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Oct 13 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
Peaceful protest has been crucial to winning just about every right and freedom currently enjoyed by Australians - and so much we love and care about.
So how have two women ended up in the Supreme Court today, having to defend rights of peaceful protest?
🧵#knitting #nannas
Earlier this year the NSW government passed regressive laws which could be applied to punish peaceful protest, so Dominique and Helen - represented by the wonderful crew at @EDOLawyers - have brought a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court:
theguardian.com/australia-news…
Under the new laws, protestors can face up to 2 years of jail and a $22,000 fine if protests are considered ‘disruptive’ which could apply, for example, to people protesting near a railway station and causing people to be redirected around them: abc.net.au/news/2022-04-0…
Why do some politicians dislike peaceful protests so much?
Australia would be a very different place today if hundreds of thousands of us hadn’t had the courage to stand up for what is right by peacefully protesting over the years:
clivehamilton.com/books/what-do-…
Over the decades, countless ordinary Australians have stepped up to peacefully protest for what is right.
Let’s take just one example - a woman called Merle Thornton, dragged off by police in 1965 for the "crime" of having a beer in a “men’s only” bar:
abc.net.au/news/2015-03-2…
Peaceful protest has been essential to the struggle for women’s equality and rights in Australia:
​​abc.net.au/news/2021-03-2…
Peaceful protest has been essential to the struggle for First Nations’ justice in Australia: nla.gov.au/research-guide…
Peaceful protest has been essential to achieve decent working conditions in Australia: nma.gov.au/defining-momen…
Peaceful protest has been essential to the struggle for justice and equality for the LGBTQIA+ community in Australia. For example, back in the day the Sydney Mardi Gras was met with violent police repression:
sbs.com.au/news/article/f…
Peaceful protest has been essential to securing liveable cities and protecting historic places and architecture from rapacious development: nma.gov.au/defining-momen…
At the height of the Cold War, peaceful protest was essential in keeping missile bases out of Australia: smh.com.au/politics/feder…
Peaceful protest was essential to ending Australia’s participation in the horrendous disaster of the Vietnam War:
nma.gov.au/defining-momen…
Peaceful protest has enabled Australians to lend our voices to fighting global injustice and repression:
sbs.com.au/news/article/t…
Peaceful protest has been essential to securing protection of our oceans. Just think about all those magnificent whales that swim past Australia every year… watoday.com.au/national/weste…
And of course peaceful protest has been essential to protecting our magnificent environment, with the iconic Franklin Dam protests the most famous of them all: naa.gov.au/learn/learning…
Today, peaceful protest is essential to securing climate action at emergency speed and scale.
A growing number of leading global climate scientists are themselves now turning to civil disobedience in sheer desperation:
whistleblower.org/general/whistl…
In response, what we are seeing is a pattern of reactive repression of protest by Australian state governments. Laws to prevent damage to property and trespass already exist - what we are seeing now is politicians punishing people for democratic engagement.
Meanwhile, the big polluters just keep on polluting: crikey.com.au/2021/10/05/rev…
So, good luck to the knitting nannas and their lawyers for defending our democracy and our planet.
You deserve our respect and gratitude.
And shame on every politician who prefers to punish peacefully protesting people, while simultaneously protecting profit-hungry polluters.

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More from @David_Ritter

David Ritter Profile picture
Sep 7
BREAKING:
Huge numbers of Australians have owned, driven and trusted Toyota cars over the years, so this may come as pretty shocking..
Turns out #Toyota has grim record of greenwashing and lobbying against measures to reduce climate pollution from cars.
New reports out today..🧵
Toyota has been ranked dead last in the Auto Environment Guide for its lobbying against climate action, refusal to embrace electric vehicles, and continued advocacy for highly polluting hybrids: greenpeace.org/static/planet4…
Toyota’s dismal global record had already caused it to be ranked in the worst three on the @InfluenceMap list of global corporations most negatively influencing Paris-aligned climate policy:
influencemap.org/report/The-Car…
Read 10 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Aug 12
This week people were angered to find that massive polluter @WoodsideEnergy is sponsoring parliament's midwinter ball.
It's just one tactic in Woodside's industrial scale 'reputation washing' strategy to enable it to keep on polluting. Thread…
🧵 #auspol
tinyurl.com/yywm7xsz
Woodside’s problem is that it makes profit by mining and selling oil and gas - fossil fuels that are driving the climate emergency.
Indeed Woodside is now one of the ten biggest oil and gas majors in the world - and the only one based in Australia:
marketindex.com.au/news/a-merged-…
In Australia, Woodside is best known as a gas producer.
As @adamlmorton noted this week in a helpful explainer piece, “gas is a central driver of the climate emergency”:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 25 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 25
Lest we forget…
As the new Australian Parliament begins work, it is worth remembering that the last government led by @ScotMorrison was truly a ‘wrecking crew’.
Post-election revelations have reminded us just how much damage they did.
Here’s a thread…
🧵#auspol #wreckingcrew
Infamously, Scott Morrison indicated to fellow believers at his church last weekend that it is right not to have trust in government. 'Wrecking crew' politicians want none of us to have trust in government. theguardian.com/australia-news…
A decade or so ago, US commentator Tom Frank coined the idea of ‘wrecking crew’ politicians who - perversely - deliberately or recklessly seek to govern badly in order to advance an extreme ideological agenda: tcfrank.com/product/the-wr…
Read 17 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 19
Angry about yesterday’s State of the Environment report?
Well, there’s an opportunity to do something practical within the next 24 hours, by lodging an appeal against Woodside being allowed to extend massive fossil gas polluting operations until 2070.🧵
soe.dcceew.gov.au
The background is that WA’s environmental agency (EPA) has recommended that this extension to Woodside’s vast pollution operations be approved - which would mean locking around 50 years’ more of climate-wrecking fossil gas extraction on a massive scale: theguardian.com/australia-news…
The EPA did not assess the impacts from the gas when it is actually burned by end-users.
Yet, if approved, it is estimated that the North West Shelf extension would pump out 4.3 billion tonnes of pollution from climate-wrecking gas over the coming decades: abc.net.au/news/2022-06-3…
Read 7 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 4
Hey @AngusTaylorMP you look surprised by the catastrophic flooding events.
Can this be because you have been ignoring the warnings about climate change impacts?
Here's a dozen or so expert warnings about increases in storms and floods that you may have ignored...
🧵: #auspol
The truth is that we have long known, for decades, that for each degree that our atmosphere warms, it can hold 7% more water. This causes heavier rainfall and in turn increased flood risk: int-res.com/articles/cr_oa…
14 years ago, in 2007, the Rudd Government commissioned the Garnaut Climate Change Review, which clearly identified that climate change would lead to “longer dry spells broken by heavier rainfall events” and floods: webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/2019050908…
Read 23 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jun 3
This week's electricity price spikes are largely due to Australia’s continued reliance on dirty, ageing, expensive coal and gas.
This debacle has been years in the making.
The Morrison government failed to do its job and coal and gas vested interests fought change. 🧵#auspol
While the price hikes are in part due to the cold snap increasing demand plus a global energy supply squeeze from the Ukraine war, the main culprit is the fossil fuel industry, which has persistently attempted to wreck Australia’s transition to cleaner, cheaper renewable energy:
Research by @DrAdamLucas found that fossil fuel corporations had ‘constructed a covert network of lobbyists and revolving door appointments which has ensured that industry interests continue to dominate Australia’s energy policy’: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 13 tweets

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