"Those people sitting at home who might be thinking about going to the protest, look at this through the lens of emergency services and the communities ravaged by fires. Is this the best way to demonstrate your support?" In a statement on Friday morning, a Victoria Police spokeswoman confirmed no police members would be pulled back from the bushfires to police the protest. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "However, we are frustrated by the timing of this protest and it will impact on other proactive initiatives and operations we have in place," she said. "It also means we now have to redeploy some of our officers who have only just returned from the firegrounds to the protests. This makes it difficult for us to manage fatigue and means officers who have been working around the clock at the bushfires may not receive a sufficient break."

Loading Uni Students for Climate Justice convenor Anneke Demanuele said before Mr Hansen's comments about 11,000 people had registered their interest in the protest. On Friday morning 15,000 people had registered as attending. Other protests are planned around the country, including in Sydney, Canberra, Hobart, Wollongong, Port Maquarie and other regional centres. Ms Demanuele told The Age she was not aware of police in other cities calling for the protests to be cancelled. "I think that it's pretty telling that the only thing that's been told not to go ahead is a political protest," she said.

"The Acting Police Commissioner didn't call on the cricket to be cancelled, New Year's Eve to be cancelled. Only the political protest calling for action on climate change." Loading The Melbourne Renegades will play Melbourne Stars at the MCG on Friday at 7.10pm, coinciding with the protest at the State Library. Police say they have had ample time to plan for a strong, visible presence at the event, but were "frustrated" by the short notice offered to them by rally organisers. On Thursday, Premier Daniel Andrews also called on protesters to delay their rally. "My message to them is I've done a bit to to take action on climate change, I know the science stacks up [and] I don't disagree on a range of different points they make," he said.