Thursday, 1 August 2024

Peaceful protest

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:41): (1024) The action I seek this evening is for the Minister for Police to ensure our state’s police assist Victorians to enjoy their charter rights to peaceful assembly. For nearly 10 months community members have gathered in their thousands to call for peace and a free Palestine, and on most weekends these overwhelmingly peaceful protests are the single largest public event in the Melbourne CBD. Until recently a mid-size truck has been used by rally organisers as a sound stage and a platform for speakers and PA equipment and, importantly, to provide a raised stage for Auslan interpreters. The use of the truck had been permitted by police for approximately 36 successive weeks but then suddenly became an issue on Sunday 9 June 2024. Police had not indicated any concerns regarding the use or the position of the truck before this date.

There are concerns from legal and rights experts and the community that a police decision, implemented without discussion with the event organisers, to not allow the truck anymore imposes unfair, arbitrary and potentially harmful restrictions upon the right to peaceful assembly, guaranteed under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. This appears to be just one small example of a disturbing recent trend of crackdowns on democratic and peaceful protest. While police may assert they are trying to enforce an orderly society or disrupting peaceful rallies in order to ‘preserve the peace’, these aims should not allow our state’s police to ride roughshod over Victorians’ rights, and in fact neither of these aims are a permissible ground for breaching protest rights.

A stationary truck on a sidewalk poses no significant safety risk, and in fact it may make the event safer having the truck positioned there. The presence of the truck also assisted in ensuring all Victorians had the ability to enjoy the right to peaceful assembly as, as I mentioned, it had been used as an elevated position for Auslan interpreters to address those gathered for the rally, allowing Deaf community members to fully participate and to access their section 16 charter rights.

Minister, examples like this – the arbitrary crackdown on the pro-Palestine rally truck – are worrying and alarming, and they are representative of the worrying erosion of protest rights outlined in the Human Rights Law Centre’s recent report Protest in Peril. I ask you that you ensure our state’s police assist Victorians to enjoy their rights to peaceful assembly rather than undertake actions that hinder those rights.