A small public protest took place on Tuesday in Devonport, a coastal town in northern Tasmania. It was, as someone described on social media, a protest by “shopkeepers, farmers, fishermen, bakers, retirees and accommodation operators” who felt they were “left out by the decision-makers”.
Perhaps these protests do not always receive the attention they deserve from the media. They are lucky enough to get a newspaper headline here, or a place in the evening news there. But protests like these are the soul of our democracy.
We don’t all have the connections to get an audience with politicians, nor the funds to buy political advertising. Few can engage with well-dressed lobbyists and bump into elegant dinners. There are many well-documented shortcomings with Australia’s political system, which give powerful industries a stronger voice in the political debate.
But what happens when we protest, take to the streets and talk about the causes we believe in, is that it remains open to everyone. When we come together enough to express our views, to show solidarity, and to demand change, decision-makers must listen. Protest is the latest political action of equal opportunity.
Alarmingly, in Tasmania, freedom of protest is threatened. When the protest took place in Devonport, Tasmania’s upper house was in the final stages of preparing to debate a draconian anti-protest law that will be presented to it on Wednesday. The Police Crimes (Workplace Protection) Amendment Act of 2022, if passed, will have a chilling effect on the Tasmanian protest. It is a cruel irony that while Devonport protesters were busy saying theirs, the Tasmanian parliament was considering whether to criminalize some forms of protest activity.
The law will amend and expand criminal offenses related to protest activity. A member of the community marching through the streets towards the House of Parliament could be jailed for three months if he is believed to have caused an unreasonable obstruction. A poorly paid hospitality worker who attends a job to demand rights and obstructs the business in the process, could be fined more than $ 8,000.
This is the fourth time the Tasmanian Liberal government has tried to pass laws restricting protests, especially forest and mining protesters, to whom it appears that this law is directly targeted. After it was first enacted in 2014, a different law was overturned in the Brown v Tasmania case (the Human Rights Law Center intervened as a friend of the court). The high court found that it violated the implicit freedom of political communication, with a judge noting that the law worked “with a python absurdity.”
On other occasions, the state government has found itself stalled in the drafting phase and blocked by parliament. But now, in this latest attempt, there is a real risk that the Tasmanian legislature may finally pass this draconian, anti-democratic law. Unless the bill is blocked by cross-border banking and Labor (who unsuccessfully moved an amendment to the lower house, to give special aid to industrial protest), it will become law.
It shouldn’t be. The law is unnecessary: the government has not demonstrated the need for change. He says the bill is necessary to protect the safety of workers and denies that it is aimed at a legitimate protest. But at a recent estimates hearing it was said the regulator, WorkSafe, had not received any safety complaints related to protests in a workplace in the past eight years. To the extent that the government is concerned about violent protests, existing laws already provide for a number of criminal offenses.
But this law goes much further. It is disproportionate as it offers severe penalties that far exceed anything in other Australian jurisdictions. It is vaguely worded, which will give arbitrary power to the police. He even runs the risk of criminalizing homelessness unintentionally because of the general crime of obstruction. In short: it is a bad law, a law that is not necessary, and that can be unconstitutional, for the same reasons that invalidated the latter. The Tasmanian Legislative Council must block this bill; the bill is expected to be voted on Thursday.
Tasmania has a history of efforts against the protests, but is far from alone. This year, New South Wales enacted an anti-protest law in an apparent response to climate protests. Undoubtedly, this law is worse than the Tasmanian bill; he may also face the superior court. Both will serve to dissuade ordinary Australians – from schoolchildren to pensioners – from taking to the streets and making their voices heard.
And it doesn’t stop there. The Victorian state government has laws against protests before parliament now. These amendments would impose harsh sanctions on protesters who prevented or disrupted forestry activity. Queensland has also experimented with laws criminalizing protest activities. Anti-protest laws are proliferating across Australia.
These laws could be invalid if enacted in many other nations. However, Australia is the only one of comparable liberal democracies that does not have solid legal protection for human rights. Without applicable human, federal, and territorial laws, these attacks on fundamental democratic freedoms will continue. (Victoria is one of the few Australian jurisdictions that does have a human rights charter, which may leave the Victorian government’s bill legally challengable.)
Throughout history, protest has helped make Australia a better place. As brave Australians took to the streets for decades, we have labor rights, voting rights and environmental protections. If these efforts to curb protests continue, we may not be able to effectively defend the important social change that must come next: from gender equality to climate action to the end of whistleblower prosecutions.
When we silence shopkeepers, farmers, bakers and retirees, we silence Australia. Anti-protest laws are an offense to democracy. They have no place in this country.
Kieran Pender is a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Center