New anti-protest law in Australia draws public ire
Source: PBS
The Victoria state government in Australia passed a law Tuesday that will give unprecedented amounts of power to police to suppress protests. The Summary Offences and Sentencing Amendment Bill passed through the Victorian parliament despite heavy opposition within the general population. During the legislative proceedings alone, police arrested four protesters in the legislative chamber’s public viewing chamber for causing disturbances.
Under the new law, police can order protesters to disperse if they are blocking the entrance to a building, obstructing people or traffic, or most notably, if the police expect the protesters to turn violent. The penalty for violating orders to move ranges from a $720 fine to arrest and imprisonment. Under the new law, police would also be able to obtain exclusion orders banning protesters from certain public places for a period of 12 months; the violation of which carries a maximum jail sentence of two years.
While supporters of the new law say it will help to prevent anti-abortion protesters from regularly gathering outside of fertility clinics, detractors say the law goes too far and allows the government far too much power, especially in the affairs of labor disputes.
Sue Pennicuik, one of the members of Australia’s Green Party, protested the bill’s passage. “This bill is an absolute assault on the democratic right of Victorians to protest – whether it be on the streets or on public land – about issues of concern to them.”
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Read more: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-anti-protest-law-australia-draws-public-ire/
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's the dying days of the conservative government so they're trying to seal deals with their mates before they get voted out...pack of arseholes...they never bother about public transport because that helps the little people....it's going to be a private public partnership that means the public will be left with the mess for many years.....private businesses can't be trusted to be honest or competent ...the profit factor drives everything...
Photos show 90% of the 74,000 hectares the government claims is degraded are ecologically pristine forests, says Bob Brown
The Weld Valley is under threat from the proposed world heritage delisting. Photograph: Bill Hatcher
The government has been accused of misleading the UN in its bid to strip world heritage protection from tracts of Tasmanian forest, after the release of pictures purportedly showing that ecologically pristine areas will be delisted.
Bob Brown, the former Greens leader, has released a tranche of photos from the Weld Valley, one of several areas where the government wants to remove a total of 74,000 hectares of the world heritage protection.
Brown said the images were evidence that 90% of the 74,000 hectares are “pristine, magnificent forests”. The government has argued a world heritage boundary extension last year include areas of logged, degraded forest that is being unnecessarily “locked up” from the timber industry.
The government has formally requested the world heritage committee reduce the protected Tasmanian forest area by 4.7%, claiming that the Tasmanian economy will benefit and that landholders were not properly consulted over the extension.
Brown told Guardian Australia: “The boundary has not been drawn by any environmental consistency, it’s for pure commercial expedience....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/coalition-misled-un-heritage-listing-tasmanian-forest
Good quote!!! 
- It's getting to be ''Zappa Time.''
K&R
