The Labor State Government has today introduced legislation giving Police extra powers to “crack down” on peaceful protesters.
19 September 2019
Michael Berkman, Greens MP for Maiwar:
“These laws are unfounded, unnecessary and dangerously anti-democratic.
“Minister Ryan was clearly feeding us lies recently when he said that protesters were “booby-trapping” devices.
“The actions supposedly targeted by this bill are already illegal - this is obviously just about politics and vilifying peaceful protesters.
“Labor has taken the side of their fossil fuel donors time and again.
“Now they’re fear mongering to distract from their hypocrisy on climate change and obscure the fact that they are too weak to actually listen to the community’s reasonable demands.
“The devastating bushfires we saw last week are just a taste of what’s to come. The Government cannot just keep telling people to shut up about it.
“Tomorrow tens of thousands of people will defy the Premier and march the streets in the biggest day of collective climate action the world has ever seen. What are reasonable people supposed to do if the response to the climate strike is business as usual?
“Civil disobedience works. It’s always been integral to social change, and we need change now more than ever.
“If we are quiet in the face of these new laws we send a message that this erosion of our democratic rights is OK, and here in Queensland we know all too well that that’s a slippery slope.”
“I’m barely surprised that that the government asked the Resources Council for input on the bill.
“It just makes it crystal clear that this legislation is really about protecting Labor’s fossil fuel donors and obscuring their climate hypocrisy.”
“The parallels with Bjelke-Petersen’s police state cannot and should not be ignored.
“Joh used whatever justification he could - from traffic to so-called community safety issues - to silence dissent and peaceful protest.
“The purpose of these types of laws has always been to delegitimise and sideline the very real concerns of a community rightly criticising the government.”
Media contact for Michael Berkman: Emerald Moon 0431 388 755