State Liberal leader Jess Wilson has used a book launch to make public her intent to ban protests and political phrases in Victoria if elected in November.
Speaking in Caulfield at the launch of Bondi Terror, written by a SkyNews host and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive officer Alex Ryvchin, Wilson linked the movement for Palestine with the horrific violence in Bondi. “When governments, both at federal and state levels, allow hatred like ‘all Zionists are terrorists’, and ‘globalise the intifada’ to be spewed and normalised on our streets, at our universities, and online—Bondi is the result” she said.
There is still no evidence that the Bondi shooters had ever attended a pro-Palestine protest or otherwise been part of the movement against Israel’s genocide, nor that they had set foot on a university campus or championed the slogan “globalise the intifada”.
Nevertheless, Wilson told the crowd “Under my leadership, we will expand bans on speech that amounts to incitement to violence, like “Globalise the Intifada”. She also announced her intention to introduce move on laws and to require protests gain permits, so that “all Victorians can feel safe in the city they love”. Except presumably those wanting to exercise the democratic right to protest or use slogans that the government objects to.
These measures have been demanded by sections of the business and the political right in Melbourne for some time. During the most acute phase of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, when weekly protests took place in Melbourne’s CBD, much anger was expressed at the supposed disruption to normal trade. Melbourne city mayor Nick Reece claimed he received “weekly phone calls from restaurateurs and city retailers telling me the protests are having a real, negative impact on their business”, particularly “Sunday yum cha”. Never mind there was not one documented case of a Palestine protester preventing someone having yum cha, even imaginary threats to small business bottom lines trump a genocide in the world of council and right-wing politics.
Last year Brad Battin, the leader of the Liberals at the time, announced the Liberals would introduce a permit system, following the Melbourne City council approval of a plan to request state and federal governments to restrict protest rights. Wilson has now recommitted the Liberals to this plan.
Wilson and the Victorian Liberals are only the latest to get on the anti-free speech bandwagon. The Liberal Nation Party government in Queensland has already criminalised the phrases “From the river to the sea” and “Globalise the intifada”. Dozens of activists have been charged and are facing jail time because of these laws. An appeal to the High Court against the laws has been launched by pro-Palestine activists, based on the implied right to political communication in the Constitution. In October, the New South Wales Labor government joined the case on the side of the Queensland government, defending the Orwellian laws. This comes after Minns’ anti-protest laws were struck down as unconstitutional by the New South Wales Supreme Court.
There is no sign of this offensive abating. Antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal in October released a report calling for exclusion zones for protests and bans on face coverings, explicitly declaring “progressive” antisemitism to be the “most pervasive” form of antisemitism. Segal is increasingly open about her purpose being to reframe opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and support for the liberation of Palestinians as racism towards Jewish people and therefore unacceptable and unlawful.
If the Victorian Liberals win in November, as is now looking increasingly likely, we will have to launch vigorous campaigns to defend our rights to freedom of speech and the right to assembly.
