Wednesday, 14 August 2024

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (09:55): Today Dr Bob Brown will be sentenced after being found guilty last week of a crime. What was his crime? Was he being violent? Was he being destructive? No. He and other forest defenders were peacefully protesting to protect swift parrot habitat from logging. Lack of cooperation or inconvenience, resistance and peaceful protest – these are not violent acts, and yet there is a disturbing trend of Australian governments to recast those who are exercising their democratic right to peaceful protest as perpetrators of violence and criminalising them. We are seeing the right to protest being curtailed at every turn by governments, including Victorian Labor, with attempts to silence and marginalise those who dare to stand up to those who are the real criminals, those who exploit and plunder our environment and climate for profit, those who support war and genocide and those who enable the richest to grow their wealth off the backs of the poorest. The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, and our governments should be protecting it, not repressing it. Bob Brown, in reflecting on this antidemocratic slide by governments in Australia, said to us last week, ‘They can’t jail our consciences.’ Indeed they can’t – and you never will.