Anti-protest laws are a threat to all movements fighting for social justice
Extinction Rebellion Australia, 6 July 2025
A report released just before the July 3 National Day of Protest Rights provides evidence of how harsher protest laws impact the communities we work with. The real criminals are the states subjugating entire populations and those peddling disinformation about the climate crisis. DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!
Anti-protest laws are being tabled in the Victorian State Parliament this August, under the cover of protecting "social cohesion".
The government is targetting pro-Palestine activists while threatening all movements that fight for social justice.
RALLY 12 AUGUST 5.30pm, Victorian Parliament House.
The top photo shows XR South Australia members outside the Adelaide Magistrates Court to support brave rebel Anna Slynn as she faced court again. See article on this website XRSA ACTIVIST GLUES ON TO SANTOS ADELAIDE HQ IN THE RUN-UP TO THE 2025 AGM.
In a social media post on 3rd July XRSA drew attention to the recent report by the Australian Democracy Network called In Defence of Dissent, which shows a marked increase in repressive anti-protest laws and hostile, often violent, law enforcement behaviour toward protesters across Australia from 2019 - 2024.
The report found that communities who express their views through protest in Australia are facing an increasingly hostile environment.
- Protesters are being sentenced to jail at ten times higher rates since 2021 than in the decade prior, most of them under new anti-protest laws.
- Police are more frequently using OC (pepper) spray and other weapons against protesters. Over 200 people needed to be treated by street medics as a result of OC spray at protests in 2019-2024. Four of these were children.
- Police are using punitive bail conditions to limit the organising ability of groups. Sixty-four peaceful protesters in NSW were banned from associating with protest groups as apart of bail conditions.
- Police used excessive force in 51 incidents from 2019-2024. Injuries from police conduct include a perforated eardrum, a broken arm, soft tissue damage, and serious bruising.
XRSA said:
"Just last Friday, New South Wales police brutally attacked pro-Palestine protesters picketing SEC Plating in Belmore, arresting five people and hospitalising one. The protesters from the Weapons Out of the West (WoW) group were exercising their right to peacefully protest against Australia’s provision of weapon parts to Israel.
"Videos posted on social media showed police dragging protesters across the ground, holding people by the neck and slamming them into fences. Former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas was hospitalised with injuries to her eye and face after being battered by two officers with no apparent cause."
Hannah posted the following on Instagram from hospital three days later while undergoing treatment for her injuries:
"I’m in this position because people like Chris Minns and Yasmin Catley have demonised protestors and passed draconian anti protest laws which license police to crack down on peaceful protest in extremely violent, brutal ways.
"The anti-protest laws aren’t just a threat to people protesting for Palestine but for any person who wants a safer world for all of us."
An article in the Guardian on 2nd July summarises the basics of the protest laws in NSW, and how they have changed.
In February 2025, police powers were expanded in laws that one Labor MP reportedly described during an internal meeting as the most “draconian” change to protest law in decades.
Under the change, police can issue a move on-order if a protest is taking place near a place of worship. The protest does not need to be directed at the place of worship or even about religion.
The legislation does not define “near” – this is at the police’s discretion. Sites in Sydney where protests commonly take place, such as Town Hall and Hyde Park – are close to places of worship. Police are required to give a move-on direction as a first warning. If a protester does not comply, they can be arrested and charged.
The Guardian article notes that this law has been mired in controversy. It was passed as part of a suite of reforms aimed at curbing antisemitism – and which are now the subject of an inquiry exploring whether parliament was misled before passing the laws.
The catalyst for the laws was not a religious event, but a protest outside a synagogue at which a member of the Israel Defense Forces was speaking.
It is also facing a constitutional challenge from the Palestine Action Group, a Sydney-based activist group committed to supporting the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and breaking the Australian Government's support.
Other laws have been introduced in recent years, primarily to target climate protests.
XRSA says "In May 2023, the South Australian Labor government brought in excessively punitive law changes in reaction to non-violent protests by Extinction Rebellion SA, increasing penalties for creating ‘an obstruction in a public place’ to $50,000 or three months imprisonment, with costs of any state intervention to be payable to the state with no burden of proof.
"Although originally aimed squarely at the growing environmental movement - whose aims are simply to protect life on earth from ecocide and mitigate the worsening climate crisis, these law changes are able to be applied to protesters across the full spectrum of issues and are an example of state sponsored repression of the people’s voice."
We must continue to condemn draconian backlash against protest in this country. Just about every important right we have has been won through protest action and the endeavours of ordinary people standing up to injustice. We must #ProtectProtest.