Police in New South Wales have been given increased powers to ban or disperse rallies or public meetings anywhere on crown land – which includes most town squares, roads and community halls. 
Under the Liberal government’s updated crown land management regulation, individuals can be fined up to $11,000 or be arrested for “taking part in any gathering, meeting or assembly” once they have been told not to. 
In other words, a public gathering can occur only with the permission of police and public officials, and permission can be withdrawn for any reason.
The new regulations did not need to go through parliament. When Greens MP David Shoebridge moved a motion to disallow the changes, the government prevented any debate from taking place.
Government representatives have defended the changes by pointing out that they extend powers already granted by the old regulations – as though the precedent of a bad law justifies its expansion. 
They are right about one thing: this is not the first or last instance, but just the latest in an ongoing process of increasing police powers and undermining civil rights being carried out across the country.
The only way to reverse the trend is by employing the very tactic they want to suppress. 
Similarly draconian anti-protest laws were introduced under the Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland in 1977. In response, left wing activists and unionists organised a civil liberties campaign that forced the government to back down after thousands defiantly took to the streets time and time again.
We need to rekindle this sort of defiance. David Shoebridge has called a protest for Wednesday, 15 August, 8:30am outside the NSW parliament, to show the government that we won’t have our rights stripped without a fight.

Christopher Anderton

NSW, the police state

NSW paramedics give free rides in protest against cash grab

Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old Palestinian activist from the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank, will be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for slapping and shoving an Israeli soldier, if found guilty by a military tribunal.
She was arrested at 4am on 19 December, hours after a video was released to the Israeli public showing Ahed and her sister ejecting two soldiers from the courtyard of their family home.
Calls for revenge against her immediately followed, Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman promising that “everyone involved, not only the girl but also her parents and those around them will not escape from what they deserve”.
For the right wing media, Ahed was the aggressor and her actions were a “provocation”. But earlier in the day, Israeli soldiers had shot her 14-year-old cousin Muhammed in the head with a rubber bullet.
The soldiers at Ahed’s house did not respond with immediate force against a Palestinian woman refusing to submit to Israeli authority. For that “error”, they were accused of shaming the nation.
Ahed’s arrest was the military’s response to this criticism, and a video of it soon appeared on its Hebrew Twitter account (but, notably, not the English-language account).
Ahed’s situation is commonplace. The Israeli military detains on average two Palestinian teens a night, and Ahed is one of more than 450 Palestinians held in indefinite “administrative detention”.
Her mother Nariman and sister Nour have also since been arrested and charged. They will soon face one of the Israeli military courts, known for their nearly 100 percent conviction rate and flagrant disregard for due process.
As with other Palestinian prisoners, her crime was daring to resist the occupation. Her punishment is part of the ongoing collective punishment of the Palestinian people for refusing to abandon their goal of liberation.
Tamimi family members have been targeted because they are known around the world. The political motive is barely concealed: Ahed and her mother face charges of “incitement” for broadcasting the realities of occupation and encouraging protest.
Israel’s allies have followed its lead in censoring the Tamimis. For example, the Australian government last year refused to grant a travel visa to Ahed’s father, Bassem Tamimi, when he was invited to speak in Australia by several Palestine solidarity groups and Socialist Alternative. Ahed was similarly denied entrance to the United States early last year.
They are right to fear Ahed Tamimi. Her resistance is an inspiration to all who are fighting for a better world. For Ahed and for all the oppressed, Maya Angelou’s words are relevant:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Palestinian teenager faces prison for resisting occupation

Two worlds collide in the Rocks. One, accessible mainly to the rich, is expanding: the world of boutique stores, world class restaurants and luxury hotels. The other, the residential world where the workers who made Sydney city once lived, is dying a slow death at the hands of developers and politicians, all in the name of “progress”.
The Sirius building is the latest to be put on the chopping block, with the NSW government aiming to sell it for $100 million.
Appeals to the historic significance of the building have fallen on deaf ears, the government refusing to place it on the state heritage register. Most of the 79 residents of the complex, designed to house up to 200, have already been evicted. Ruby Martin, one of the last people to stay, was woken on a Sunday morning in September and told that she was out. An agent “said we had lost. That’s it, we would be relocated”.
The attack on public housing at Millers Point and the Rocks has generated a lot of anger. A rally on 17 September brought more than 1,000 people onto the streets to call for Sirius to stay, and the ongoing campaign has received widespread support.
The government argues that the money gained from the sale will be used to build more public housing away from the city centre. There are no indications that it means to follow through with this, but even if it were the case, the overall proportion of social housing is still abysmally low at 5 percent nationally. Taking with one hand to give with the other is no solution to the growing housing crisis.
Nor is it merely a question of how much housing is available. Brian Parker, CFMEU state secretary, made the simple but important point at the rally to save Sirius: “Everyone deserves a harbour view, not just the rich”.
There is a history of social cleansing in the Rocks. In the 1970s, the government and property developers tried to eradicate one of the oldest working class suburbs in Sydney and eject the residents. It took a concerted campaign from the most left wing union in the country, the Builders Labourers Federation, to save the area from redevelopment. This was the famous green bans movement, which combined a total ban on working the construction sites with militant picketing to block scab labour.
The memory of this incredible moment in working class history gave added weight to the announcement at the rally that the CFMEU is officially placing a green ban on the Sirius building. In many ways, this is a continuation of the same fight, as the Sirius building was specifically built to rehouse those who had been evicted during the green ban struggles.
It won’t be easy to defy the government’s attack, but the campaign couldn’t have a better blueprint for how to fight and win.

NSW, the police state

NSW paramedics give free rides in protest against cash grab

Palestinian teenager faces prison for resisting occupation

Sirius building brings Green Bans back to the Rocks

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