<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/17/concerns-new-police-powers-in-victoria-could-be-used-to-target-climate-movement>
"The Victorian government has been accused of “shoehorning” new anti-protest
measures that could be used to crack down on the climate movement into reforms
touted as necessary to combat antisemitism.
On Tuesday, Jacinta Allan announced a suite of legislative proposals to crack
down on what the premier said was antisemitism and extremism at protests. The
proposals were announced in the wake of an arson attack on a Melbourne
synagogue.
The proposals include banning protests outside of places of worship, banning
flying flags of groups the Australian government has listed as terrorist
organisations, wearing face masks and balaclavas at protests, and the use of
lock-on devices.
David Mejia-Canales, a lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said that “there
are already laws in place to prevent a number of these things” and that the
proposal would give police wide-ranging discretionary powers that could be used
against other protest movements.
“Police powers already existed to request protesters remove face masks in
prescribed areas, and police already have move-on direction power for
disturbance of the peace and not following that is a penalty,” he said.
The Victorian government flagged in its announcement that commonwealth law
already banned the display of terrorist symbols, but the proposal would give
police “stop, search and seize” powers.
Mejia-Canales was particularly concerned by the government’s proposal to ban
lock-on devices, which he said would likely be used against the climate
movement “given there really isn’t some sort of crisis of people locking
themselves on to churches”.
Lock-on devices include glue, chains or locks which are used by protesters to
attach themselves on to mining and logging equipment and disrupt operations.
“It just seems to me that this measure was sort of shoehorned into a media
release to make it appear that the government is doing more than it actually is
doing,” he said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
