Why is Australian politics grappling with the right to protest?

New Daily
Oct 14, 2024


Attempts to stifle protests of particular causes could damage Australian's right to protest, according to experts.   



A push by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns to restrict protests if they prove too expensive or disruptive is another move in a long list of challenges to Australia’s right to protests, experts say.

Before pro-Palestinian protests in Sydney this month, Minns said police should be allowed to reject public assembly applications if the event will be too expensive for the state.


“It’s my view that police should be able to be in a position to deny a request for a march due to stretched police resourcing,” Minns told 2GB radio.

“Ultimately, this is taxpayer funds. It can only be distributed in a certain way.”

NSW originally applied to the state’s supreme court to block the protest from taking place, just one day before the anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel, before reaching an agreement with organisers at the last minute.

Unions, including the police association, have pushed back against Minns’ assertion, with the head of Unions NSW stating that “democracy should not be monetised” by making organisers pay for police presence.


Unions and the police association have rebuked NSW Premier Chris Minns.

Do Australians have the right to protest?
Luke McNamara, a professor of law and justice at the University of New South Wales, said over the past decade various jurisdictions in Australia have created new offences, higher penalties and increased police power to restrict the right to protest.

“Increasingly, pressure is being brought to bear on Attorney Generals, Premiers and Chief Ministers of states and territories to do something about disruptive behaviour,” he said.



“If you are committed in a democracy to the right to protest, you have to accept that peaceful assembly, for it to be in any way effective or meaningful, has to have the capacity to grab attention, get people to listen to the message, whether they agree or not, and that inevitably involves a level of disruption.”

A report from the Human Rights Law Centre, examining bills across Australia over the past two decades that have affected the right to protest, found that Australians’ right to peacefully protest “is being steadily eroded”.

NSW, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland have all legislated anti-protest laws within the past five years, imposing penalties on people engaging in peaceful protest.

Civil disobedience
These laws have targeted a range of different interest groups, ranging from environmentalists to pro-Palestinian advocates, but have all served to stifle the right to protest.

McNamara said the issue is that knee-jerk laws, such as having protest organisers pay for the police presence required, can be “deeply anti-democratic”.

“I’m troubled when there’s talk of large-scale change of parameters to a particular right, like the right to protest, based on discomfort with the particular content of a protest movement,” he said.

“The mere fact that Chris Minns has decided that those particular protesters and their cause is a problem is not an adequate justification for changing the parameters or the strength of the right to protest.”

Protest, as an act of civil disobedience, doesn’t necessarily require legality.

Most of the world’s most effective protests weren’t endorsed by the state or government they targeted.

McNamara said that Australia and liberal democracies can be hypocritical on civil disobedience.

“We celebrate those historical moments like when the Springboks were the subject of protests against South African apartheid and applaud the Martin Luther King-led civil rights protesters,” he said.

“We need some historical perceptive and to recognise that at the moment there is going to be a level of discomfort, disruption and unhappiness, but accept the right to protest.”

Australians have never had the right to protest in any way except the false claims of such. Across my whole lifetime the police have acted aggressively, violently and without respect to people's rights during peaceful protests. Very often the police will attack protesters and then claim that there was violence. They are correct but all the violence is typically exerted by the police. The action of police in protests is always supported in the courts. So people not only find themselves assaulted by the police but prosecuted and fined or imprisoned as well.

Australians have no right or ability to peacefully protest at all and never have. A protest is little more than an opportunity for the police to forcefully exercise their crowd control methods. There are exceptions and periods where it is done better but the risk of protest is huge.

Dnarever wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 6:53am:



That's correct - we live in a police state.

They can spray you in the eyes with pepper spray - a form of dangerous torture - and get a way with it.

They can beat you to a pulp with a baton and get away with that too.

A protest itself may at times be the subject of a counter-protest.
If protests are allowed so should be counter-protests?

Yes out of that lot, a significant number of trans and Muslim people do like to express their difference in violence.  Gays not so much and Australian Jews hardly at all... they strive to be civilised ....

Grappler Racist Filth wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 12:24pm:


There is no evidence of that...at all.  Graps you're reserving your hatreds just to yourself.  Tsk, tsk, tsk...   

Grappler Racist Filth wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 12:24pm:


My top picks would be junkies and Nazis.

tickleandrose wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 2:05pm:


Them too - I can't include everyone.... a broad scale and semi-civilised or theoretically civilised society has many dead end or blind canyons... it is the movement of the mass of the ocean of humanity that creates the weather... the rest are just local disturbances.

Gnads wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 5:28pm:


And the Islamophobes, and the homophobes and the anti-trans people, just like you.  Tsk, tsk, tsk... 

I like the posts that say everyone should have the right except........

It rather gives the game away.

It's a bit like Trump saying that he only wants to be authoritarian for one day.

Does he really think people forgot his authoritarian first term ?

Dnarever wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 9:00pm:


OK which ones were they?

And FFS forget about Trump.

You're getting as bad as Peccar.

Gnads wrote on Oct 16^th, 2024 at 11:47am:


Truthful words where you are concerned.  You hate, you hate anybody not like you.  Tsk, tsk, tsk... 

Brian Ross wrote on Oct 16^th, 2024 at 3:44pm:


bwian

i hate yawning.

its rude

People have the right to protest. They should not object violently, if there is a counterprotest to their cause. That includes the police insisting that they move on from an illegal march or violent chanting.

Dnarever wrote on Oct 16^th, 2024 at 6:46pm:


If you have ever read the Criminal Code of Australia, you will find that Australians have more rights and freedoms than the average American. In Australia, it is very equitable to live however you like and within reason, as long as there are no laws that forbid you doing what you want to do.

In the United States of America, you are given a bill of rights. But the state by state variations of laws are so profound, that it is not surprising why each state has a problem with bordering states of their's. Can you imagine why the crime rates over in the United States are so high in their cities? I know why. And it has nothing to do with how much rights Americans have. It has to do with how much "freedoms" are available.

Upon the freedom index and human development scales, Australia ranks much higher than the USA. Imagine what will happen to the USA when the demographics are changed, due to the low-birth rates of American-born people catches up with them. They better start buying gold bullion inside the next 10 years.

Brian Ross wrote on Oct 16^th, 2024 at 3:44pm:


Every one is different dopey.

I dislike you for a whole different reason.

Brian Ross wrote on Oct 16^th, 2024 at 3:46pm:



What do you mean by that?

UnSubRocky wrote on Oct 17^th, 2024 at 4:24am:


Quote:


Can you quantify any ?

Do you know that in Australian law that on Trespass there is no difference between public property and private or that any joe blogs that tresspasses you can legally require your identification. That can be mrs Bloggs from the post office or Joe Bloggs the farmer even Terry the criminal. You have committed a crime if you fail to ID yourself to such private citizen on request if you are trespassed.

UnSubRocky wrote on Oct 17^th, 2024 at 8:00pm:


It would help a lot if a little bit of what you said were to be true.

I am far from a fan of US law but in the area of rights they do better than we do but the shame is that even that is very poor. In the US the camera phone has started to reclaim rights over there that had been taken away for a few centuries.

Most US rights in the constitution were non existent as it was all unenforceable.

For centuries the police stepped all over the first, fourth, fifth 14th amendments and others a few hundred times a day. Cameras now make the Judge believe their own lying eyes. We were probably in front in that previous time but not now.

The big problem in the US is structural and in built corruption. Their legal system is corrupt and flawed by design. We are much better off in that regard. 

Gnads wrote on Oct 15^th, 2024 at 10:06am:



According to valkie, people should only be allowed to protest for causes he agrees with

He should consider moving to North Korea.

UnSubRocky wrote on Oct 17^th, 2024 at 8:00pm:


Can you support this claim mate because it sounds like bullshit....I doubt any migrant can enter the US without being checked for drugs or other illegal contraband....Surely such a ridiculous policy should be easy to expose....Over too you to support your claim mate???