Defending Rights to Protest
Up-dates
Recent developments in NSW
Article re-printed from South Sydney Herald
25 – 2 – 25
Anti-protest laws will not diminish hate crimes
By Thea Ormerod, President, Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC)
Rally against the new laws in Town Hall Square on 17th February, 2025, with Rev Dr Jo Inkpin featured in front of the ARRCC banner. Rev Inkpin spoke at the Rally. Photo credit: ARRCC
Last week, the NSW Parliament rushed through three bills which Premier Minns described as “a strong response to recent antisemitism.”
Along with bills increasing penalties for graffiti or intentionally inciting racial hatred, a new Places of Worship Bill imposes hefty penalties for blocking, hindering, harassing or threatening people going into or out of a place of worship.
The bill also removes limitations to NSW Police “move-on” powers, making it easier to issue these orders to protesters near places of worship. Sydney’s CBD is home to 30 places of worship — theoretically students could be asked to move on while they protest climate inaction in Town Hall Square.
ARRCC, along with Amnesty International, Council for Civil Liberties and others have problems with the Places of Worship Bill. Principally, peaceful protests are being wrongly conflated with antisemitic attacks, graffiti, violence or threats, which already fall under the Crimes Act.
Put simply, no one will be any safer because of this bill.
Instead, the bill delivers more restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly, adding to the ever-increasing number of anti-protest laws being passed here and around the world.
Democracies aren’t lost overnight. They are lost piece by piece, measure by measure, each time people believing the change is too small to make a fuss.
Many injustices have been overcome because of people getting out on the street, such as civil rights in the US and women’s right to vote. Protest is a means by which everyday citizens can create a more just and sustainable world when they don’t have the money or slick lobbyists of wealthy corporations.
Recent developments in Victoria
Excerpt from article dated 26-6-2025 by Marina Williams on the Uniting Church Synod Vic/Tas website: https://victas.uca.org.au/faith-protection/
Faith, Protest and Protection
Any reform, Mark (Zirnsak) says, must balance protection with the right to peaceful assembly and be fair across communities.
“It’s important we consider the impact on all faith groups. However, at this stage the Government has failed to make the case as to why existing laws are inadequate to protect people of faith from protesters seeking to intimidate and harass them,” he says.
In an open letter to the Premier in March, 22 civil society, faith, legal, First Nations, disability rights, and migrant groups expressed “deep concern with the proposed reforms and how they interact with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights”.
“Violence and racist attacks are not protests … they are crimes,” they wrote.
UK police arrest citizens in Quaker Meeting House
By Bruce Henry, QA Presiding Clerk (reprinted from https://www.quakersaustralia.info/news/defending-rights-protest)
Defending Rights to Protest
On 27 March 2025 more than 20 police armed with tasers broke in the Westminster Meeting House, UK. They didn’t knock or ring the bell but forced their way in. They arrested six young women who were holding a planning meeting for nonviolent protest over concerns about climate and Gaza.
Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo. Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.
Many Quakers have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform.
Recording Clerk of British Yearly Meeting, Paul Parker stated:
“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest. Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy."
To us in Australia, this incident sharpens concerns about any extension of police powers to do with legitimate peaceful protests and should act as a caution to the governments in Victoria and New South Wales as they seek to restrict protests.
In particular this is relevant to the proposed suggestion in Victoria that protests should not be permitted near a place of worship. Members of faith communities need the right to protest against such aggressive actions by police for instance.
These are not easy times - not for government, not for victims of war or discrimination and not for the earth. Let us maintain rights to protest in a spirit of respect for all people and of love of the earth.
Increasing heavy penalties for nonviolent protest, Australia
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights two articles enshrine the right to protest:
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Peaceful protest has been an important tool that people’s movements have used to win many of the benefits we take for granted today: the 8-hour working day, women’s right to vote, First Nations peoples’ right to vote and it ended the war in Vietnam. People of faith were key participants in movements for which nonviolent protest was a critical part, eg, the US civil rights movement, the largely Catholic movement to liberate Poland from domination by Russia, and India’s movement for independence from British rule.
Today in various Australian States, laws have been passed to impose heavy penalties on certain kinds of non-violent protest against coal or gas mining or simply for stronger climate action. Governments are using their power against civil society groups wanting to see our precious climate and forests protected, and have aligned themselves with profit-seeking mining and logging companies.
See more on laws in various States here.
Laws passed in 2019 in Queensland have been described in a letter from UN human rights experts as 'inherently disproportionate'. They said the legislation 'contains a number of provisions that unduly restrict the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression'.
The letter said, 'We are seriously concerned that the act allows for the criminalisation of peaceful protests that may entail blocking access to roads or buildings; acts of civil disobedience; and non-violent direct action.'
In March, 2022, the NSW Parliament passed the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2022, which increased maximum penalties for certain kinds of non-violent protests to two years in jail and a $22,000 fine. In NSW this is a heavier penalty than for Driving Under the Influence. Compare these potential penalties with the $469 fine and 3 demerit points imposed on a driver who ran through Blockade Australia’s march in the Sydney CBD on 27th June.
The new legislation also expanded the types of locations that would be off-limits. Previously they were major bridges or tunnels, now they include roads, train stations, ports and public and private infrastructure. The regressive nature of these laws has been widely condemned.
This is part of a nationwide trend towards harsher penalties against peaceful community activists in various Australian States, unfortunately supported by both major political parties. The new laws have met with significant community opposition, including challenges in the High Court and currently before the Victorian and Tasmanian parliaments.
For more detail, read here: https://www.geco.org.au/new_laws_criminalise_forest_protest
And Maddie's account of how the NSW laws affected her activism: http://honisoit.com/2023/02/activists-are-unfairly-targeted-by-new-protest-laws/
NSW Council for Civil Liberties https://www.nswccl.org.au/protect_the_right_to_protest
Take Action
Amnesty International Australia has this petition that concerned people could sign. It responds to the fact that there are no federal laws protecting our freedom of speech or peaceful assembly. A Human Rights Act would enshrine our democratic freedoms in federal law. See https://action.amnesty.org.au/act-now/support-a-human-rights-act
