An urban legend I heard many years ago goes something like this: Melbourne became known as a centre of protest early in its colonial history, between gold miner actions and struggles for working conditions such as the eight-hour day. As such, in order to create a city in which there was no real “point of convergence” for protesters to take action (for example, a town square), as well as to reduce increasingly frequent displays of robust democratic engagement, the Hoddle Grid pattern was chosen as a practical solution.
Whether there is truth to this claim still appears to be up for debate. Certainly when it comes to protest, Melbourne has an abundance of such activity, and does tend to “do them better” than other major Australian cities, city square or not. It’s a rare occurrence that a week goes by without a protest taking place in Melbourne, and some — such as for Invasion Day, the anti-Iraq War marches, or moratoriums — have been noted for drawing masses.
As a regular protest-attender, and sometime organiser, I take pride in the fact that Melburnians have this reputation for “getting out on the streets”. Yet over the years, I have noted that not only have police numbers increased dramatically at the rallies, but that nowadays it is also standard practice for special operations group officers to attend — fully kitted out in Kevlar and armed with an abundance of assault weaponry.
The news last month, then, that Victoria Police approached the state government to introduce a permit-application process for protests is a completely unnecessary overreach. The Allan government rejected the proposal, but it’s unlikely this will be the last we will hear of it, particularly as other states have such permit processes in place — and as Victoria Police has demonstrated on several occasions that it revels in extra powers.
This request came off the back of two political actions last month: a community picket at Webb Dock where protesters shut down operations in a bid to stop the import of weaponry and goods to Israel; and a rally in the city that included gender-critical feminists on one side of the barricades, and trans rights activists and anti-fascists on the other (an anniversary protest for a similar event — attended by neo-Nazis — that took place last year with the arrival of UK opinionista Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull).
In its call for a permit system, Victoria Police highlighted its concerns that due to the frequency of protests in Melbourne, and the increased police presence it believes it needs to supply to decrease public disruption, there was a need to introduce a process where such protests could be shut down. Police also highlighted the problem of “violent protesters” needing to be contained.
Protest is a fundamental human right. Indeed, the right to “peaceful assembly” is mentioned in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Introducing a permit system potentially breaches this by putting the power with the police, rather than the people, and giving them the right to say what is and isn’t acceptable to protest. Whether “violent protesters” are a problem is also questionable. If anything, protesters are mainly peaceful; conflict arises when they fail to adhere to often ridiculous police directives, with police then enacting violence to get people to submit.
This is evidenced not only by statements put out by Melbourne Activist Legal Support and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, which highlight the extent of violence and police weaponry used on protesters, but also by the images and videos obtained by journalists documenting the events. Indeed, this footage by BOX4 shows two trans rights activists being thrown to the ground by police for apparently being in the “wrong area”, and a Herald Sun photographer being manhandled and injured.
Police violence at protests has long been a problem, but it particularly worsened during the COVID years when the then Andrews government increased policing powers to enforce new rules around community movement during a public health crisis. It was at this point that police also received additional assault weapons to use on protesters, which they have continued to do so since their first recorded use on anti-lockdown protesters.
It’s hard enough trying to figure out why protective services officers — essentially a policing category that grew out of public transport ticket inspectors and requires only 12 weeks’ training — are required to carry guns. So why do protesters need to be surrounded by special operations police carrying rubber bullets and capsicum spray grenades?
A police community liaison officer has told me that it’s “standard procedure” nowadays to have special operations police at protests. Rather than making protests safer, all this seems to accomplish is increased police violence and aggression. At protests, when they are not enacting violence on protesters, police mainly just stand around guarding property, such as the stairs of Victoria’s Parliament House, to make sure grassroots types don’t climb too high. I am certain I am not the only person who feels less safe when the officers are around, particularly as an Indigenous woman.
Permit systems do not appear to have stopped police from enacting extraordinary violence on protesters in Sydney. If anything, as evidenced by this report by Legal Observers NSW, protesters are being brutalised, bullied and surveyed in ways that are clearly excessive and disturbing. Permit systems for protests are not only not necessary, but they are also unwarranted. Further, a police presence is not required, or wanted, at any rally, particularly when community organisers work hard to train marshals and medics to ensure a safe event.
Protest is a sign of a healthy democracy, and it’s time police powers were wound back and less police attendance became normalised. Unless this happens, this aggression towards protesters will continue to escalate and will one day end in tragedy.
Well said. I lived through the old Bjelke Petersen governments in Qld with the street march bans that smug Victorians and unobservant Qlders make jokes about. Meanwhile, since well before covid, convoys of black Public Order Response police cars queue into Melbourne’s cbd in the evenings, barely noticed by locals. As visitors, we did not feel safe when gun toting paramilitary types patrolled trains. Meanwhile in Qld, a Labor government deploys mounted police and armored water canon vehicles when literally 8 pensioners and 3 dreadlocked crusties block a cbd lane to protest environmental degradation (ignoring the fact the lane is blocked “legally” by tradies’ utes at a building site 100m away). I admittedly tire of the cos-play warriors unfurling their banners and making a racket at protests, of protests that seem to amalgamate multiple “progressive” issues while diluting all the messages etc…, but we should value the ability to protest and not tolerate this not so creeping chipping away of long fought for rights.
One is a little suspicious of how often any hot issue (demonstration) that has been platformed by RW MSM then attracts counter protest of the far right and/or cosplay types, that helps to drag everyone and the issue down…. e.g. entryists or insurgents can discredit a positive message or cause.
Or, it can be totally confected a la cosplay tradies at anti-Covid measure ‘freedom rallies’ which were one global astroturf with fossil fuels and hard RW news outlets in the background, or even embedded, to protest against centrist governance and liberal democracy; ‘agents of chaos’ to ‘accelerate’ change a la Bannon et al.
According to DeSmog, climate science and Covid science deniers or doubters with ‘freedom rallies’, were joined at the hip.
‘How the UK’s Climate Science Deniers Turned Their Attention to COVID-19. The coronavirus crisis quickly divided the population between those putting their trust in public health experts and others quick to question the science.’
https://www.desmog.com/2020/08/10/how-uk-climate-science-deniers-turned-their-attention-coronavirus-covid-19/
what is the difference to the old witch/ women haters of old days when smug beards use the terms Terf ? Read trans exclusionary Radical Feminist .. its just ugly labels ; right is left and left means right when if you say its wrong to blow up women and innocent babes you are supposedly ” left” and because women rights and bodies are being coopted to serve self id and big pharma ya labelled anti and right wing ? It is propagandist ugly old fashioned chauvenism.
The right to protest must necessarily include the right to disrupt other people. That’s what makes it effective. The police are traditionally sympathetic to the status quo which means they have repression and punishment in their DNA. That means they are not acceptable arbiters of who gets to protest.
Traditionally sympathetic – how patronising. Police are paid by the government – who are in place for the majority. If police didn’t support the status quo, they would be punished & or fined.
Just because something is supported by the majority doesn’t mean it is right. Take a look back at the Vietnam war protests and at climate protests right now.
Plenty to discuss about protests, as demonstrated by the comments so far. But Celeste’s topic was
1) the fact that the PORT (Public Order Response Team) now routinely attends protests along with the regular Vic Pol officers
and
2) the fact that Vic Pol management recently sought from the Vic state govt the institution of a rally permit system. Knocked back, but activists are assuming the Police will try again.
I’m active with XR. IMO, the PORTS are unnecessary at almost all protests and their menacing presence (they’re the ones all in black who never smile and march in formation) immediately ups the tension.
And the last thing we need is more police powers to clamp down on protests and criminalise protesters.
If that happens, we’ll need protest marches against the police.
“Peterloo”
except a woman was hit and media are not identifying the issue Let Women Speak and stop coopting womens and lesbians safe spaces then silencing by the men claiming victimhood – women rights and pronouns stolen – women denied a voice in the media – i want peaceful protest and a real peoples’ media not this captured and labelled propagandist lobbyland state
Yes. But there is an element missing in this thread, and in the opinion piece. Who is going to protect one group of protesters from another group?
No protest should be banned, and yes, a permit system could be used to do exactly that.
However, these are the scenarios:
A massive turnout of police to protect the Let Women Speak from the transactivists who outnumbered the women by 20:1.
or
Using a permit system to prohibit the LWS event from occurring, thereby avoiding the violence and threat of violence directed at the women.
Both are ways to protect citizens from assault. Only one preserves the right to protest.
Which on is it?
I cannot agree more with this premise. Protests make a difference when they impact people.
The police maintain the status quo, and protests by definition challenge that. The police should have zero say in whether protests should occur or not.
Completely incompatible
I was there. At the Let Women Speak event you write about. I went to hear what those women had to say. That turned out to be impossible because the transactivists drowned their voices out. The transactivists repeatedly tried to slip through police lines to get to the women. They were nearly all old or middle aged women.
The women were gathered on and in front of the first flight of steps in a corner on the bottom. The speakers were on the second from top step. Behind the speaker was the level drive/path where the cars of politicians or dignitaries are sometimes driven, above which was the second flight of steps.
I was standing at ground level, immediately in front of the stone balustrades, behind which is the drive/path. This drive/path led up to and behind the women. A police line was at the start of this drive/path, stopping access to the transactivists.
Two of the transactivists slipped through the police line and ran up this drive/path. Both were tackled down to the ground by the police. They were tackled in such a way that neither of them hit their head on the drive/path. I was watching through the stone balustrades, about two metres from one of them as they were brought down. I watched as the police officers cuffed the person. One of the police officers cradled the transactivists head to stop it hitting the ground. Whilst it was not gentle, the tackling, neither of those transactivists were injured by the police.
However, those transactivists were intent on getting to the women speaking. They were not well-intended. You may be aware of the Let Women Speak event in NZ last year, where a young man repeatedly punched one of the women in her head, fracturing her eye socket and causing other injuries. She was 70 years old.
The level of aggression from the transactivists directed at the women at this recent event was high. A few things I saw was the screaming fury directed at the women, the repeated lunging at a woman who mistakenly walked past their side, the hitting of a young woman joining the event by a transactivist as she walked past. Aggression and threat that was high enough for the police to shut down the event early, after 40 minutes, because it was getting dangerous.
Take from this what you will. But I will point out that those two transactivists, both young men, were not simply in ‘the wrong area’.
Yep and watch the video online on youtube to view the mostly braying mob- young and seasoned women wanted to speak to the very real cooption of vulnetable women and childrens’ rights ; the reality women are born into ; womens rights ( women over 50 %of the populace btw) The profiling and vile witch mongering by men and captured self serving women who fail to see that sex is not a vibe its a reality just like childbirth – big pharma and health might wish to capture the self actualisation of a privileged few – take women back to lackey and called witch and the media men …. crickets …. Here is Sal Grover new mum starts a woman only app – and now having to fight in the High Court to tell a born man No This is a safe space for women only – look at the horror and misogyny women get online – but no unless we play nice we get maligned as anti and right wing by those who sound and act like witchhunters from Salem – the gender card is so flexible as propaganda too ; we underestimate how women are so feared and hated for our inate power to disquiet the power ID /male ego and social power catd – women too attack women who dare challenge orthodoxy