Victoria just passed a new law
HOLY SHIT! Victoria has just passed a law that will allow police to legally ‘move on’ peaceful protesters, and to arrest them if they fail to comply. i.e. If you’re a protester, you could be arrested if you are:
causing, or likely to cause, an undue obstruction to another person or persons or traffic”
And you could be arrested if your conduct:
is causing a reasonable apprehension of violence in another person”
No evidence required
There were already laws governing ‘move on’, but they weren’t as broad. Previously you could be moved on only if you were:
- breaching or likely to breach the peace;
- endangering or likely to endanger the safety of any other person; or
- behaving in a way that was likely to cause injury to a person or damage to property or is otherwise a risk to public safety.
See the difference? Now you can be moved on if you get in someone’s way or someone says they’re frightened of you.
Plus, previously, you couldn’t be arrested for failing to move on when asked. These new laws can see you arrested for accidentally impeding someone on the sidewalk or for simply looking scary! No evidence required. According to the Fitzroy Legal Service:
A reasonable suspicion is a very low threshold that would not in the ordinary course justify arrest or criminal charges. Through these laws a reasonable suspicion may ultimately result in incarceration.”
So if my 6ft 1inch, hairy, poorly dressed, but overwhelmingly passive mass causes someone to step out of my way in a peaceful protest, I could be arrested!
Specifically targets protesters
Just in case you’re thinking that’s unlikely, consider this. One of the changes they made was to remove a bit from the existing law that made an exception for demonstrators and protesters. The following key component of the current Summary Offences Act 1966 was removed:
SUMMARY OFFENCES ACT 1966 – SECT 6
Direction to move on
S. 6 (1) amended by No. 43/2011 s. 48(2).
5) This section does not apply in relation to a person who, whether in the company of other persons or not, is—
(a) picketing a place of employment; or
(b) demonstrating or protesting about a particular issue; or
(c) speaking, bearing or otherwise identifying with a banner, placard or sign or otherwise behaving in a way that is apparently intended to publicise the person’s view about a particular issue.
This shows they’re specifically targeting protesters. This is a calculated attack on our freedom to dissent.
When will the other states follow suit?
I’ve heard people talking about Australia becoming a police state, but I’ve never really believed it. I do now. 🙁
This looks and smells like the sort of turd the Venezuelan people are dealing with at the moment: Their government, in the face of unrest, has been able to arrest and assault protesters with impunity. It is illegal to protest in Venezuela without a permit.
This undermines the very basis of democracy and the freedom of expression.
Makes me sick.
We must legislate to prevent these kinds of laws from ever being passed!
Yep. We need to get the message out there, so people understand what our government and corporations are trying to do. Surely Australians won’t just sit by and let it happen?
I supposed it’s indicative of just how far this country has fallen that the above doesn’t surprise me in the least.
In Western Australia you can be stopped and searched just walking down the street minding your own business. All that’s required is for police have a “reasonable suspicion” you’re up to no good.
This happened to a student on mine last year who was walking to the State Library to do some research. He was carrying a backpack (full of books) and wearing a Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh t-shirt. This was legally grounds enough in WA to have the boy stopped, forced to turn out his pockets and have the contents of his backpack spilled out onto the footpath. He wasn’t arrested… obviously there were no grounds for it… but that’s small consolation when one thinks that this kind of behaviour is not only legal, but accepted by the majority, in this state.
The really sad part, for me, was that this happened in the heart of the “Cultural Centre” in Perth. At lunch time. And NOT ONE of the many left-leaning employees of the Art Gallery, PICA or the State Library who witnessed this while enjoying their al fresco latte’s said a damn thing… or even bothered to approach the boy later and help him retrieve the contents of his bag from the footpath right under their noses. Like the “Good Germans” during Hitler’s reign… they turned their heads and pretended this was all “normal” or simply none of their business.
Ironically, it’s these very same left-leaning hypocrites (yes, hypocrites) readily point the finger at draconian leaders in foreign countries (like Venezuela) while staying mute and feigning ignorance when it happens in THEIR country and under THEIR very noses!!
It was this collective inaction by people who vociferously voice their “outrage” over everything from the environment to things like animals testing, which really… and I mean REALLY… ticked me off. (… and no doubt STILL does given the rant I’ve just launched into.)
They say a country gets the government it deserves. I’m at the point now when I honestly believe Australia got its just deserts when Abbott came to power. As a nation, we don’t deserve better. Present company, excluded, of course… but we are sadly in the minority.
(Again, apologies for the rant Glen. Feel free not to publish the comment. It was cathartic for me just to write it.)
Bring it on, Mila! I completely agree with you, on all scores. In their defence, though, Australians are deliberately misinformed, kept in debt, socialised to consumerism, brought up to believe it’ll never happen in Australia, and distracted by TV, false threats and an increasingly on-call, low-paid labour culture. It’s not easy for people to see what’s really going on. And even when they do, like us, they have so little time to do anything about it, and such small voices, that it can seem futile.
Is this what comes from economic and social stability for the masses: Lack of interest in political and social freedoms generated by inactivity in exercising these freedoms?
Only if accompanied by an under-regulated corporate sector and ‘led’ by politicians in a party politics representative democracy.
I understand your feelings Mila.
Are you aware that a man was arrested in Tasmania on 4th March 2014 for breaking a new law proposed and passed by the left ALP and Green Tasmanian government last Nov I think. His crime? Peacefully holding a sign within a 150 metre exclusion zone.
You said, ‘Like the “Good Germans” during Hitler’s reign… they turned their heads and pretended this was all “normal” or simply none of their business.’ What was he protesting? A law that allows the abortion of a healthy 40 week unborn for even social or even economic reasons. And get this in 178 E Termination without a woman’s consent (2) NO PROSECUTION IS TO BE INSTITUTED AGAINST A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER on a woman if the woman is incapable of giving consent’. Why? There is no need for this as there is already a clause which legislates ‘a duty of care to perform an abortion in an emergency to save the life of a pregnant woman or to prevent her serious physical injury’. Is this a clause Hitler and the Chinese regime would endorse for occasions when the woman does not want to consent? So the ALP Greens law is terminations to birth with or without the woman’s consent and a 150 metre exclusion zone around any area which performs abortions to any stage and no right of conscience for doctors to have a conscientious objection. It would appear we are already guilty of the same crime of the mushy middle who, as you said, ‘turned their heads and pretended this was all “normal” or simply none of their business.’