UNSW Law

OPINION: OPINION: Professor Luke McNamara and Julia Quilter, The Conversation, 14 April 2016.

Street performers have been part of cityscapes for centuries, yet buskers have often had an ambiguous relationship with the law. At various times they have been policed as “beggars in disguise,” or treated as an urban nuisance.

Recent decades have seen an about-face, with many city governments embracing buskers as a cultural and commercial asset, putting in place rules that both encourage and control busking.