David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

A few short weeks ago I and, I think, all of my Greens colleagues across the country joined thousands of people—300,000 of whom walked across the Harbour Bridge—in an historic march for a free Palestine and an end to genocide. In that moment, I saw solidarity and the possibility for a better world. I saw people of all ages, all abilities, all backgrounds uniting in the driving rain to stand up for conscience and to end the suffering of the people of Gaza.

But where I saw solidarity and possibility, where I saw hope, where I saw my beautiful hometown of Sydney come together for peace and for humanity, the New South Wales Labor Party just saw a problem. Like too many state and territory governments, New South Wales Labor sees protest not as a fundamental part of our democracy, not as a human right, not as the most powerful tool for driving progress in societies; they saw the protest as an irritant—as a political problem. They would far rather we had not marched. They would have liked Sydneysiders to stay at home, watch their Netflix and passively let governments fail to oppose a genocide. They would rather our voices had not been heard. They want to keep power in the walls of parliament and in the offices of police commissioners they appoint, and they desperately want to stop power being exercised in our streets and in our workplaces, as we come together as people with good conscience who care about the future.

The right to protest is under assault in states and territories across the country. That is having real impacts our democracy and our collective ability to come together to demand changes, to end unjust laws, to protect nature, to stand up for decency. The environment and justice movements are increasingly under threat of legal sanctions and arrests for acts of nonviolent resistance to the extractive industries, especially logging and fossil fuels.

Here, I want to say, to place on record, my party's gratitude to those forest defenders who are in tripods protecting old-growth forests as the bulldozers are coming. I want to express our solidarity and gratitude to those First Nations elders whom we know, when they step out on the streets with us, face the real threat of police violence and arrest in a way that many of us don't, because we have a different privilege when we walk and exercise our rights to protest. I thank those hundreds of thousands of my fellow Sydneysiders who walked beside Australian Palestinians and Australians from across society to cross that bridge for justice. I want to make sure that they are not arrested for the act of showing their dissent and standing up for a better world.

So today we push back on this and we say, clearly: we will protect protest and we will keep marching and striking and sitting in and locking on, and we will defend those who take actions on behalf of our environment, to defend human rights, to protect nature, and to hold onto what they believe in. We do this because now more than ever the future demands bravery right now, from all of us. Protesters must not be met with repression, with batons, with capsicum spray, with horses, with police violence or with long prison sentences for the act of peaceful dissent. And Australian politicians, including in this place, where you can just smell the hypocrisy rise, time after time, are quick to condemn other nations who criminalise and attack peaceful protests. I've heard it. Within 24 hours, we will get a member of the Labor Party or the coalition attacking some other country because of their laws criminalising protests or their police brutality, then at the next moment, back in their own state and territory governments, they are passing new laws to police protests and prevent people coming out and exercising their right to dissent. While politicians in this place are quick to condemn those other nations, under our very noses, state and territory governments across Australia have been chipping away at—not just chipping away at but axing away at—this fundamental right.

I have been arrested under unfair protest laws when I stood between row upon row of riot police—puffed up like highly armed turkeys, puffing their chests out—and school students who were protesting against a climate disaster. At that time, Sydney was surrounded by fire, ash was falling from the skies across our city, and those students were outside the then prime minister's Kirribilli place while he was off holidaying in Hawaii. Our country was burning, ash was falling from the sky. Students were in a cul-de-sac in front of an empty house, because the prime minister was on a holiday in Hawaii, and the police sent the riot officers in to move them and clear them from the roadway because, they said, they were blocking the cul-de-sac in front of an empty house with an absent prime minister. And what were the students doing? They were school kids, mainly. They were calling for action on climate. And the New South Wales police used anti-protest laws and move-on orders to stop the students from blocking the cul-de-sac in front of the PM's empty home. They arrested people, one after the other, including myself. And as that expensive and failed police farce played out—and they took it to court and were hosed out—I saw the system close up. It's nothing to do with public safety, nothing to do with national security. It wasn't to open an empty cul-de-sac to an empty house. It was being used by the rich and powerful to avoid accountability.

We know that these laws are mostly used against young people and, especially, First Nations communities who are resisting damage to their land, their water and our collective future.

Young protestors who stand up for the right to a liveable planet are being hit with criminal penalties, while the owners of the corporations that pollute our water, destroy our land, damage sacred sites and mortgage those young people's futures are being green lighted by this place and by state and territory governments, and even subsidised by governments, for the damage they cause.

This bill is an attempt to rebalance the scales towards justice. This bill operates by clearly defining the right to peaceful protest as a federally protected right, drawing on long-standing international precedent from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This bill establishes that a person, a human being, has the right to engage in peaceful protest in a public place and that any restrictions on that right must be justified in accordance with principles necessary in a democratic society. We're finally legislating for the right to protest as enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Right to Protest Bill affirms that all Australians have the right to engage in peaceful protest in public spaces and that any restrictions on that right must be strictly limited to those necessary for national security, public safety, public order, public health or the rights of others, and they must be proportionate, and that includes the excessive penalties that have been passed by the New South Wales government, the Victorian government and the Tasmanian government. There are no exemptions for the feelings of state premiers, who would rather you don't speak up and would rather you stay behind.

The bill ensures that excessive penalties, such as lengthy prison sentences and exorbitant fines, are considered unnecessary and disproportionate limitations on the right to protest. It reads them down. The bill provides that, where state or territory laws conflict with this federal protection, those laws will be invalid, and they'll be invalid to the extent of the inconsistency. This bill is an essential reset. Some might criticise it as being too reasonable and to proportionate a protection of the fundamental right to protest. I'll face those criticisms. What we're doing here today is placing the protections that the federal government agreed to when it entered into these international agreements into domestic law.

I want to place on the record one person who was critical for me, my office and my team. I want to give a shout-out to my chief of staff, Kym Chapple, for the enormous work she's done on this. I want to point out one person who was critical for getting this work done, former Greens leader Bob Brown. Some 18 months ago I caught up with Bob in Hobart. Bob, the Tasmanian Greens and countless forest protectors in Tasmania have been putting themselves on the line to protect that old growth forest. They have seen firsthand how those state laws in Tasmania were designed to criminalise the very act of protecting a forest and standing up for those beautiful natural assets, arresting protesters and grabbing them, even before they get to the forest, on public land. I want to thank him for his courage, his support and his pressure in bringing this bill to the chamber today. We call on all parties in this place, who live and breathe only because we have a functioning democracy, to join us today to legislate for the right to peaceful and essential protest.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to speak on the Right to Protest Bill 2025 put forward by the Australian Greens. I'm delighted that we're on broadcast while I do it, because the Australian people need to understand that (a) they already have the right to protest in Australia, and (b) let's call this bill what it really is. It's been put forward by the Australian Greens for this reason—to give legal cover to the Greens activist base.

For every small business listening in to this broadcast, these are the same groups who block highways, chain themselves to machinery, disrupt small businesses and—listen to this, mums and dads of Australia—even prevent emergency vehicles from getting through when they need to.

This bill has got nothing to do with the right to protest. Let me tell you what this bill does. We're going to go through a few of the clauses. When you go through the clauses you actually understand what this bill does. It is basically seeking to legislate the right to cause chaos. Senator Shoebridge says that this is an essential reset of the right-to-protest laws in Australia. It depends on what you mean by reset, doesn't it? I would have thought that the right to cause chaos and basically have a society based on anarchy is possibly not something that the Australian people will accept.

Let's have a look at the bill. To say that it's an absurd bill is an understatement. It is designed to take away safety and civility from our streets, in favour of the Greens' activist support base. Let's have a look at what the bill actually does. When you look at the bill, as opposed to listening to the comments of Senator Shoebridge, it is a one-clause bill of rights. Let's be very clear about what that does. The right is one that enshrines protest rights in a completely unfettered and unprecedented manner. It's never been done before in any international human rights instrument or in any legislative charter of rights. I want to read the definition in the bill. Once you read the definition in the bill, you basically know that you can only go downhill from there. This is what section 5 says:

In this Act:

protest includes the following:

(a) actions that are political in nature;

(b) actions that are disruptive, or that seek to be disruptive.

Again, for those listening in to the broadcast, this is what the Greens want to do. They basically want to give, by this bill, legal cover to their activist base—those same groups, as I said, who block highways and cause you inconvenience, chain themselves to machinery and disrupt small businesses. God help any small business—they don't need any more disruption; it's bad enough under the Albanese government.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Collateral damage.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's exactly right. You've got to be kidding me. I have to say that it's pretty offensive when their activist base stops emergency vehicles from getting through.

Let's be clear. That is what the Greens want to entrench as a fundamental right for all Australians—the right to take actions that are disruptive or seek to be disruptive. Let's have a look at the practical effect of that on the ground. For all of those in their workplace today, I can come to your workplace and disrupt you because I don't like your race or religion or because you're an ex-partner and I don't like the way you're raising my kids. That is actually a right that I would have under this bill. In the Greens' weird political-fantasy world, if this bill were to pass, this is what would happen: Australians would no longer have the right to be safe from crime and wouldn't have the right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs or to be educated in a faith based school. Guess what you would have? You would have the right to disrupt whoever you like. The fact that the Greens can even put forward a bill of this nature in the Australian Senate shows that, as a political party, they are not serious and they are certainly not credible.

That was only the definition. As I said, if you actually read through the bill, it only goes downhill from there. The bill pretends to have a couple of guardrails in section 9. This is how they define those guardrails: 'restrictions on right'. 'Guardrail', though, I have to say, is probably too strong a term to use. This is perhaps a better way to say it: a wobbly fence made of sticks. You and I might say, 'Well, okay, clearly a right to protest can't be at large.' Such a right could be abused.

Let's face it. The current right is abused by almost anyone with ill intent and puts at risk our public safety and national security or even, given this has occurred before, our public health.

But then, as we do in the Senate, we actually look to the detail of the bill. Looking at clause 9(1), guess what that actually does? It is a limitation on the ability to actually restrict the right. This is what the clause says: you can only have restrictions 'as are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of' those sorts of things. Then you go down to clause 9(2), and, again, the devil is always in the detail when the Australian Greens put forward a bill. It's a great title—a bit like Labor—but guess what? If you read the clauses, Australians will start to get very, very scared. This is what clause 9(2) says:

(a) a restriction is only necessary if it is intended to, and appropriately adapted to the goal of, addressing an unacceptable risk of harm related to a matter in paragraphs (1)(a) to (e); and

(b) an excessive penalty—

Get this, everybody. Let me go back to what the Greens are good at—the activist space and blocking highways, chaining themselves to machinery, disrupting small business and even preventing emergency vehicles from getting through. This is what the bill says:

(b) an excessive penalty is an unnecessary restriction regardless of whether the penalty is imposed for contravening a necessary restriction.

Quite frankly, I'm not even sure the grammar is actually correct in that clause.

But this is what it actually says: exposing someone to a penalty for going to a public place or a workplace or a hospital with the deliberate intent of disrupting that place, under this bill, is now a right you would have. We would be legislating, if this were to go through, the right to chaos and, as I said quite frankly, the right for society to dissolve into anarchy, which is probably a long-held wish of the Australian Greens. So you would now have that right, but the bill also says that you could never be exposed to an excessive penalty. You have to be kidding me!

It's not enough to take a completely reasonable position and say, 'I want this hospital or this school or this business or this street to function as intended for the benefit of society at large,' because in the Greens's weird, fantasy world this would actually be a restriction on a right to protest. There is no two ways about it. This bill has been brought forward because the Greens do not want—and this is where it's so dangerous—law-abiding citizens to go about their day. They do not want that. We have an arbitrary rule that something called an 'excessive penalty', whatever that means, is an unnecessary restriction. Under this bill, go ahead and cause as much chaos as you like, because guess what? If the bill were legislated, you could, and what's worse is that the court can't then impose upon you an unnecessary restriction of an excessive penalty. Honestly, you could not script this unless you actually lived in the Greens's weird, fantasy world.

But it actually gets worse, and I know that was already pretty bad. The real kicker is in clause 10. This is what clause 10 does, for everybody listening in, to a state or territory: clause 10 is an override of every state, territory or Commonwealth law that might seek to protect the community or provide essential services or guarantee the ordinary and rational functioning of civil society. Let me just read that out again, because most people would say, 'You're making things up.' No, it is actually there in writing in the bill that we currently have before the Senate. This is what clause 10 does: it is an override of every state, territory or Commonwealth law that might seek to protect the community or provide essential services or guarantee the ordinary and rational functioning of civil society. Clause 10 says that every such law, regardless of who passes it, has no effect if—you're going to love this—it contravenes the Greens's right to protest.

Let's look at the practical implication of that.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a point of order in that the senator is misleading the chamber by purporting to read from the bill, when she knows she's just making it up. She's made up everything she's said.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge—

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She just makes it up. It's not the bill.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, this is a debating point.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you can't mislead the chamber intentionally. She's the shadow—

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, resume your seat. That is a debating point. Your colleagues will have plenty of opportunities to reply.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For anybody listening in, can I tell you, you know you're on the right track and you're telling the truth when, mid-debate, the lead senator from the Australian Greens has got to jump up and interrupt you.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, on a point of order?

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, I'd like Senator Cash to refer to me by my title. Secondly, it is disorderly for the senator to respond to interjections.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it's disorderly to interject; it's not disorderly to respond if you have the call. I will remind Senator Cash that she should refer to members of the Senate by their correct titles.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I clearly hit a point, because Senator Shoebridge couldn't wait to jump to his feet for interjection No. 2. For all the Greens—we love the Australian people and we understand how they function. Senator Shoebridge, I am delighted to give you your correct title because I would hate for people listening in to not understand who is responsible for the bill that would literally seek to legislate chaos and anarchy in society.

As I said, clause 10 bells the cat. Let's just override every other law in the country! No criminal law, no public safety law, no workplace health and safety law, no public health law, no law about traffic and orderly management of our streets and infrastructure, no zoning law, no law about permits or protests, no terrorism law—now, that's an interesting one, given what we now know about the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has actually caused terror on the streets of Melbourne and could have killed Australians. Forget that—no terrorism law. There's no law that might provide for another right or freedom—nothing. It is a complete override, and it is an override without limits for every government everywhere.

I've got to give them credit, Senator Scarr. You and I would love to draft this type of law, seriously. Can you imagine you and I sitting down? We're both lawyers. Would we have fun, Senator Scarr! Let's override whatever law we can in Australia—

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know I can't stop the senator from misleading, but I can ask you to direct the senator to direct her contributions not behind her and over her shoulder to Senator Scarr, like she obviously wants to, but through the chair to show you respect.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All senators should direct their comments through the chair.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What do they call it in cricket—a hat-trick? A trifecta? I'm actually surprised, because I would have given Senator Shoebridge—through you, Deputy President—a little more credit than jumping up to interrupt me when I am clearly now hitting a sore point in relation to what is possibly the most contentious part of this bill—a complete override. For Australians who have turned on this debate, probably by accident, and are wondering, 'Good God—are they talking about actually legislating chaos and anarchy in the Senate?' Well, yes, absolutely. That is what this bill is.

Let's be very careful about what we're talking about and what has so offended Senator Shoebridge on behalf of the Australian Greens—the fact that Senator Scarr and I have actually read the bill. Senator Scarr and I have interrogated the clauses in the bill, and, yes, Senator Scarr and I are prepared to come in here and expose the Australian Greens for what they are: a party that, by this bill, is happy to legislate chaos. Australians, quite frankly, have enough chaos in their lives on a daily basis. They do not need a bill to legislate even more. As I said, section 10 overrides everything. It's a complete override. It is an override without limits for every government everywhere.

Let us be very, very clear. We already have, and I think Australians appreciate, broad freedoms to protest.

Every week people rally in our cities and towns. They march on Parliament House. They gather in public squares. They demonstrate for causes they believe in. That is, quite frankly, a healthy sign in a vibrant democracy. But Australians also know there is a line between legitimate protest and dangerous and disruptive conduct, and this bill deliberately blurs that line. What makes this worse is the rhetoric behind it. The Greens claim that Australia is sliding into authoritarianism simply because states have chosen to impose penalties on reckless and disruptive protesters. Let us be clear. The bill is ill-thought-out, undergraduate, excessive self-adulating pap from the most immature party in our political system. It deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the Right to Protest Bill 2025 and commend Senator Shoebridge for bringing it on. At its heart, this bill is about protecting one of the most fundamental pillars of democracy: the right of people to gather, raise their voices and demand change from those in power. Right now, across Australia, that right is under attack. Instead of addressing the crises we face globally, from climate change to genocide and from inequality to environmental damage and systemic injustice, governments are criminalising those who dare to speak up. This is not an exaggeration. Across almost every state and territory, Liberal and Labor governments have chipped away at the basic freedom to protest. They've introduced harsher laws, longer sentences, bigger fines and sweeping new police powers.

In many places today, Australians risk arrest simply for planning protest action. We must be honest about what is happening here. When governments are confronted with rising public concern about climate change, deforestation, mining, war and genocide, they are not responding with solutions; they are responding with suppression. Anti-protest laws aren't about safety; they're about silencing dissent. This bill would seek to reverse this dangerous trend. It codifies the rights already guaranteed to us under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Australia has ratified. It makes clear that Australians have the right to engage in peaceful protest in public places. That right can only be limited in the narrowest of circumstances, and, even then, those limits must be proportionate.

The bill ensures that excessive penalties like the exorbitant fines and lengthy prison sentences we've slapped on climate activists cannot stand. It ensures governments cannot criminalise protests simply to protect commercial interests and it ensures that vague excuses like public inconvenience are never again used to justify crushing democratic freedoms. Once we need permission to protest and once it becomes a privilege instead of a right, we've already lost the battle.

The warnings couldn't be clearer. Melbourne Activist Legal Support, a community of human rights advocates in my home state, put it bluntly in their submission to the UN Human Rights Council. They said that Australia is failing to meet its international obligations to protect freedom of assembly. They warn of a raft of repressive anti-protest legislation, the dangerous escalation of police tactics and the obstruction of the vital work of legal observers who monitor abuses at protests. Their conclusion was stark: if left unchallenged, these attacks on protest rights will have a devastating effect on our democracy, stripping citizens of their power. International human rights and democracy organisations agree. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Australia Institute have all documented the erosion of democratic freedoms in this country. And, in December last year, the Australian Democracy Network released its In defence of dissent report, showing how activists—especially climate and environment defenders—are facing unfair punishments simply for speaking out. That same month, the ABC reported that Australia now leads the world in arresting climate activists. We lead the world in arresting climate activists—think about that for a moment. On the global stage, our country is ranked No. 1 for locking up people who demand climate action. What a shameful legacy of successive governments in this country.

The examples are everywhere, including close to my home. The Victorian government recently introduced new anti-protest laws. These laws, amongst other things, sought to ban face coverings at protests and create broad, ambiguous safe zones around places of worship, exposing protesters to fines or penalties for simply exercising their democratic rights.

Thankfully, following strong opposition from human rights groups, community campaigners and the Victorian Greens, these provisions were significantly watered down. But the fact that they were ever proposed should ring alarm bells about the ongoing erosion of our right to dissent, because right now it is easier for a multinational logging company to flatten a forest than it is for a group of citizens to peacefully protest its destruction. It is completely upside down.

Native forests are some of our most precious ecosystems. They are vital carbon sinks. They are habitat for endangered species. They are part of the solution to the climate crisis. Yet those who defend them are treated like criminals. I also want to acknowledge former Greens leader and staunch forest defender Bob Brown, who has put his body on the line time and time again to protect our environment, to protect our forests and to protect our rights.

We've also seen Aboriginal forest defenders dragged before courts in Tasmania for standing on country to protect it. We have seen climate activists in Newcastle threatened with lengthy jail sentences for blockading coal exports. We have seen peaceful rallies for justice for Palestine in Melbourne—rallies that I am so proud to have joined—face military-style policing tactics simply for standing up against genocide and forced starvation. Shame on this government. The message from governments could not be clearer: if you dare to dissent, you will be punished.

While fossil fuel corporations continue to receive billions in subsidies, climate activists are thrown into jail. While logging companies level old-growth forests, people who gather to protect them face crippling fines. While governments fail to act on the climate crisis, they pour resources into policing those who demand action. This is the police-government nexus at work: state governments captured by powerful police forces who are pushing for even greater powers to suppress dissent. And it is all done in the name of protecting order, or commerce, when in truth it protects the profits of powerful interests.

But democracy requires disruption. Protest has always been disruptive; that is the point. The eight-hour workday, LGBTIQA+ rights, women's suffrage, land rights, environmental protections—none of these were gifted by governments; they were won by people taking to the streets, taking risks and demanding better. If we criminalise disruption we criminalise democracy itself. These laws reach into every corner of society. They silence First Nations people's fight against the long history of criminalising land rights and cultural heritage protests. They target the campus demonstrations and rallies of students and educators. They undermine workers and unions whose ability to strike or protest against unsafe or unfair corporate practices is already under siege. They threaten civil liberties more broadly, as police surveillance of protestors expands and laws against so-called inconvenience become a template for silencing all dissent. And they reach into foreign affairs, with recent demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights facing intimidation and restriction. This is why protest rights are the canary in the coalmine. Once the freedom to dissent is eroded, every other freedom is next.

Australia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We have accepted recommendations from the United Nations to protect freedom of assembly. But, instead of implementing them, we are going backwards. Unlike almost every other liberal democracy, Australia doesn't have a national human rights act. That means our protest rights are left vulnerable to a patchwork of inconsistent and increasingly repressive state laws. This bill begins to change that. It ensures that, where state laws conflict with these international obligations, they'll be invalid. This isn't radical; this is simply Australia doing what we said we would do when we signed the ICCPR.

Dissent is not a crime. Protest is the lifeblood of democracy. We are living through a time of escalating crises: climate breakdown, inequality and injustice. If governments refuse to act, the people will.

That is how progress has always been made, and that is how it will continue to be made. This bill is about protecting the ability of ordinary Australians to hold the powerful to account. It is about ensuring that future generations inherit a democracy that is alive not hollowed out by repression. I urge every member in this chamber to remember the movements that made your own rights possible—the protests that built the world. You and I now have a responsibility to enshrine and enhance them. I again thank my colleague Senator Shoebridge for bringing on this vital bill. Protest must endure if our democracy is to endure.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting the Right to Protest Bill 2025. The Albanese government recognises the rights of individuals to assemble and protest peacefully. This is an important right in any democracy. Freedom of expression and freedom of political communication are fundamental human rights that are enjoyed by all Australians and all people who are in Australia. These rights of freedom of political communication and the right to assemble and protest peacefully are rights that I've exercised myself on many occasions, along with my family, my friends, my Labor comrades and many other Australians. They are rights that Labor has always fought for.

These freedoms are, of course, subject to limitations that are reasonable and necessary in a free and democratic society to achieve an appropriate balance between freedom of expression and the protection of groups and individuals from offensive or harmful behaviour. These rights are protected under international law, which also recognises that they must be balanced with other important considerations. The key international treaty which guarantees these rights is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 21 of this treaty says:

The right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order … the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Even in the treaty on which this proposed bill is allegedly based there is recognition that the right of peaceful assembly is not unfettered.

In Australia finding the right balance between these considerations is generally a matter for the states and territories. Communication about political and government matters is already protected from undue burdens by the implied constitutional freedom of political communication, which the High Court has determined is essential to the proper functioning of Australia's system of democratic and representative government. The implied freedom operates as a constraint on laws passed by state and territory governments as well as the federal government.

The implied freedom of political communication is not an absolute freedom and is not infringed by laws that are reasonable appropriate and adapted or proportionate to advancing a legitimate purpose, such as protecting public health and safety. Under the current case law, three questions must be answered when deciding whether a law infringes the implied freedom. First, does the law effectively burden the freedom in its terms, its operation or its practical effect? This is known as the burden question. Second, if so, are the purpose of the law and the means adopted to achieve that purpose legitimate in the sense that they are compatible with the maintenance of the constitutionally prescribed system of representative government? This is known as the legitimate-end question. Third, if the answer to the second question is yes, is the law reasonably appropriate and adapted to advance that legitimate object? This is known as the reasonably appropriate and adapted question. This question involves a proportionality test to determine whether the law is justified as suitable, necessary and adequate in its balance.

If the first question is answered yes and the second or third question is answered no then the law will be invalid. There is essentially a three-step process to determining whether a particular law infringes the implied freedom of political communication. This implied freedom provides an existing avenue for challenging the validity of laws that restrict protest activity as a form of political communication, and the courts have considered the application of the implied freedom to protest activities in a number of cases. For example, in Cotterill v Romanes, a Victorian case, the Supreme Court of Victoria rejected a challenge to the Victorian COVID-19 stay-at-home and other health directions on the basis that they infringed on the implied freedom of political communication.

In Brown & Anor v The State of Tasmania, a majority of the High Court held that provisions of the Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act, a Tasmanian piece of legislation which restricted onsite protest activities, were invalid because they 'impermissibly burden the implied freedom of political communication'. I guess the point I'm making is that the implied freedom of political communication already operates as a method of challenging laws that unduly seek to limit protest activities, especially of course where they do breach that implied freedom of political communication.

While the implied freedom does not provide a personal right to protest, there would likely be a substantial overlap between the kinds of activities that would be protected by this bill and those that a court may find to infringe the implied freedom. The extent to which the bill may afford greater protection against laws that unjustifiably constrain protest activity is unclear.

Even if a law does not infringe the implied freedom of political communication, courts will still interpret legislation having regard to the protection of fundamental common law rights, such as the freedom of speech. This bill also includes a vague standard that would be difficult to apply in practice. There is an exception to the right to protest that would be established by the bill, where the state and territory law is necessary in the interests of national security, public safety, public order, the protection of public health or the protection of the rights and freedoms of other persons. In practice, the only way to clarify whether a particular state or territory law crosses this line would be through litigation, which creates needless uncertainty and expense.

In making laws, it is a matter for the Australian parliament and the state and territory parliaments to weigh the right to protest against other important considerations, such as upholding other rights and public safety concerns. As I've illustrated, there are a number of issues with this bill regarding its potential constitutionality or lack thereof. The fact is that we do have an implied freedom of communication—which is already is being used to challenge state laws which overly restrict that kind of activity. On balance, our system of government allows voters to judge whether parliaments have struck the right balance between competing freedoms and other critical considerations, such as upholding public safety concerns.

For all of those reasons, the government does not support this bill.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you come into my office you'll immediately see two things: a photograph of John Stuart Mill, the famous author of that wonderful essay on liberty, and a waxwork of the great French philosopher Voltaire. Those two historic figures, great advocates for freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of expression encapsulate the values which I seek to represent in this place. Both of them recognised that in terms of striking the right balance between the exercise of one person's rights, one person's freedoms, one has to consider the rights and freedoms of others. This has been articulated in various ways. One person's liberties should be granted except to the extent that they infringe upon on another person's liberties. There have been other formulations in relation to this balancing endeavour.

I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in freedom of association. I believe in freedom of expression. I believe in the right of Australians to make sure that their views are heard clearly and loudly, and I commend those Australians who exercise those rights within the legitimate limitations of the law. I've attended assemblies outside this place, and I know Senator McKenzie has attended assemblies outside this place of the stakeholders from her rural communities, which she so passionately represents, who come to this Australian parliament for their voices to be heard. When they do that, they do it in a lawful way, they do it in a respectful way and they do it in a way which doesn't cause disruption.

The question we have in this debate is whether or not the private member's bill put forward by the Greens and circulated by authority of Senator Shoebridge—I'll be very clear: I respect Senator Shoebridge's convictions and passions with respect to these freedoms of the individual. In the previous parliament I served with him on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, so I do respect his views in this regard.

However, having read the bill—I come back to the points which were made by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Cash—there are deep concerns with respect to the drafting of the bill, and I want to walk through those issues and place them on the record.

The outline of the bill, this Right to Protest Bill 2025, rightly refers to Australia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and many of these rights are part of our English common law history and have been rights which have been fought for over centuries. Article 19 of the ICCPR states that restrictions on the right to hold opinions without interference must only be those provided by law and which are necessary for, among other things, respect of the rights of others or the protection of national security, public order and public health. Article 21 of the covenant requires recognition of the right to peaceful assembly—I'll come back to that expression, the right to peaceful assembly—with minimal restrictions placed on this that are necessary in a democratic society. These covenants contained in the international treaty engage in this balancing process, which I think all Australians, or the vast majority of Australians, would agree with. An Australian has the right to express their point of view and a right to peaceful assembly to promote those views in assembly to have greater impact with respect to the expression of those views; however, it is not unfettered. Senator Watt referred to some of the legal tests which are applied in relation to the application of protecting the implied right to political communication under our Constitution. So there is balance already there in the system.

One of the curious things in this bill—if Senator Shoebridge has an opportunity to respond to this debate, it would be useful for him to respond to this question—is the definitions. The international treaty refers to peaceful assembly, yet section 3 of Senator Shoebridge's bill says:

The objects of this Act are:

(a) to recognise the right to engage in peaceful protest …

Well, what's the difference between assembly and protest? And why Senator Shoebridge using the term 'protest' instead of the term 'assembly', which is used in the international treaty? We then go to the definition of 'protest', and the definition of 'protest' is an inclusive definition that includes the following:

(a) actions that are political in nature—

and here's the issue—

(b) actions that are disruptive, or that seek to be disruptive.

So Senator Shoebridge isn't just talking about a peaceful assembly of people, of Australians exercising the right to freedom of speech; he is expanding that to encompass a protest that includes actions that are disruptive or that seek to be disruptive. That is the issue.

The vast majority of Australians would agree, in accordance with our fundamental values, that every single Australian, whether they are a senator or a new citizen, has the right to exercise their views and to express those views in public. However, there have to be limits. There necessarily have to be limits, and those limits are recognised in the international covenant. Those limits relate to things like public order, the right of other Australians to go about their business without being disrupted and the right of Australians to have access to emergency services. It may well be that, when some of these protests are organised, the intent is not to impede emergency services, but the reality is that if you conduct disrupt protest on major thoroughfares, major roads or major highways, at certain times you are going to have the collateral impact of impeding emergency services. People have a right to go about engaging in their jobs without their health and safety being impacted.

In Queensland, we've had protesters gluing themselves to pieces of equipment, gluing themselves to roads, and attaching steel mechanisms to their arms and then attaching themselves to roads and infrastructure—and, through you, Acting Deputy President Cox, I think Senator Shoebridge should reflect on some of the terminology used in one context in his contribution in that regard, and I'll come to that. People have attached these steel mechanisms to their arms and then attached them to infrastructure. To disassemble these things, our poor old emergency services personnel have to deploy the equipment they use to cut victims of car crashes out of their cars. There have to be limitations. This private member's bill doesn't recognise those limitations. In fact, as Senator Cash eloquently referred to, it has provisions which say, 'Oh, and, by the way, even if you breach the limitations, which are reasonable, you can't impose excessive fines.' What's to prevent someone from going out and doing exactly the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next day? We don't have any answers to that in this bill. There are no answers to that in this bill.

The other point I would like Senator Shoebridge and others to reflect on is this: we are having this debate in the context where there was a march with hundreds of thousands of people across Sydney Harbour Bridge. There were marches across all of our capital cities over the last weekend, including in Brisbane, in my home state. So I ask, didn't the system work? We didn't see riot police out there preventing people from marching. They actually did march. Senator Shoebridge marched with them. So what's the mischief he's trying to address in this bill when the march actually occurred? Doesn't that mean the checks and balances under our current system worked? Whoever was organising the protests in Sydney—and someone organised a protest in Brisbane—went through a process. The public order authorities went through their process and raised their legitimate concerns with respect to the hasty convening of the protest and what it meant for their obligations to keep people safe in their city. That was considered by the judge. The judge made a determination, which was respected by all Australians. What's the problem? What's the mischief? I would have thought that that all suggests that the system actually works. That suggests that the checks and balances that we have in the system work. Senator Shoebridge, through this bill, would inadvertently—I'll say inadvertently—give people a right to engage in extreme conduct without there being checks and balances to protect the rights of other Australians. That is of deep concern.

I want to make a comment with respect to the police service. These are the people who keep us safe while we sleep in our beds at night. One of the things that struck me in relation to the discussion over the march which eventually happened over Sydney Harbour Bridge was the commentary from one of the senior officers of the New South Wales Police Force. Listening to his comments, that officer was genuinely concerned about the logistics and the impacts of having such a large-scale march with tens and tens of thousands of people convened at short notice. He was genuinely concerned as to whether or not the people participating in that march may be exposed to threats to their personal safety, just through the logistics. He was genuinely concerned as to whether or not the police service had enough time to cordon off the streets and manage the huge crowd in such a way that would protect the participants. When you heard the remarks from the senior New South Wales police officer after that march was held, you heard the sense of relief that they'd managed to get through that event without anyone being hurt.

There have been concerns raised, rightly, with respect to some of the banners that were used et cetera. But, in terms of the logistics of the march, you could sense and hear the relief of the senior member of the New South Wales police service who had the responsibility of trying to manage this huge endeavour—hundreds of thousands of people. I think that also needs to be recognised—that our emergency services personnel do their best in order to manage these issues. In my home state of Queensland, there was a recent march which showed how unnecessary this piece of legislation is.

From what I see, every single Australian who wants to exercise their view or opinion in a peaceful way has a means in which to do that, and that's how it should be. I agree with the comments of Senator Cash, I agree with the comments of Senator Watt and I acknowledge those who provided assistance to Senator Watt in preparing those comments—I'm assuming it wasn't all your own work, Senator Watt; maybe it was! I think it was very useful to get those legal principles on the record as well. With that, I am happy to conclude my remarks.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation leads the way on freedom of speech. We have done so since 2020, with the horrific impediments against freedom of speech and the withdrawal of free speech and human rights that occurred with COVID mismanagement under both Labor and Liberal governments at a state and federal level. I start by thanking Senator Shoebridge, who has, largely through his work holding governments accountable—this one and the previous one—earned my respect for his work on human rights. I do not, though, trust the Greens as a whole. They often, and usually, contradict data and evidence, so I don't trust them. But I do trust Senator Shoebridge.

Let's go through a quick list of positives. What do we like? This bill, the Right to Protest Bill 2025, recognises the right to peaceful protest. We support that right wholeheartedly. This bill also recognises that the right to peaceful protest is subject to issues of national security—rightly so—and also subject to public safety, public order, the protection of public health, and, importantly, the protection of other people's rights and freedoms. That's very important. Sadly, this last protection, the protection of people's rights and freedoms, is just a motherhood statement, and the body of the bill contains nothing specific about those protections.

What are we not comfortable with? The definition of 'protest' in section 5(b) includes the phrase 'actions that are disruptive or seek to disrupt'. We do not support disruptive matters, disruptive events or protests, or those that seek to disrupt; we oppose that. The bill does not specifically consider conflicts with other people's individual or group rights, including the right to free movement and travel. I have a list of freedoms I keep in mind: the freedom of life, the freedom of belief, the freedom of thought, the freedom of faith, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, the freedom of exchange, the freedom of movement and travel, and the freedom to live life free from government interference. These are basic freedoms. One Nation supports these, but we do not see any consideration in this bill for the rights of others specifically, including the freedom of movement and travel.

Nor does the bill guide or address the resolution of conflicting needs when people in society have conflicting needs, when one group wants to protest and the other group sees an infringement of its rights. The bill does not consider offensive language or intimidation through noise or numbers of protesters. For One Nation, it is extremely important, as we have said in the past on similar bills, to have Australians feeling safe. Australians must feel safe.

We cannot abide by any intimidation of Australians.

My next point is that the bill encroaches on areas that should remain under state law. One Nation is very strong and clear on states' rights because we believe in competitive federalism—a fundamental tenet of accountability in this country. What we have seen is that the states have had their rights robbed, stolen by encroaching, greedy, all-powerful federal governments that seek to run the country with no accountability under both Labor and the Liberals. We don't like the encroachment into other areas that should remain under state law. The bill tries to limit penalties for contraventions that may be considered to apply to necessary restrictions, without defining the word 'excessive'. There's no definition of the word 'excessive'. Sadly the word 'peaceful' is not defined, and that's extremely important.

Our conclusions are that we thank Senator Shoebridge for introducing this bill and debating the bill, but we are concerned about the vague wording. Is there poor drafting? Let's give Senator Shoebridge the benefit of the doubt because, although the Greens can be disruptive when it suits them, Senator Shoebridge has not done anything malicious in my experience with him.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not actually malicious!

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, senators. Please direct your contributions through the chair.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the concept of peaceful protest. It's very important to get that on the record. This bill, as it is, suffers from deficiencies that need to be addressed. Thank you.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, the coalition won't be supporting this bill. However, I am a firm believer in the right to protest in a democracy. Throughout my life, I have participated in a lot of protests that I wish Senator Shoebridge had joined me in—Keep the Sheep protests where, outside this very parliament, farmers from Western Australia, sheep farmers from across the country, livestock transporters and those that support the agricultural industry sought to get Labor to overturn their ban on the live sheep export industry, which is cruelling the livelihoods of thousands of people, particularly in regional Western Australia.

The right to be heard, though, is not the right to hold everybody else hostage. And I really want to go to the view of the Greens in Victoria about the VicGrid project, which is rolling out across regional Victoria, where farmers are standing in solidarity against hundreds of 80-metre wind towers and transmission lines rolling out across their prime agricultural land—an authoritarian Labor government supported by the Greens in Victoria is taking away the right of these people to appeal decisions of government—to lock the gate against officials seeking to get these projects off the ground.

I'm also against protests which do hold other people hostage and impede their freedom of movement. I've spoken with Jewish communities in Australia, in particular in Melbourne after the Adass synagogue bombing, who told me that they were restricted—

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Ayres on a point of order?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is a point of order. I just took a bit of time to reflect on a comment that Senator McKenzie made. I don't want to make a lot of it, but I don't think today—

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, what is the point of order?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm seeking a withdrawal. I think today is not the day to describe the Victorian government as 'authoritarian'. I reckon enabling that kind of discourse is not very helpful at the moment.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. There is no point of order. Senator McKenzie, please continue, noting that you probably only have about two minutes left.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Democracy runs on persuasion, not on threats and coercion.

I take the minister's objection to me calling the Jacinta Allan Labor government in Victoria authoritarian. I would like the minister to come with me to regional Victoria, where they want to lock the gate against her officials who seek to take away their private property rights so that she, along with the Greens, can roll out their 100 per cent renewable dreams, trash the property values, destroy environmental ecosystems along the 240-kilometre transmission line corridor and destroy community cohesion as they pit family against family in the rollout of this project. The minister thinks he knows what authoritarianism looks like. Well, he doesn't. It looks like Jacinta Allan in Victoria—the same government that locked Victorians up during COVID, that arrested pregnant women for going for walks and that actually sought to destroy the social cohesion of our community in Victoria.

But then we go to protests against the Gillard government's carbon tax—an incredibly successful protest—or against the Labor Party's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, when truckies descended en masse from across the country to say this was a bad Labor government doing bad things to small businesses and the employment options across the country. And we sought to overturn that. And there were the 'never again' protests against antisemitism, which I would love to see Senator Shoebridge and the Greens senators join me in to march against antisemitism and actually put their feet to not just the pro-Palestinian movement, which does intimidate Jewish Australians from attending capital cities. The minister interrupted my comments about a Jewish man from Melbourne who, after the Adass synagogue bombing, spoke to me personally about being warned against taking his young family into the Melbourne CBD on the weekends because of Senator Shoebridge and his colleagues in the Greens taking to the streets to support Palestine and chanting antisemitic—

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, the time for this debate has expired. Senator Shoebridge?

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd ask the senator to withdraw that. It was a reflection on myself and millions of Australians.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't believe there is a point of order, there—

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, did you listen?

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did, and thank you very much.