Thursday, 14 August 2025

Community safety

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:23): (1845) My adjournment matter is for the Premier. The action I seek is for the Labor government to scrap its plans to bring New South Wales style anti-protest laws to our state. Protest is powerful, and it is essential in democracy. I was moved to see the images of hundreds of thousands of people marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, marching for Palestine, marching for humanity. I am moved regularly by the images each weekend of thousands of people protesting here in Melbourne each Sunday. When people feel that their leaders are not listening to them, they take to the streets so that they can be seen, so that people in this room see them. Do you see them? Protest is powerful because you do see them. It is right in front of your face. It is impossible to ignore. It is no wonder that the government wants to stop it. Hundreds of thousands marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge for Palestine and days later we saw the federal Labor government announce that they will recognise the state of Palestine. Recognition of a Palestinian state has been Labor’s national platform for years, yet Labor in government refused to acknowledge Palestine all this time. They even booted out a senator from their party for supporting the Greens’ earnest attempts to recognise Palestine previously. Only days after one of the largest protests in this country’s history did Labor act. It was a protest that Labor in New South Wales did everything in their power to try and stop, using laws that this government is trying to bring here. The motives are transparent. The desire to make pro-Palestine protesters just go away is well documented. The best way for this government to demonstrate to the people of Victoria that it does care and it will listen is to uphold our right to protest. To anyone who is listening: recognition of Palestine is one step, but the march for humanity was asking for sanctions and an end to the two-way arms trade with Israel, and we will all keep marching.