Page 95 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 11 February 2020
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Recent grassroots action in response to the war on waste has prompted a range of legislative changes and the development of innovative solutions to waste reduction. Even the South Sydney Rabbitohs were brought back by protest; although I would like to note that I go for the Raiders.
The ACT government supports the right of Canberrans to peaceful assembly and freedom of association. This includes supporting the right to protest and strike, extending that right to young people and students in our schools and colleges.
Many Canberrans, including young people, have already taken part in the global climate movement, including through protest, because they are rightly worried about climate change. The unprecedented bushfires have justified their protest; they have not only destroyed lives, homes and habitats but sent billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
I am pleased to contribute to this matter of public importance and hope to see the action of active ACT residents come to fruition in the form of good climate policy and progress on many other important social issues.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.57): I thank my colleague Ms Le Couteur for her thoughts on this important topic, one which, unfortunately, is relevant at the moment for all of the wrong reasons.
A quick and dirty Google search of the words “crackdown on protesters” yielded the usual 10-million-plus results, most of them from overseas. England, Hong Kong, Sudan, Egypt, Russia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, France and Ecuador all appeared on the first few pages. But thanks to some very rushed legislation in Queensland last year, which I will talk more about in a minute, Australia appeared, too; and, really, we should not be on that list. We have democratic rights in this country, and those include the right to peaceful protest, so why are we seeing “crackdowns” and what do we need to do about it?
We are and have been fortunate in the ACT that our citizens’ protest rights have been strongly defended in law. I am thinking in particular of the Protection of Public Participation Act 2008, which, to quote the act, is “to protect public participation, and discourage certain civil proceedings that a reasonable person would consider interfere with engagement in public participation”. What the legislation does not do, as former Greens MLA Dr Deb Foskey said when she introduced it, is “protect illegal, violent or intimidatory behaviour”; nor can it be used “as a defence against any offence”. But it does stop those with deep pockets using the legal system to intimidate legitimate community protest and legitimate community participation in protests in which they have a right to be involved. I think this is great for protesters in the ACT.
I did note, Madam Deputy Speaker, your comments about the prohibition on people protesting against abortion in the ACT. Of course, it is right to remind the chamber that there is not a prohibition on protesting. There is an exclusion zone around one medical facility in the ACT so that those who are seeking those medical services can seek those services in some degree of privacy. Those who wish to protest are free to
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