The South Australian government has followed New South Wales and Victoria to undermine democratic rights. A bi-partisan bill has been rushed through parliament’s lower house, which proposes fines up to $50,000 or three months in jail if protesters “intentionally or recklessly obstruct the public place”. 
The wording is so broad that it could outlaw such innocuous actions as blocking a footpath or place of business. If the bill passes the upper house, South Australia will have the country’s harshest financial penalties for protesting—more than double the $22,000 maximum fine that the Perrottet Liberal government legislated in New South Wales last year. 
The trend of state governments introducing harsher financial penalties and jail time for disruptive protests is part of a disturbing nationwide crackdown on protesters, particularly climate groups such as Extinction Rebellion. 
It took little more than a right-wing beat up in the press for this bill to be written, introduced and passed at lightning speed. The Advertiser, Murdoch’s South Australian masthead, last Thursday ran a smear against climate protesters who blocked a road to protest the Australian Petroleum Production &amp; Exploration Association (APPEA) conference. The article quoted a police prosecutor saying that the protesters’ actions “warranted a prison sentence”, and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, who wanted to “cut the rope and let them drop”. 
This sentiment was echoed by Liberal Opposition Leader David Speirs, who on talkback radio floated the idea of $50,000 fines or jail time. A few hours later, the Malinauskas Labor government delivered.
Earlier in the week, Energy and Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis told a room full of mining CEO’s and executives at the APPEA conference that the South Australian government is at their “disposal”. This has proven to be no mere flourish.
Speirs and Malinauskas feign concern over the “mass disruption” of protests. But when the climate crisis disrupts our lives, the state is nowhere to be seen. 
When flood waters engulfed thousands of homes in Lismore, people had to organise to save themselves because underfunded government services couldn’t cope. In the aftermath, they were left without homes or support. It was a similar story after the 2019-20 bushfire crisis.
But when the wheels of fossil fuel extraction are threatened, governments are swift to act.
In Adelaide, the right to protest was won through disruptive protest. During the Vietnam war, anti-war groups organised a march that occupied the intersection of North Terrace and King William Street. The clashes between protesters and police led to a royal commission, which resulted in the confirmation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
If we are to defend those rights today, let alone stop the damaging practices driving climate change or stand up to many other injustices, we need to be willing to disrupt business as usual—because it is business as usual, not its disruption, that is the problem. 
Socialists in Uni Students for Climate Justice organised a demonstration against the bill on 26 May. More than 500 people marched, closed down roads and blocked intersections. This was important to set the tone for the campaign against the proposed new laws. 
The anti-protest legislation is expected to be discussed in the upper house on 30 May. SA Unions has called a rally for that morning; university students are planning a speak-out on parliament steps. 
There is broad opposition to the new laws: from the Greens, environmental and human rights groups, and trade unions. This is clearly an unpopular bill. We must fight to repeal the legislation entirely and be willing to break the law if need be.

Briana Symonds-Manne

Right to protest under attack in South Australia

In his victory speech on election night, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said that Australia “voted for change”. This is true, but people didn’t vote only for a change in government; they voted for more ambitious climate action. The 2022 Ipsos Climate Change Report, which polled people last month, found that 83 percent of Australians are concerned about climate change. 
Yet the new Albanese government is offering more of the same with slightly greener trappings. Chris Bowen, likely the climate minister, under pressure from the “Green-slide” election result, has already declared that the ALP has no intention of going further than its lacklustre election promises. Bowen also reaffirmed Labor’s commitment to Woodside’s Scarborough gas pipeline in Western Australia, which will release 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the project.
It is still to be seen whether the Greens and teal crossbench will put much pressure on the Albanese government to change its approach. While we should remember and celebrate the popular support for addressing climate change coming out of this election, the politics of these forces limits the prospect of achieving real climate justice. 
Teal independents were partly funded by Climate 200, a group founded by the son of Australia’s first billionaire and once prominent Liberal Party donor, Simon Holmes à Court. They offer more ambitious policies on climate, like a 60 percent emissions cut by 2030 (compared to Labor’s 45 percent target), ending fossil fuel subsidies, and funding renewable energy and “sustainable” businesses.
The teals are pro-capitalist, their politics guided by the economic concerns of businesses. Their “solution” to the climate crisis is to promote initiatives that put a green gloss over a system that exploits workers by enriching a different set of capitalists—the “green innovators” and renewables industry rather than the old fossil fuel barons. 
“Green capitalism” is a fantasy dreamed up by the defenders of capitalism. The climate crisis is far beyond market solutions and tinkering around the edges of the system. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 urged “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. It is not enough just to invest in green industries when what is needed is a radical restructuring of the economy. 
Emissions should be brought down to net negative, not net zero—that is, we need to draw carbon out of the atmosphere. This needs to start immediately to avoid triggering tipping points and catastrophic warming. To achieve something like that means ending the extraction of fossil fuels, putting the energy industry under democratic control and restructuring agriculture, transport and many other industries. 
There should be support for refugees having to flee their countries and people who have lost their homes because of climate change. This is not possible without challenging the wealth and power of the capitalist class, whose priorities will always be profit above the health of the environment and the working class.
The Greens go further than the teal independents, talking about wealth inequality and stopping new fossil fuel projects. But they are not building the kind of movement that could challenge the ruling class. Their strategy is centred almost entirely on electoral politics. The Greens is a party of professionals and career politicians, even if they are more progressive and engage in more grassroots-style campaigning.
The climate movement was at its strongest when there were millions of people protesting for climate action around the world. We need to rebuild that resistance from below if we are to stand any chance of creating the kind of change that people voted for in this election.

Right to protest under attack in South Australia

What does the ‘climate election’ really mean for the planet?

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