Civil liberties at risk

“I ask you to be on your guard,” famed defence lawyer Rob Stary told a packed Melbourne Trades Hall meeting in late November. “The state, under the guise of protection of the community, can create legislation that is extremely draconian.”

Stary, a civil liberties advocate, was addressing a Socialist Alternative public forum on the current law and order push by state governments. Its origin, he noted, was in the counter-terrorism legislation introduced by former Prime Minister John Howard and his attorney-general, Philip Ruddock – men he described as “unindicted criminals”.

Stary described state and federal governments, aided by the “spineless capitulation” of the Labor Party, using anti-terror laws to persecute the Tamil and Muslim communities. In 2007 three Tamil men were prosecuted for raising humanitarian funds for Tamil victims of genocide. “It was one of the most shameful and disgraceful pieces of litigation I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen some disgraceful ones”, he said.

Today, Queensland laws allow any person in a group of three or more to be jailed for 15 years, if convicted of offences that in many cases would probably not even warrant a jail term. The victims are ineligible for parole unless they turn informant. “I think this is a proclamation of highly political laws”, said Stary. “You have to wonder what their purpose is.”He pointed out that repressive laws are often used as models for attacks on unions, or are directly used against unions. He gave the example of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the body established to persecute construction workers, and the increasing tendency to remove the right to silence for trade unionists and activists.

Speaking alongside Stary was Socialist Alternative’s industrial organiser, Jerome Small, who described construction bosses as able to bully, threaten and undermine the safety of their employees with impunity – but when workers stand up for themselves, they are attacked.

“Unionists and working class people have to oppose these repressive laws. They are part of creating an atmosphere that’s about repressing our unions rights”, said Small. “There is a class content to law and order. You have to ask: Whose law? Whose order?”

Also speaking was researcher and author Roz Ward, who described the increasing militarisation of the Australian police force, and its origins as a force of class domination and violent oppression. “The Australian Police was founded as an institution of social control”, said Ward.

The Australian Police are equipped with hollow-point bullets, which are banned in wartime under the Hague Convention. Some Queensland police are now equipped with semi-automatic Remington R4 assault rifles.

All the speakers emphasised that unionists, activists and community groups now face the task of standing together to defeat the law and order onslaught. “I admire most of the people here”, said Stary. “I’ve got the easy job – I’ve just got to defend you.”