Separate climate protest and pro-Palestine protests converge on Parliament
Outside the parliament (where Bill Shorten’s truck is toot tooting around) protesters are chanting “Land back, liberation, end the colonial occupation!”
Our own Karen Middleton is out the front where the “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chant is coming from the crowd.
Multiple police are in attendance.
Key events
James Paterson has made his views known:
I mean, they are free to make whatever arguments they like in our democracy in a public forum, they’re free to protest in any way they like. But breaching the security of the Parliament is a crime and should be rigorously enforced. And this breach must be investigated so that it can’t happen again.
It was just yesterday that the Human Rights Law Centre released a report showing the nationwide crackdown on protesting.
You can read the whole report here, but in essence it found over the past 20 years, 49 laws affecting protest have been introduced in federal, state and territory parliaments.
(It’s not as if this is recent, either – here’s last year’s report.)
Sarah Basford Canales
Simon Birmingham says protests shouldn’t be disruptive
Amid the morning’s dramas, the shadow foreign affairs minister, Simon Birmingham, managed to jump on Sky News to give his two cents about the pro-Palestine protest at Parliament House.
Just after 10am, a group of activists managed to find their way onto a sealed-off section of the roof and unfurled banners protesting the war in Gaza and Australia’s Parliament of enabling war crimes in a number of conflicts.
Birmingham said he stood in defence of freedom of speech and of assembly but took issue with the disruptive nature of this protest.
[Protests have] got to be done in ways that don’t put other people in danger, don’t create massive inconvenience for other Australians as well. And plenty of Australians have found themselves stuck in hours-long traffic jams or chaos as extremist protesters have glued themselves to roads or done other things. And that, I think, drives people to be fed up with these types of protests.
Josh Butler
No confirmation yet on arrests after Parliament House protests
We’ve seen the protesters at Parliament House be put in police vans and taken away, but ACT police haven’t been able to confirm they’ve been arrested just yet.
We’re waiting on a statement from police about their response to the Palestinian protest. There were a few dozen officers at least in the vicinity, including more than a dozen in the Parliament House carpark as the protesters were marched downstairs and put in the back of waiting vans.
We could see at least two of the protesters in handcuffs or restraints.
“Free Palestine. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” one protester said as they were led to the police car.
Sarah Basford Canales
Marles: Payman has by her own actions placed herself outside Labor
Richard Marles was asked about what the possible resignation of Western Australian senator Fatima Payman from Labor says about the party.
In question time on Wednesday, Anthony Albanese said the 29-year-old senator had “made a decision to place herself outside the Labor party”, and suggested he expected that Payman may resign from the party “in the coming days”.
On Tuesday, Payman had officially been suspended from caucus by her colleagues after crossing the floor on recognition of Palestine, which she has vowed to repeat. She later described the situation as being “exiled”.
Marles said he would welcome Payman back into the caucus “in a heartbeat” if Payman were to return to being a team player.
I’m only speaking to you now because Labor was next to my name at the last election … and that statement is true of everyone who is in the Labor caucus, and we understand that what comes with that is a set of obligations about being members of the team.
Now Senator Payman has, by her actions, placed herself outside of the team. She’s knowingly done that, that is clear. I mean, we would welcome Senator Payman back in a heartbeat if Senator Payman was to come back to the team and do so on terms where she fulfils the obligations that we all do as members of the team.
And that is all that’s going on.
Josh Butler
Protestors drive off in police vans
The protesters have now been taken away by police in the back of two police vans. They were marched downstairs into the Parliament House carpark by a large group of police and put into waiting cars.
The protesters calmly stated phrases like “free Palestine” as they were escorted by police. A large contingent of police remains in the carpark.
Liberals try and move motion on Israeli right to self-defence
While the protest was occurring outside parliament house, the shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie attempted to suspend standing orders to move this motion:
That this House reaffirms Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, whether attacked by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or any other sponsor of terrorism.
Chris Bowen moved the debate be adjourned, which it was.
Sarah Basford Canales
Marles calls for ‘taking the temperature down’ after Gaza protests on roof of parliament
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, has spoken of the importance of “taking the temperature down” after a group of activists scaled Parliament’s facade to protest the government’s actions on the conflict in Gaza.
At a press conference inside while the protesters remained on the building’s roof, Marles was asked about the “public sentiment” of the war in the strip following the rally.
Marles said:
I think it’s really important that we do everything we can to take the temperature down here. It’s not about denying anyone their right to have their say – people should have their say – but that can be done in a respectful way, which contributes to the national debate without doing anything to disrespect other Australians, to put people in danger and to give rise to social disunity.
Markes added he had “confidence” in the security of the building but when pressed, he conceded he hadn’t yet learned of the details.
[More to come!]
Equality groups want Labor to protect students and staff at religious schools
Equality Australia has called on Anthony Albanese to introduce religious discrimination laws which “protects students and staff in religious schools”.
Equality Australia’s CEO, Anna Brown, said Labor committed to reforms before coming to power “but discrimination against students and staff is still happening around the country because of gaps in our laws that allow religious schools to play by their own rules”.
These schools rely on millions of dollars of taxpayer funding every year and it’s not too much to ask that they uphold the same non-discriminatory practices that other government schools and institutions have abided by for decades.
The government has said it wants bipartisan support from the Coalition before it introduces legislation, but the two political parties have been unable to find common ground. The Greens have offered to work with the government on the legislation and pass it that way, but the government has not taken up the offer.
Brown said it was time for the prime minister to act.
Our laws should be consistent with Australia’s international human rights obligations and reflect who we are as a nation in the 21st century.
Daniel Hurst
Climate protestors say Labor climate policy better than the Liberal’s, but ‘you can’t put a fire out with petrol’
The climate protest inside the foyer of parliament was organised by the group Rising Tide.
A spokesperson for Rising Tide, Shaun Murray, had a chat to Guardian Australia afterwards. He said 40 to 50 demonstrators participated in the climate protest – including about a dozen who glued themselves inside the parliament’s foyer – demanding an end to new coal and gas projects.
Murray said the world was passing critical tipping points in the climate system and it was wrong for Australia to continue fossil fuel exports as if it was “business as usual”. He acknowledged that Labor’s domestic energy transition policy was “far better than the Coalition” but added that “you can’t put out a fire with petrol” and called for an end to new fossil-fuel projects.
Some of the climate demonstrators, once they were removed from the building and were waiting a couple of hundred metres from the front entrance, were later heard to join in the “from the river to the sea” chants led by the pro-Palestine activists standing at the top of Parliament House.
Asked whether his group knew that the other demonstration would occur simultaneously, Murray said:
No. I guess it’s just democracy in action. This government has got a shocking record on genocide and a shocking record on climate.
Advertisements
Josh Butler
The protesters are now down from the portico, having walked back along the glass and metal roof of the building. They were met by police and then disappeared from view. Scenes are pretty calm at the moment – the police at the scene seem relatively unfussed.
Josh Butler
The Palestine protesters seem to be packing up and finishing their demonstration
After a number of repeated chants, the protesters – who appear to be a group of about five people – are now quietly folding up their banners.
There’s a few more police out the front of Parliament House now. We can’t see what’s happening further back on the roof away from the edge, but the protesters appear to have been talking to people behind them – perhaps security or police – and have said things like “just a little longer and we’ll go”.
There have been some Coalition MPs who’ve come outside to look at the protests, and give some comments to the waiting media pack.
Nationals MP Keith Pitt, for instance, gave a few lines where he asked about the security arrangements which permitted the protesters to reach the top of the building, and said the protest wouldn’t help achieve peace in the Middle East.
The protest seems like it is beginning to wind down now
Nationals MPs have come out to speak to the cameras against the protests. Police are still watching events but have made no moves to remove anyone.
Sarah Basford Canales
Defence minister announces $2bn ‘top-secret cloud’ Amazon web service
While all eyes are on the front of Parliament House right now, the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, is inside and making a $2bn announcement.
The Albanese government has unveiled plans to build a “top secret cloud” with Amazon’s web services arm.
The cloud is expected to be operational by 2027 and will cost at least $2bn to establish. It will be a strategic partnership between the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and Amazon Web Services.
In a prepared statement, Anthony Albanese said it was “an important investment”.
We face a range of complex and serious security challenges and I am incredibly proud of the work our national security agencies undertake on a daily basis to keep Australians safe.
We must never underestimate their value and importance. That is what this investment today is about.
Isn’t the roof on Parliament House fenced off?
Given the commentary from some MPs on ‘how did this happen’ here is a little bit more background on roof access to the parliament.
So before 2018, the lawns at the front of the parliament stretched up to the roof. The parliament building is actually set into the hill, with the idea being that the people should always be able to stand on top of their parliament, as the ultimate power.
After terror attacks in the Canadian parliament in 2014, a security review was undertaken in APH, and a $126m security upgrade was recommended. That included the implementation of a (pretty ugly) metal fence across the parliament lawns, which stops people from being able to walk up to the roof from outside of the parliament.
This move brought mass criticism at the time, both for what it meant in regards to the the symbolism of parliament house, and also what it achieved in terms of security. It was suggested that its main role was to stop protesters unfurling banners on the roof.
But it can still be accessed.
It hasn’t happened in years though, so it is not something security would be on alert for.
Karen Middleton
Protestors: ‘if you were in Gaza, they’d be real planes dropping bombs’
The protesters up on the portico are linking their action to the date – the 4th of July – & the previous jailing of Julian Assange in the US on espionage charges.
They say Australia is enabling war crimes in Gaza and they’re tying in a protest against “the original invasion” of Indigenous Australia. They’re throwing down paper planes with “war crimes” emblazoned on one side and a statement of grievances on the other.
And they’re still shouting from up on the portico, where they are perched with banners having climbed out across the roof. One protester yells:
Lucky they’re only paper planes. If you were in Gaza they’d be real planes dropping bombs.
Police have not attempted to remove the roof protesters as yet.
Here is what the outside of the parliament looks like at the moment.
