they have been extended to try to continue to capture the pro-Palestine protest movement and, in particular, any protest against the Israeli president’s apparent visit in early February,” she said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is to visit Sydney on February 7.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Tim Roberts said the declaration made it plain Lanyon was acting in a political capacity rather than in the interest of public safety.

Although the declaration does not explicitly ban protests, it prevents organisers from gaining authorisation that shields them from arrest for obstructing traffic or pedestrians.

Protesters can also be ordered to move on, even if their demonstration isn’t a march.

The power to make the declarations was given to Lanyon in laws rushed through the NSW parliament after two gunmen opened fire on a Hannukah event at Bondi Beach on December 14, killing 15 people.

Police numbers in the metropolitan area will climb to 1500 on January 26. A third will be devoted to monitoring protest activity.

Lanyon warned anyone who might be planning to hijack authorised protests that it was not the time to sow division.

NSW Acting Police Minister Paul Scully endorsed the decision and asked the community to comply with the law.

A coalition of activist groups – including Blak Caucus – has launched a legal challenge to the anti-protest measures, claiming they are unconstitutional.

-AAP