Repression, Respectability, and the Right to Protest

Carter Chryse

The author of this piece is a member of Socialist Alternative ANU

The last peak of protests across Australia is now some years behind us. Across Australia, the ruling class is now taking the chance to hit back.

The climate movement of 2019 and early 2020 was huge. Hundreds of thousands attended School Strike protests in late 2019. Extinction Rebellion protesters shut down traffic in major cities across the country week after week, and promised there was more to come. More than a hundred thousand rallied during the bushfires which choked Eastern Australia in smoke, calling for the sacking of Scott Morrison.

There was a frenzy of op-eds calling for calmness, politeness, respectability, getting off the streets and calling your local member. But in the face of hundreds of thousands across the country participating in loud, rowdy, angry protests, the protestations of the establishment weren’t much more than words on paper.

That’s changed now. With the ebb of the climate movement, brought to a halt under COVID-19 and now struggling to rebuild under the federal Labor government, there’s been a slew of attacks against protesters. Victimisation of all activists who dare to disrupt business as usual is climbing. I want to highlight three cases.

The most outrageous and high-profile of these is the charges placed against Violet Coco. Violet, associated with an Extinction Rebellion offshoot group, stopped a single lane of traffic on Sydney Harbor Bridge for less than half an hour. For this supposedly heinous crime, she was arrested, intermittently placed under house arrest on remand, and originally charged for 15 months with thousands in fines (the charges and penalties were dismissed on appeal). She was charged on laws introduced in NSW in 2020, which sought to punish those who block major roads or the like with up to two years jail time and/or $22,000 fines. These laws were introduced directly to intimidate and repress climate protesters blocking traffic, some tens of thousands of whom had occupied the Sydney CBD just months earlier. Awaiting trial in Brisbane are twelve other Extinction Rebellion protesters, charged with blocking roads there, where similar anti-protest laws have been in place since 2019.

It’s in the context of the ebb of the climate movement, the distaste for such disruption by the respectable establishment and sections of the protest movement, such as the organisers of School Strike for Climate, that the state feels emboldened to hit back against protesters. However, the right to disrupt and impede the very ‘business as usual’ approach that is killing the planet should absolutely be defended. There is no similar jail sentence or fine for those fossil fuel bosses who are causing the climate crisis, which is responsible for blocking the roads with floods in Lismore or bushfires across 20 million hectares in 2019. The only criticism to make of the stunt-based tactics used by Violet Coco and others associated with Extinction Rebellion is that they should be focused on drawing as many people as possible out onto the streets with them.

This year, also in NSW, was the case of the arrest of Cherish Kuehlmann, a Socialist Alternative education officer from UNSW. Kuehlmann was dragged out of her home at midnight and charged with aggravated trespass – for protesting outside the Reserve Bank of Australia for about 15 minutes. Neither Cherish nor her fellow protesters at a cost of living protest in February ever entered the Reserve Bank. The charge was considered “aggravated” as it “disrupted the flow of business” for the 15 minutes – as Cherish said, “apparently, [sic] I’ve supposed to have stopped them from raising interest rates further”. When she was released on bail, the cops tried to implement restrictions to prevent her from attending protests at Sydney Town Hall, in a clear attempt at intimidation and an attack on the right to protest. These were ultimately overturned, as there does not (yet) exist any law preventing people from coming back to protest.

The laws Kuehlmann was arrested under were introduced in 2016, specifically to target disruptive climate activists, so it’s no coincidence they’re being employed in this recent suite of attacks. The calculation that is being made by NSW Police and the state is the same: without a movement and the full support of the left for disruptive protests, such laws can be used to victimise activists without backlash. Their judgement was largely correct: in an appalling turn, the UNSW SRC, of which Cherish is Education Officer, voted against a motion calling for the charges to be dropped against her.

Lastly, I want to go to the example of the suspension of two members of Socialist Alternative from the University of Sydney. Former University of Sydney Education Officers Deaglan Godwin and Maddie Clark were suspended this year for their part in leading a 2022 protest against former Australian prime minister Malcom Turnbull’s appearance at an event at the university. They were charged with infringing on Turnbull’s freedom of speech by disrupting his event for a few minutes – and “making him [...] afraid.” Turnbull called the disruption “fascism” and a “dreadful state of affairs”, and university administration backed him. Deaglan was suspended for 6 months and Maddie for a full year.

University administration is distinct from the government of NSW or Queensland. But the judgement is the same: unacceptable infringements such as students exercising their democratic right to protest will be pushed back against when the university feels secure that there will be no fightback. Again, ebbing protest movements have encouraged repression.

Surrendering to intimidation to dissuade the conduct of rowdy protests is the highest form of self-sabotage for those who would fashion themselves as activists. Of course, the first victims of anti-protest repression are those who block traffic, glue themselves to roads, and block the Reserve Bank. But any concession on these grounds, that perhaps we should be less objectionable, quieter, more appealing to the state – is a concession against the right to protest at all.

More broadly, even where there is rightful outcry against these repressive measures, it’s not big enough. Many scornful columns were written about the treatment of Violet Coco, the other Extinction Rebellion activists, and even about the suspension of Deaglan and Maddie. There were counterprotests, supported by sections of respectable society like the Greens and NGOs.

But overall, this is not enough. We’re now in a situation where protests are being painstakingly rebuilt, in gatherings of 50, 100, 150 protesters – not thousands or tens of thousands. The way to fight back is not to concede the point of aiming for more respectability. It’s by having too many of us engaged in protest to be able to repress in the first place.

Art by Jasmin Small