Today in Parliament, the Greens attempted to disallow the Labor government's latest move in the ongoing campaign to deteriorate the right to protest.
Abigail spoke in support of the disallowance, saying:
I join with my Greens colleagues to support the disallowance of the Crimes Amendment (Major Facilities) Regulation 2024—the stealth expansion of a repressive and anti‑democratic anti‑protest protocol that was foisted upon this State in 2022. I was proud to bring on the first disallowance against this dangerous regime back in 2022, when the first signal of the Government's attempt to stifle the political protest activities of concerned citizens came through. I am so unbelievably angry that we are having to keep doing this. On 24 March 2022 the New South Wales Government created the Roads Amendment (Major Bridges and Tunnels) Regulation 2022 in the first tranche of what was to become the package of laws we now understand to be the most repressive anti‑protest regime anywhere in this country. The effect of that regulation was to make it an offence under section 144G of the Roads Act 1993 to disrupt or obstruct all major bridges and tunnels across Greater Sydney.
Those laws were an expansion of a pre‑existing offence that applied only to obstructing traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The regulation expanded the definition to include all bridges and tunnels and increased the penalty for disrupting any bridge or tunnel to up to two years jail and/or a $22,000 fine. This followed a number of actions by the groups Fireproof Australia and Blockade Australia over the latter half of 2021 and early 2022. On 14 March 2022 a Fireproof Australia action took place on the Spit Bridge, which caused the then New South Wales Minister for Metropolitan Roads to be briefly stuck in traffic on Spit Road—a famously free‑flowing and never disrupted or traffic‑impacted road—prompting the Minister to leap into a flurry of action, spurred on by personal indignation, to increase the penalties against those who would inconvenience her. I, with the support of my Greens colleagues and progressive crossbench allies, sought to disallow this regulation, but it was upheld by both major parties and the conservative crossbench.
Following hot on its heels, the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022—the legislation under which this regulation is now being delivered—was brought to this Parliament. It was introduced in the afternoon of 30 March 2022 and rushed through the Legislative Assembly that same day, despite the valiant efforts of my Greens colleagues the members representing the electorates of Ballina, Balmain and Newtown, as well as the member for Sydney. In this place, we struggled against this repressive legislation and attempted to filibuster the bill, as it was the final sitting day of the sitting fortnight, and so if it failed to pass that night it would be delayed until May, which would give civil society organisations time to appraise the legislation that had just been foisted upon them and to provide feedback to the other parties. The Government and Opposition instead elected to bring Parliament back to sit again that Friday, outside the regular course of proceedings, to vote on and eventually pass the legislation.
I am incredibly proud of our collective efforts to delay the bill as much as we did and express my sincere gratitude to the incredible 39 civil society organisations who managed to mobilise at such short notice to prepare an open letter condemning the repressive actions of the Government. The signatories to that letter included the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited, Amnesty International, Australian Centre for International Justice, Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Democracy Network, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, CounterAct, Dying with Dignity NSW, Forest Defence NSW, Friends of the Earth Australia, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Human Rights Law Centre, Inner City Legal Centre, Legal Observers NSW, Redfern Legal Centre, The Sunrise Project, University of Sydney Student Representative Council and 350 Australia, just to name a few. They urged all members of Parliament to uphold our democratic rights by voting against the legislation.
All affiliated unions of Unions NSW also unanimously endorsed a statement condemning the laws and committing to overturn them. Shamefully, that was not to be, and had we not managed to hold up the passage of the legislation for even that short period of time, the then Government and the so‑called Opposition Labor Party would have managed to team‑up to progress the bill from its first introduction in the Legislative Assembly to passing the Legislative Council within 24 hours—truly shameful and anti‑democratic behaviour. The anti‑protest bill increased the regulation‑making power, under which this regulation is created, which meant that the New South Wales Government was then able to introduce further regulations restricting actions that would obstruct traffic on all major bridges, tunnels and roads in the Greater Sydney region, City of Newcastle and City of Wollongong. It is no coincidence that these cities have a strong and proud history of political and industrial protest.
The amendments to the Crimes Act allowed those powers and penalties to be mirrored for actions that obstructed a major facility, defined in the regulations as nearly all railway and metro stations, ferry terminals and major ports, and infrastructure facilities including coal‑fired power stations, distribution centres, oil terminals, steelworks and aluminium works, and airports.
Each of those regulations was subject to attempts by my Greens colleagues and I to disallow them. A number of members in this House will recall the four or five times we attempted to disallow these overreaches into our right to political expression. Time and again, we struggled to right this wrong, and time and again the Labor Party teamed up with the Liberals, The Nationals and the conservative crossbench to maintain this repressive regime. Shame! It is all the more shameful when considered in the context that those laws were forced through without public consultation. Two protesters participating in direct action in Sydney had their visas cancelled on the ground that their presence posed a threat to the "good order of the Australian community"—an entirely meritless exercise of the Minister's power that threatens the ability of people who are not citizens to participate in democratic expression and assembly.
Of equal concern were comments from senior government Ministers criticising protesters for seeking legal advice regarding their charges. Seeking legal advice is a fundamental right and not a basis for legitimate criticism. This marked a dark and disturbing turn towards a more repressive society, ushered in by the establishment political parties. In conjunction with those laws was the formation by New South Wales police of Strike Force Guard. Its purpose was to prevent and disrupt protest activities in New South Wales. Strike Force Guard coordinated an armed and militarised raid on a campsite of peaceful activists in the Blue Mountains, during which a number of peaceful activists were injured, seven arrested and held overnight, and 40 more activists—including children, people with disabilities and elderly people—were surrounded by heavily armed and militarised, aggressive police and detained for over four hours in a cold, wet field. Police breached multiple protocols in their interactions and denied activists nearly every civil liberty.
Every person and every vehicle was individually searched. Phones and communications devices were seized before all 40 activists were forced to leave the campsite with no bedding, warm clothes or communications equipment. All that for a campsite where no crimes had been committed nor were underway. Strike Force Guard also visited an interstate operation targeting climate activists, harassing them and visiting them at home or in targeted roadside confrontations in the lead-up to the IMARC protest. The clear intention was to intimidate activists and drive them away from participating in political action, despite there being no clear evidence that any of them intended to attend any activities related to that event. The application of the laws was inherently uncertain, as police would charge people under those laws for blocking streets in Sydney, only for the charges to be overturned or dismissed as the definition of ''major roads" does not include Sydney CBD streets.
It seems that police do not particularly care if they are able to successfully prosecute people under the laws. The effect of the increased penalties is to allow the offence to be considered a serious offence, a definition that can then attract harsher bail conditions. Bail conditions that have been sought by police and granted by the courts include broad, non-association orders; area exclusions; and restrictions on communications, including being prohibited from using an encrypted device or messenger service. Those bail conditions are used as a form of extrajudicial punishment as well as a tactic by police to fracture activist groups and prevent people from participating in future actions. Activists find themselves held in jail for weeks on end before their hearings, even when police know there is little likelihood of a successful prosecution.
The laws were subject to a successful constitutional challenge brought by the Knitting Nannas. During debate, we flagged to the Government that the laws were unconstitutional, and we were right to do so. That is why a statutory review provision was inserted into the legislation to require the Government to consider the implications of this action and hopefully unwind their dangerous application. We are told that the review has happened. We were told that the public report, although long past, has sheepishly been tabled today. But we only have half of the review, because the report of the statutory review into the relevant sections of the Crimes Act, under which this regulation falls, is still glaringly absent. Still we wait.
In the meantime, the Government has embarked upon an expansion of this repressive and draconian anti‑protest regime. This regulation is just one element of that expansion. The Government has introduced a new piece of legislation once again targeting climate activists engaged in civil disobedience. That is in direct opposition to the calls of over 40 advocacy and civil society organisations for the Government to unwind its repressive regimes. Shame! We have the right to rebel, and we will always stand up for that right. The Greens know that our democracy is precious, and we will always fight for our right to fight for our rights.