A bill introducing harsh penalties and extending the scope of a law applying to those who obstruct public places has been passed after an all-night sitting by the South Australian Legislative Council this week, reports veteran investigative journalist Wendy Bacon — herself twice imprisoned for free speech.
South Australia now joins New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland, states which have already passed anti-protest laws imposing severe penalties on people who engage in peaceful civil disobedience.
However, South Australia’s new law carries the harshest financial penalties in Australia.
Thirteen Upper House Labor and Liberal MPs voted for the Bill, opposed by two Green MPs and two SABest MPs. The government faced down the cross bench moves to hold an inquiry into the bill, to review it in a year, or add a defence of “reasonableness”.
The Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment Bill 2023 was introduced into the House Assembly by Premier Peter Malinauskas the day after Extinction Rebellion protests were staged around the Australian Petroleum and Exploration Association (APPEA) annual conference on May 17.
The most dramatic of these protests was staged by 69-year-old Meme Thorne who abseiled off a city bridge causing delays and traffic to be diverted.
Meanwhile, the gas lobby APPEA which is financed by foreign fossil fuel companies has stopped publishing its (public) financial statements. Questions put for this story were ignored but we will append a response should one be available.
The APPEA conference is a major gathering of oil and gas companies that was bound to attract protests. Its membership covers 95 pecent of Australia’s oil and gas industry and many other companies who supply goods and services to fossil fuel industries.
The dramatic climate protest staged by 69-year-old Meme Thorne who abseiled off an Adelaide bridge last month. Video: The Independent
The principal sponsors of this year’s conference were corporate giants Exxon-Mobil and Woodside.
Since March, Extinction Rebellion South Australia has been openly planning protests to draw attention to scientific evidence showing that any expansion of fossil fuel industries risks massive global disruption and millions of deaths.
The new laws will not apply to those arrested last week, several of whom have already been sentenced under existing laws.
In fact, when SA Attorney-General Kyam Maher was asked about the protests on May 17 shortly after the abseiling incident, he told the Upper House that “there are substantial penalties for doing things that can impede or restrict things like emergency services. I know that (police) . . . have in the past and will continue to do, enforce the laws that we have.”
Sensing that something was in the wind, he said he would be open to suggestions from the opposition.
Fines up 66 times, prison sentence introduced That afternoon, SA Opposition Leader and Liberal David Speirs handed the government a draft bill. This was finalised by parliamentary counsel overnight and whipped through the Lower House on May 18, without debate or scrutiny.
It took 20 minutes from start to finish: as one Upper House MP said, it would take “longer to do a load of washing”.
While Malinauskas and Speirs thanked each other for their cooperation, some MPs had not seen the unpublished bill before they passed it.
The new law introduces maximum penalties of A$50,000 (66 times the previous maximum fine) or a prison sentence of three months.
The maximum fine was previously $750, and there was no prison penalty.
If emergency services (police, fire, ambulance) are called to a protest, those convicted can also be required to pay emergency service costs. The scope of the law has also been widened to include “indirect” obstruction of a public place.
This means that if you stage a protest and the police use 20 emergency vehicles to divert traffic, you could be found guilty under the new section and be liable for the costs.
Even people handing out pamphlets about vaping harm in front of a shop, or workers gathering on a footpath to demand better pay, could fall foul of the laws.
An SABest amendment to the original bill removing the word “reckless” restricts its scope to intentional acts.
The APPEA oil and gas conference in Adelaide last month triggered protests. Image: Extinction Rebellion/Michael West Media
Peter Malinauskus told Radio Fiveaa on Friday that the new laws aimed to deter “extremists” who protested “with impunity” by crowd sourcing funds to pay their fines.
In speaking about the laws, Malinaukas, Maher and their right-wing media supporters have made constant references to emergency services, and ambulances. But no evidence has emerged that ambulances were delayed.
The author contacted SA Ambulances to ask if any ambulances were held up on May 17, and if they were delayed, whether Thorne was told. SA Ambulance Services acknowledged the question but have not yet answered.
The old ambulance excuse Significantly, the SA Ambulance Employees Union has complained about the “alarming breadth” of the laws and reminded the Malinauskas government that in the lead-up to last year’s state election, Labor joined Greens, SABest and others in protests about ambulance ramping, which caused significant traffic delays.
The constant references to emergencies are reminiscent of similar references in NSW. When protesters Violet Coco and firefighter Alan Glover were arrested on the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year, police included a reference to an ambulance in a statement of facts.
The ambulance did not exist and the false statement was withdrawn but this did not stop then Labor Opposition leader, now NSW Premier Chris Minns repeating the allegation when continuing to support harsh penalties even after a judge had released Coco from prison.
It later emerged that the protesters had agreed to move if it was necessary to make way for an ambulance.
The new SA law places a lot of discretion in the hands of the SA police to decide how to use resources and assess costs. The SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens left no doubt about his hostility to disruptive protests when he said in reference to last week’s abseiling incident, “The ropes are fully extended across the street. So we can’t, as much as we might like to, cut the rope and let them drop.”
In Parliament, Green MP Robert Simms condemned this statement, noting that it had not been withdrawn.
In court, the police prosecutor (as NSW prosecutors have often done) argued that Thorne, who has been arrested in previous protests, should be refused bail.
Her lawyer Claire O’Connor SC reminded that courts around the country had ruled bail could not be denied to protesters as a form of punishment.
Shock jocks, News Corp, back new laws She said that, at worst, her client faced a maximum fine of $1250 and three-month prison term if convicted — but added she intended to plead not guilty.
“You cannot isolate a particular group of offenders because of their motivation and treat them differently because of their beliefs,” she said. The magistrate granted Thorne bail until July.
For now the South Australian government has satisfied the radio shock jocks, Newscorp’s Adelaide Advertiser (which applauded the tough penalties), authoritarian elements in the SA police, and the Opposition.
But it has been well and truly wedged. After a fairly smooth first year in power, it now finds itself offside with a massive coalition of civil society, environmental groups, South Australian unions, the SA Law Society and the Council for Social Services, the Greens and SA Best.
In less than two weeks, Premier Malinkauskas’s new law was condemned by a full page advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser that was signed by human rights, legal, civil society, environmental and activist organisations; faced two angry street rallies organised to demonstrate opposition to the laws; and was roundly criticised by a range of peak legal and human rights organisations.
Back to the past Worst of all from the government’s point of view, SA Unions accused Malinkaskas of trashing South Australia’s proud progressive history.
“South Australian union members have fought for over a century to improve our living standards and rights at work. It took just 22 minutes for the government to pass a Bill in the House of Assembly attacking our rights to take the industrial action that made that possible.
“Their Bill is a mess and must be stopped,” SA Unions stated in a post on their official Facebook page.
In hours long speeches during the night, Green MPs Robert Simms and Tammie Franks and SABest Frank Pangano and Connie Bonaros detailed the history of protests that have led to progressive changes, including in South Australia.
They read onto the parliamentary record letters from organisations condemning both the content and unprecedented manner in which the laws were passed as undermining democracy.
Their message was crystal clear — peaceful disobedience is at the heart of democracy and there can be no peaceful disobedience without disruption.
Simms wore a LGBTQI activist pin to remind people that as a gay man he would never have been able to become a politician if it was not for the disruptive US-based Stonewall Riots and the early Sydney Mardi Gras, in which police arrested scores of people.
Protest is about “disrupting routines, people are making a noise and getting attention of people in power . . . change is led by people who are on the street, not made by those who stand meekly by,” he told Parliament.
Simms read from a letter by Australian Lawyers for Human Rights president Kerry Weste, who wrote, “Without the right to assemble en masse, disturb and disrupt, to speak up against injustice we would not have the eight-hour working day, and women would not be able to vote.
“Protests encourage the development of an engaged and informed citizenry and strengthen representative democracy by enabling direct participation in public affairs. When we violate the right to peaceful protest we undermine our democracy.”
At the same time as it was thumbing its nose at many of its supporters, the South Australian government left no one in doubt about its support for the expansion of the gas industry.
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis told the APPEA conference, “We are thankful you are here.
“We are happy to a be recipient of APPEA’s largesse in the form of coming here more often,” Koutsantonis said. “The South Australian government is at your disposal, we are here to help and we are here to offer you a pathway to the future.”
‘Gas grovelling’ not well received This did not impress David Mejia-Canales, senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, whose words were also quoted in Parliament:
“Two days after the Malinauskas government told gas corporations that the state is at their service, the SA government is making good on its word by rushing through laws to limit the right of climate defenders and others to protest. Australia’s democracy is stronger when people protest on issues they care about
“This knee-jerk reaction by the South Australian government will undermine the ability of everyone in SA to exercise their right to peacefully protest, from young people marching for climate action to workers protesting for better conditions. The Legislative Council must reject this Bill.”
During his five-hour speech in the early hours of Wednesday, SA Best Frank Pangano told Parliament that he could not recall when a bill has “seen so much wholesale opposition from sections of the community who are informed, who know what law making is about.
“You have got a wide section of the community saying in unison, ‘you are wrong’ to the Premier, you actually got it wrong. But we are getting a tin ear.”
And it was not just the climate and human rights activists who were “getting the tin ear”: the SA Australian Law Society released a letter expressing “serious concerns with the manner in which the [bill] was rushed through the House of Assembly”.
It wrote, “This is not how good laws are made.
“Good laws undergo a process of consultation, scrutiny, and debate before being put to a vote. The public did not even have a chance to examine the wording of the Bill before it passed the House of Assembly.
“This is particularly worrying in circumstances where the proposed law in question affects a democratic right as fundamental as the right to protest, and drastically increases penalties for those convicted of an offence.”
The Law Society also sent a list of questions to the government which were not answered.
One of the last speeches in the early morning was by SABest MLC Connie Balaros who, wearing a t-shirt that read “Arrest me Pete”, vowed to continue to campaign against the laws and accused Labor MPs of betraying their members, the community and their own history.
No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.
Early this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez declared, “2023 is a year of reckoning. It must be a year of game-changing climate action.
“We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”
Climate disasters mount Since he made that statement, climate scientists have reported that Antarctic ice is melting faster than anticipated. This week, there has been record-beating heat in eastern Canada and the United States, Botswana in Africa, and South East China.
Right now, unprecedented out-of-control wildfires are ravaging Canada.
An international force of 1200 firefighters including Australians have joined the Canadian military battling to bring fires under control. Extreme rain and floods displaced millions in Pakistan and thousands in Australia in 2022.
Recently, extreme rain caused rivers to break their banks in Italy, causing landslides and turning streets into rivers. Homelessness drags on for years as affected communities struggle to recover long after the media moves on.
Is it any wonder that some people don’t continue as if it is ‘business as usual’. Protesters in London invaded Shell’s annual conference last week and in Paris, climate activists were tear gassed at Total Energies AGM.
Is it any wonder that some people don’t continue as if it is “business as usual”. Protesters in London invaded Shell’s annual conference last week and in Paris, climate activists were tear gassed at Total Energies AGM.
In The Netherlands last weekend, 1500 protesters who blocked a motorway to call attention to the climate emergency were water-cannoned and arrested.
On Thursday, May 30, Rising Tide protesters pleaded guilty to entering enclosed lands and attempting to block a coal train in Newcastle earlier this year. They received fines of between $450 and $750, most of which will be covered by crowdfunding.
Three of them were Knitting Nannas, a group of older women who stage frequent protests.
This week the Knitting Nannas and others formed a human chain around NAB headquarters in Sydney. They called for NAB to stop funding fossil fuel projects, including the Whitehaven coal mine.
Knitting Nannas, Rising Tide Two Knitting Nannas have mounted a legal challenge in the NSW Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the NSW anti-protest laws are invalid because they violate the implied right to freedom of communication in the Australian constitution.
A similar action is already been considered in South Australia.
In this context, fossil fuel industry get togethers may no longer be seen as a PR and networking opportunity for government and companies.
Australian protesters will not be impressed by Federal and State Labor politicians reassurances that they have a right to protest, providing that they meekly follow established legal procedures that empower police and councils to give or refuse permission for assemblies at prearranged places and times and do not inconvenience anyone else.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.Republished from Michael West Media with permission from the author and MWM.
When New Zealand’s opposition National Party’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, questioned the logic of bilingual traffic signs, he seemed to echo his leader Christopher Luxon’s earlier misgivings about the now prevalent use of te reo Māori in government departments.
Genuine concern or political signalling in an election year? After all, Luxon himself has expressed interest in learning te reo, and also encouraged its use when he was CEO of Air New Zealand.
He even sought to trademark “Kia Ora” as the title of the airline’s in-flight magazine.
And for his part, Brown has no problem with Māori place names on road signs. His concern is that important messaging about safety or directions should be readily understood. “Signs need to be clear,” he said.
“We all speak English, and they should be in English.” Adding more words, he believes, is simply confusing.
It’s important to take Brown at his word, then, with a new selection of proposed bilingual signs now out for public consultation. Given the National Party’s enthusiastic embrace of AI to generate pre-election advertising imagery, one obvious place to start is with ChatGPT, which tells us:
Bilingual traffic signs, which display information in two or more languages, are generally not considered a driver hazard. In fact, bilingual signage is often implemented to improve safety and ensure that drivers of different language backgrounds can understand and follow the traffic regulations.
ChatGPT also suggests that by providing information about speed limits, directions and warnings, bilingual traffic signs “accommodate diverse communities and promote road safety for all drivers”.
‘They should be in English’: National to ditch te reo Māori traffic signs https://t.co/7FGYyQDrPu
Safety and culture With mounting concern over AI’s potential existential threat to human survival, however, it’s probably best we don’t take the bot’s word for it.
Fortunately, government transport agency Waka Kotahi has already examined the use of bilingual traffic signs in 19 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Its 2021 report states:
The use of bilingual traffic signage is common around the world and considered “standard” in the European Union. Culture, safety and commerce appear to be the primary impetuses behind bilingual signage.
Given Brown’s explicit preference for the use of English, it’s instructive that in the UK itself, the Welsh, Ulster Scots and Scots Gaelic languages appear alongside English on road signs in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
More to the point, on the basis of the evidence it reviewed, Waka Kotahi concluded that — providing other important design considerations are attended to — bilingual traffic signs can both improve safety and respond to cultural aspirations:
In regions of Aotearoa New Zealand where people of Māori descent are over-represented in vehicle crash statistics, or where they represent a large proportion of the local population, bilingual traffic signage may impart benefits in terms of reducing harm on our road network.
A bilingual road sign in Calgary, Canada. Image: The Conversation/Getty Images
‘One people’
Politically, however, the problem with a debate over bilingual road signs is that it quickly becomes another skirmish in the culture wars — echoing the common catchcry of those opposed to greater biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: “We are one people”.
It’s a loaded phrase, originally attributed to the Crown’s representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, who supposedly said “he iwi tahi tātou” (we are one people) at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.
Whether or not he said any such thing is up for debate. William Colenso, who was at Waitangi on the day and who reported Hobson’s words, thought he had.
But Colenso’s account was published 50 years after the events in question (and just nine years before he died aged 89).
Either way, the assertion has since come to be favoured by those to whom the notion of cultural homogeneity appeals. It’s a common response to the increasing public visibility of te ao Māori (the Māori world).
But being “one people” means other things become singular too: one law, one science, one language, one system. In other words, a non-Māori system, the one many of us take for granted as simply the way things are.
Any suggestion that system might incorporate or coexist with aspects of other systems — indeed might benefit from them — tends to come up against the kind of resistance we see to such things as bilingual road signs.
Fretful sleepers The discomfort many New Zealanders still feel with the use of te reo Māori in public settings brings to mind Bill Pearson’s famous 1952 essay, Fretful Sleepers.
In it, Pearson reflects on the anxiety that can seep unbidden into the lives of those who would like to live in a “wishfully untroubled world”, but who nonetheless sense things are not quite right out here on the margins of the globe.
Pearson lived in a very different New Zealand. But he had his finger on the same fear and defensiveness that can cause people to fret about the little things (like bilingual signs) when there are so many more consequential things to disrupt our sleep.
Anyway, Simeon Brown and his fellow fretful sleepers appear to be on the wrong side of history. Evidence suggests most New Zealanders would like to see more te reo Māori in their lives, not less.
Two-thirds would like te reo taught as a core subject in primary schools, and 56 percent think “signage should be in both te reo Māori and English”.
If the experience in other parts of the world is anything to go by, bilingual signage will be just another milestone on the road a majority seem happy to be on.
It’s a subjective topic, but a bizarre scene that unfolded in Sydney this week could just turn out to be the most incompetent attempt at a ‘hit and run’ in Australian motoring history.
The young male driver, reportedly aged 25, definitely got the ‘hit’ part right, wiping out numerous cars, several signs, and one fence… three times. But it was the ‘run’ bit – really, the most important part of the ‘hit and run’ – that seemed to elude him.
[Ed’s note: The original video on Youtube has been taken down. You can seen an edited version of the video here on news.com.au].
The dramatic scenes unfolded shortly after midday last Wednesday following a brief police pursuit in Punchbowl, a suburb in the south west of Sydney. The chase was terminated after only a few minutes amid police concerns for public safety (brief note of irony: May 17, the day of the pursuit, was the same day NSW Police tasered 95-year-old dementia patient, Clare Rowland, at a nursing home in Cooma in southern NSW. She passed away overnight so, you know, swings and roundabouts as far as police ‘fears for safety’ is concerned).
But police disengagement apparently didn’t slow the driver down. At all. A short time later the stolen Alfa Romeo crashed into a Mercedes in nearby Roselands, but continued on, making it all the way to the neighbouring suburb of Kingsgrove before the driver hit several more vehicles, mounted the footpath, and somehow got his car stuck between two cars and a high steel fence.
And that’s when things got really weird. With onlookers trying to convince the driver to stop, he smashed his way out of the jam, then took off down the footpath. Casual observers might have assumed he was home-free, but 10 or so metres further on he veered wildly to the left, crashing back into the high steel fence.
The driver managed to back the vehicle out of the wreck, then took off down the footpath again, only to once more veer wildly to his left, crashing into the same steel fence for a second time. Repeat and rinse, before he took off for a third attempt… and, as you might have guessed, veered wildly to the left again, this time finally crashing through the steel fence and jamming the vehicle stuck, once and for all.
If you look closely at the footage, both his left and right front wheels appear to be badly buckled, which at least partly explains him inexplicably spearing off into the fence three times. Whatever the cause of the incredibly bad driving, this one is going to be hard for any self-respecting joyrider to live down.
In any event, inspired by Australian police brutality, various men then kick, punch, push, shout and swear at the young man, who appears to be genuinely confused about why he didn’t get away.
The behaviour of his captors is only slightly less professional than this arrest, which occurred after a police pursuit in Victoria in January 2022 (footage only emerged last month as well).
Bodycam footage captures police telling the man repeatedly to “shut the fuck up”, and calling him a “flog”, a “dog” a “fuckwit”, a “fucking low life scumbag”, and a “dickhead”.
Thousands of students at the University of Papua New Guinea staged a protest at the Waigani campus Forum Square today against the US-PNG Defence Cooperation Agreement that is scheduled for signing this afternoon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is already in the country to sign the defence pact and also the Ship Rider Agreement with PNG.
The students claimed that the agreements between PNG and the United States concerned national security and their content must be made known for public scrutiny and transparency before signing takes place.
However, Prime Minister James Marape had earlier insisted that the agreements to be signed were transparent.
Marape added that not all agreements signed should be presented to Parliament earlier.
He said the country’s State Solicitor, who represents PNG’s legal checks and balances, had been involved “every step of the way” and had given clearance over the laws of this country.
Marape said that as soon as it is stable for transparency the country would be privy to those agreements and they would be tabled in Parliament.
‘Almost there for signing’
“I just wish to assure everyone, that Parliament will be privy to what we are about to sign and at the moment our Foreign Affairs team has been leading the negotiations. We are at the stage where we are almost there for signing,” he said.
“I want to give assurance to our country, it is nothing to be sceptical about,” said Marape.
Marape further elaborated that similar agreements and cooperation had been reached with other countries and that PNG could reach out to other bilateral partners with similar agreements as stipulated in the Constitution.
Also, the country’s foreign policy was: “Friends to all and enemies to none”.
The US and PNG already had a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA.
A SOFA is an agreement between a host country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country.
SOFAs are often included, along with other types of military agreements, as part of a comprehensive security arrangement.
Corporations allowed
Marape briefly stated that the SOFA agreement did allow US defence corporations and others to be involved in PNG.
PNG was just elevating this specific one with the USA.
Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso also clarified that once the agreement was agreed by the National Executive Council (NEC) and signed off by the Prime Minister and Defence Minister it would be brought before Parliament and debated before it became law.
On behalf of the government, Finance Minister Rainbo Paita adressed the protesting students at the UPNG Forum Square and received the petition presented by the Student Representative Council president Luther Kising.
Other tertiary institution’s student bodies, such as the University of Goroka and the University of Technology at Lae, have also protested against the defence cooperation agreement.
Meanwhile, there was a high presence of police reinforcements at the entrance to UPNG preventing the protest from escalating further.
Stella Martin and Rose Amosare NBC reporters. Republished with permission.
UPNG protesters at the Forum Square today. Image: NBC News
Australian gay blood donation campaigners have welcomed a decision in the United States to allow gay men to give blood, and urged Australia to follow suit.
The US has ditched a three-month abstinence period before gay men can give blood and will instead ask questions about sexual risk of all donors regardless of their sexual orientation, an approach known as ‘individual risk assessment’.
In Australia the Red Cross Lifeblood Service has no plans to allow safe gay men to donate whole blood, despite individual risk assessment now being the approach in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, Argentina and many other countries.
Instead, Lifeblood wants gay men, and bisexual men and trans women who have sex with men, all of whom can currently not give whole blood, to be able to give blood plasma.
Let Us Give spokesperson, Thomas Buxereau applauded the US for replacing its gay blood ban with individual risk assessment, and called on Australia’s blood authorities to do the same.
“Allowing blood donations from gay men, and bisexual men and trans women who have sex with men, who are safe to give, will mean a new source of safe blood for those Australians in need,” Mr Buxereau said.
“Australian gay, bisexual and trans people who are currently blocked from donating blood want to be able to save lives in the same way as our counterparts in the UK, Canada and the US.”
Researcher, Dr Sharon Dane, said international research shows there is no meaningful risk from allowing gay men, and bisexual men and trans women who have sex with men, to give blood under the conditions now applying in the US.
“Under the system of individual risk assessment in the UK, Canada, US and other countries, every donor is asked if they have had anal sex with a new partner or multiple partners in the last three months. If they say ‘no’ they can donate.
“The Australian Lifeblood Service has said this may deter a significant number of heterosexual donors but the international evidence has shown this is not the case.”
“Rather than allowing whole blood donation by gay men, and bisexual men and trans women who have sex with men, Lifeblood wants to only allow plasma donation.
“But this does not address the regular shortages of whole blood and still means gay, bisexual and trans people are not treated equally.
“Canada and Israel trialled plasma donation for gay men but quickly abandoned those trials and moved on to equal treatment for all donors.
“The so-called ‘plasma pathway’ is a dead-end Australia should not go down.”
Two ‘Knitting Nannas’ – members of a renowned and growing international activist organisation set up to protest inaction on climate change – were back in the NSW Supreme Court this week challenging repressive anti-protest legislation passed last year by the Perrottet government.
Dominique Jacobs and Helen Kvelde, through their lawyers at the NSW Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), launched a constitutional challenge to s214A of the Crimes Act 1900 in October 2022, claiming it breaches their right to free speech implied in the Australian Constitution.
Following highly publicised protests in Sydney earlier this year, the NSW Government pushed through changes to the Road Amendment (Major Bridges and Tunnels) Regulation 2022 and introduced the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2022 to parliament without public consultation.
On behalf of on Ms Kvelde and Jacobs, the EDO has launched a Constitutional challenge to section 214A of the Crimes Act 1900 that makes it an offence to remain “near” any part of a “major facility” if that conduct “causes persons attempting to use the major facility to be redirected”, on the basis it impermissibly burdens the implied freedom of political communication.
Ms Jacobs and Kvelde say the new laws are so broad that a group of people could face serious criminal charges, including up to two years in prison, simply by protesting near a railway station and causing people to be redirected around them.
EDO’s clients will also ask the court to find the definition of “major bridge, tunnel or road” under s 144G of the Roads Act too broad.
Ms Jacobs and Kvelde contend the Crimes Act amendment was unconstitutional because it “impermissibly burdened the implied freedom of political communication”, and that to uphold the Australian Constitution, the NSW Government must allow communities to peacefully protest government policy in public spaces.
The Crimes Act amendment introduced a number of offences relating to major facilities including making it an offence to remain “near” any part of a “major facility” if doing so “causes persons attempting to use the major facility to be redirected”.
Major facilities include train stations, such as Central, Town Hall and Martin Place, places that historically have been synonymous with peaceful protest. The reforms also increased maximum penalties for peaceful protest to two years’ prison and $22,000.
Ms Jacobs and Ms Kvelde have been at the frontline of Australian climate impacts, experiencing trauma and loss from drought, fire and flood in the last four years alone.
“Australians like us shouldn’t have to risk imprisonment or bankruptcy to participate in our democracy, and the Government should not be taking away our democratic freedoms,” Mr Jacobs said.
Ms Kvelde added: “There’s a long, proud history of peaceful protests in Australia, and our democratic freedoms are critical in pushing the Government to do the right thing and take climate action seriously.”
CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office, David Morris said the challenge to the laws by the ‘Knitting Nannas’ was an important one for democracy.
“If successful, this case will aid in the preservation of our democracy,” Mr Morris said. “It will see the worst excesses of these new laws struck out. It will provide clarity for all NSW citizens seeking to avail themselves of the democratic freedom to protest.”
A national domestic and family violence conference to be staged in Brisbane tomorrow will focus on the choice that many women in Australia still face: stay in an abusive relationship, or leave and live below the poverty line by relying on government benefits.
The Listen Connect Reflect conference will draw heavily on the ‘Choice: Violence or Poverty’ report by Dr Anne Summers, a renowned Australian feminist and writer.
The report was used by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier this week as the basis for raising the single parenting allowance in May federal budget.
Dr Summers, Professor of Domestic & Family Violence, at the University of Technology Sydney, will speak on the choice between violence and poverty faced by survivors of abuse.
Conference organisers said ‘Listen Connect Reflect’ was an opportunity to “dive into the national framework, raise the voices of Lived Experience and strengthen collaboration with the vision to end violence against women and girls in our communities”.
You can download and read Dr Summers’ report Choice: Violence or Poverty report by clicking here, or get more details on the conference by clicking here.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is revolutionizing the flow of information across the globe. Through a process of collecting, analyzing, and sharing publicly available content online—including cellphone videos, social media posts, and satellite images—OSINT analysts are exposing critical intelligence once monopolized by state authorities. From Syria to Ukraine, OSINT is used to uncover war crimes and human rights violations that might otherwise remain obscured. Against the backdrop of declining trust in media and government institutions, along with the growing threat of mis and disinformation, OSINT is proving to be an increasingly valuable tool in facilitating transparency and objectivity.
However, despite the ostensibly accessible and democratized opportunities OSINT provides for sharing information, the benefits of the burgeoning industry do not impact everyone equally. For Palestinians, the rise of OSINT has come at a cost. This policy brief contextualizes the Palestinian struggle for liberation amid the global rise of OSINT. In doing so, it explains how OSINT has been leveraged both as a liberatory tool to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes and human rights violations, and as a means of further oppression by promoting false Israeli narratives. While innovations of the digital age have exposed state violence, these technologies have also been co-opted by the same repressive forces. This policy brief recommends several steps that Palestinians, their leadership, and their allies should take in order to harness OSINT’s potential as a tool for liberation and mitigate the risks posed by those determined to weaponize it.
While OSINT has reached new heights in the rapidly evolving digital age, it is not a recent phenomenon. In the aftermath of Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the US established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to bolster more traditional intelligence collection. At the time, the OSINT process looked similar to what we see today, although far more painstaking. OSS analystsmeticulously dug through newspaper clippings and poured over grainy images of enemy formations in search of critical intelligence. While OSINT took a backseat to more mainstream intelligence services, it has consistently provided accessible means of discovering and sharing information typically considered off limits to the general public.
It was the birth of citizen journalism and the social media generation—amid Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution and the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa—that brought OSINT back to the fore. As protesters took to the streets across the region, millions resorted to social media to organize, and OSINT analysts and citizen journalists broadcasted developments to the world. Likewise, when uprisings were suppressed by authoritarian states, like Syria and Libya, the constant flow of photos, videos, and satellite images allowed for near real-time updates from the ground.
The OSINT process offers a potentially unique opportunity for the marginalized and oppressed to challenge the narratives presented by governments and mainstream media in pursuit of truth and justice Click To Tweet
OSINT has since demonstrated its value in investigations across the globe. Bellingcat, a collective of independent researchers and citizen journalists, exposed Russia’s role in downing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 by analyzing call records and identifying Russian-backed separatists. In 2017, Human Rights Watch used satellite imagery to document ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. More recently, the visual investigations team at The New York Times uncovered and exposed the Russian army unit responsible for the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha with similar techniques.
The decentralized nature of the OSINT process offers a potentially unique opportunity for the marginalized and oppressed to challenge the narratives presented by governments and mainstream media in pursuit of truth and justice. However, while OSINT sharing gives journalists unparalleled insights from the ground and provides activists with new tools for accountability and mobilization, authoritarian regimes are quick to co-opt the new technologies for their own repressive purposes. Colonized Palestine is a case in point.
OSINT in Palestine
A Tool for Liberation
On May 11, 2022, Israeli forces shot and killed renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was reporting on their raid in the occupied city of Jenin. News of Abu Akleh’s assassination, along with footage of the moment Israeli forces opened fire, spread rapidly across social media, eliciting shock and outrage across a region that knew Abu Akleh as a household name. Witnesses—including journalists who were at Abu Akleh’s side when she was killed—reported that Israeli soldiers targeted them despite their clearly marked “PRESS” vests. Israeli authorities immediately denied responsibility, with then Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett attempting to pin the blame on “armed Palestinians.”
As eyewitness accounts began emerging and footage of the shooting circulated on social media, OSINT analysts across the globe combed through a deluge of evidence in an effort to hold Abu Akleh’s killers accountable. By geolocating the exact positions of Israeli soldiers during the raid using footage obtained from those on the scene, Bellingcat investigators determined that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was fired by an Israeli soldier. The New York Times—which also leveraged spatial analysis, eyewitness accounts, and photos to rule out the possibility that Palestinian resistance fighters could be blamed—reached the same conclusion. A joint report by Al Haq and Forensic Architecture further validated these accounts by drawing on community access to confirm Israeli culpability—a conclusion that has since been corroborated by the UN, Al Jazeera, and even the Israeli military, albeit reluctantly.
Prior to the resurgence in OSINT, widespread recognition of the truth surrounding Abu Akleh’s murder would have rested on the outcome of an Israeli investigation of its own military. Today, OSINT gives Palestinians an invaluable tool: the joint investigation carried out by OSINT teams around the world into Abu Akleh’s murder proved a remarkable feat considering Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinians’ digital rights and its crackdown on human rights groups.
However, glaring issues continue to put OSINT’s liberatory potential at risk. Firstly, the investigation into Abu Akleh’s murder showed that Palestinians continue to depend in large part on the good will of OSINT analysts abroad who enjoy unrestricted access to the online infrastructure on which they depend—infrastructure often denied to Palestinians. Secondly, Israeli OSINT analysts are attempting to suppress efforts to expose the truth by serving as purveyors of hasbara—Israeli state-led propaganda aimed at concealing Israeli crimes and distorting the reality of its military occupation and apartheid policies.
A Tool of Oppression
Over recent years, anonymous OSINT accounts such as Aurora Intel, Israel Radar, and ELINT News have cultivated large followings with their coverage of security developments across colonized Palestine and the broader Middle East. Among their followers are journalists, DC-based analysts, and policymakers alike who regularly quote and re-share their posts to their respective audiences. However, many of these accounts source much of their information uncritically from the Israeli military, overreporting acts of armed resistance by Palestinians, and underreporting more pervasive Israeli structural violence. As a result, instead of the objective sources of information these accounts claim to be, they end up propagating Israeli hasbara, distorting the public narrative, and covering up the regime’s war crimes.
Under Israel’s digital occupation, Palestinians simply cannot participate in an OSINT revolution that is entirely dependent on reliable and fast internet access, and the free flow of information Click To Tweet
One of the most prominent of these OSINT accounts is Aurora Intel. Founded in October 2018, Aurora Intel claims to be dedicated to “providing up to date news and intelligence to the masses.” Since then, three anonymous contributors—“David,” “Adam,” and “Knish”—have provided nearly 24/7 coverage of colonized Palestine and the region from the UK, Canada, and Israel. As the Israeli regime launched its assault on Gaza in summer 2022—killing at least 49 Palestinians, including 17 children—Aurora Intel joined the torrent of OSINT accounts churning out updates on operational developments in nearly real time.
Emanuel Fabian, a former OSINT analyst-turned-journalist at the Times of Israel, is one of Aurora Intel’s most frequently cited sources. On August 6, 2022, Aurora Intel and Fabian simultaneously reported that an airstrike in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp had killed four children. As news of the strike spread and public outrage intensified, Israeli occupation forces immediately attempted to deflect responsibility. Without questioning or verifying the Israeli narrative, Aurora Intel and Fabian shared footage and infographics produced by the Israeli military that purportedly showed failed rocket launches by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement as evidence that Israel was not behind the civilian casualties.
Several days later, Israeli occupation forces acknowledged their responsibility for a separate airstrike near Jabalia that killed five Palestinian children. However, neither Fabian nor Aurora Intel reported on the attack, despite having previously shared unconfirmed Israeli military intelligence that blamed Islamic Jihad for the civilian casualties. When questioned as to why a potential war crime acknowledged by Israeli military officials did not warrant mention, Fabian prevaricated, insisting that he could not share the news because the event was “still under investigation.”
The inaccurate, biased reporting we see from accounts like Aurora Intel and analysts like Fabian are not an aberration. In fact, they are indicative of a wider, organized network of Israeli and pro-Israel OSINT analysts who operate as uncritical conduits of Israeli hasbara. By amplifying certain stories while ignoring others, regurgitating Israeli military talking points, and outright disregarding developments that reflect poorly on the Israeli regime, these analysts are in effect whitewashing Israeli war crimes.
Furthermore, many OSINT accounts are anonymous, making it impossible for their followers to independently verify their technical expertise or identify underlying biases. As a result, it is unsurprising that these ostensibly impartial sources of information do not add to a more comprehensive understanding of the roots of violence in colonized Palestine—the Israeli regime’s interwoven systems of settler colonization, apartheid, and occupation.
Palestinians Under Digital Occupation
In theory, Palestinian OSINT analysts should be able to counteract Israeli disinformation campaigns by presenting the truth to a global audience. Indeed, one of the most appealing aspects of OSINT is that it permits just about anyone with internet access, situational knowledge, and training in open-source research techniques to participate in collective information verification processes. But under the Israeli regime’s brutal military occupation, even life on the internet for Palestinians is characterized by suffocating surveillance and obstructive barriers to access. Indeed, the Israeli regime took complete control of Palestinian information and communications technology infrastructure as early as 1967. Since then, it has controlled digital life in Palestine, preventing access to network technology, denying import requests for new telecommunications equipment, and closely surveilling online activity.
In addition to restricting access, the Israeli regime destroys critical infrastructure needed for basic energy resources, including electricity. In 2014, it bombed Gaza’s only functioning power plant, plunging its two million residents into an energy crisis that persists to this day. Although the power plant has since been partially restored, it is incapable of providing energy to sufficiently power the besieged enclave. Under Israel’s suffocating blockade and collective punishment tactics, Palestinians in Gaza are left to cope with daily rolling blackouts that often render it impossible to keep refrigerators running, let alone access the internet for extended periods of time.
When Palestinians do get online, internet connections are often excruciatingly slow. Indeed, Palestinian telecommunications networks in the West Bank have struggled to keep up on 3G since 2018, while Gaza still depends on an even less reliable 2G network. In July 2022, US President Joe Biden announced that the White House would work with Israel to bring 4G services to the West Bank and Gaza in 2023. However, almost a year since the announcement, no progress has been made. Slow download speeds and spotty internet connections force many Palestinians to buy Israeli SIM cards to access faster networks. While this does improve internet access for those who have the means, it only exposes Palestinians to heightened surveillance by the Israeli regime. Ultimately, under Israel’s digital occupation, Palestinians simply cannot participate in an OSINT revolution that is entirely dependent on reliable and fast internet access, and the free flow of information.
Despite the many obstacles Israel has erected, OSINT has already served the Palestinian cause and will only play an increasingly important role in collective efforts to hold Israel accountable. Click To Tweet
What is more, Israeli occupation forces regularly target Palestinians for recording and sharing information that may implicate them in war crimes or human rights violations. In November 2022, they shot and killed Mufid Khlayel as he filmed Israeli soldiers firing live ammunition at Palestinian youth in Beit Ummar in the southern West Bank. Later that month,they arrested Palestinian activist Issa Amro after he posted footage showing an Israeli soldier throwing an Israeli activist to the ground and repeatedly punching him in the face in al-Khalil (Hebron). And in May 2021, Hazem Nasser, a photojournalist for Palestinian television network Falastin Al-Ghad, was interrogated and threatened by Israeli soldiers for filming settler attacks and police brutality in Jerusalem.
Since 2020, Israel hasimprisoned at least 26 Palestinian journalists throughout the West Bank, charging many of them with “incitement” for merely documenting the events around them. Last year, the total number ofPalestinian political prisoners reached 4,760. Many of them report being detained and interrogated for posts such as sharing photos of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces on Facebook.
While Israel’s digital occupation has failed to deter burgeoning Palestinian-led OSINT initiatives outright, it has severely hampered their capabilities. For example, in the summer of 2021, Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq announced the establishment of a Forensic Architecture Investigation Unit that leverages OSINT techniques to monitor Israeli human rights violations. Their team later produced the aforementionedgroundbreaking report into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh that utilized special analysis to effectively recreate the moment journalists came under fire by Israeli forces.
In August 2022, Israeli occupation forces invaded Ramallah under the cover of night andraided the offices of Al Haq, along with five other human rights organizations that former Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz designated as “terrorist organizations.” EU member states, UN experts, and dozens of human rights organizations rejected the supposed evidence Israel cited as justification for the designations and raids; however, Israeli occupation forces doubled down on their threats to human rights organizations and staff throughout the West Bank. Unsurprisingly, the more effective these organizations become at exposing Israeli crimes, the more they become a target of Israeli retribution.
The Israeli regime is not alone in censoring Palestinians online. A September 2022 investigation by the Intercept found that Facebook and Instagram blocked or restricted posts and accounts that shared footage of the Israeli regime’s May 2021 airstrikes on Gaza and attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Social media companies attempted to blame the mass censorship on glitches in artificial intelligence software; however, activists pointed out that Facebook regularly moderates content at the behest of governments.
In fact, Israel has its own government agency dedicated to submitting censorship requests. Its cyber unit, which operates out of its State Attorney’s office, flags social media posts and requests their removal. According to its own data, 90% of these requests are granted across all social media platforms. High-ranking Israeli officials, including former defense minister Gantz, have gone as far aspersonally urging Meta and TikTok executives to moderate and censor social media content that is critical of Israel.
The Israeli regime’s coordinated campaign against social media companies is difficult to withstand, and this is exacerbated by the complicity of Palestinian leadership in digital violations. As a result, Palestinians cannot exert legal or diplomatic pressure on social media companies, nor sovereignty over their digital infrastructure. Furthermore, the Israeli regime’s highly developed technology sector has given it valuable soft power and an unparalleled relationship with leading social media giants. This means Palestinians must once again rely on the international community to hold Israel accountable for censorship and privacy violations.
What Needs to be Done
The rise of OSINT presents Palestinians with a unique conundrum. On the one hand, it provides relatively accessible and low-cost tools to document proof of Israeli regime war crimes and human rights violations that would otherwise go unreported. On the other hand, Palestinians are victims of the very technology they hoped would help them. By actively obscuring Israeli war crimes and fueling narratives that misrepresent the reality of Israel’s occupation, Israeli analysts and their supporters have co-opted OSINT, transforming it from a tool of objectivity to one of distortion. Furthermore, Israel’s digital occupation and constant surveillance often prevents Palestinians from dispelling Israeli disinformation.
OSINT alone will not stop Israeli war crimes and human rights violations, nor ensure accountability. However, by exposing Israel’s crimes to the world, OSINT can be used as a liberatory tool in the pursuit of transparency, deterrence, and justice. Despite the many obstacles Israel has erected, OSINT has already served the Palestinian cause and will only play an increasingly important role in collective efforts to hold Israel accountable. However, without concerted efforts by the international community, technology companies, and activists to ensure equal internet access, combat disinformation, and challenge authoritarian surveillance, OSINT risks being further used as a tool of oppression.
Fundamentally, Palestinians should be able to access the internet reliably wherever they are. There are currently no international treaties or laws that explicitly affirm access to the internet as a human right. Yet, the US and several countries throughout Europe have domestic laws that do. Human rights activists and organizations, Palestinian leadership, and UN member states must support the official establishment and ratification of internationally recognized laws—like the2021 UN Resolution on the Internet—that enshrine access to the internet as a human right. They should leverage these laws as a framework to demand the Israeli regime relinquish its control over Palestinian internet infrastructure.
Furthermore, Israel must be held accountable for targeting reporters, citizen journalists, and human rights groups. Activists in the US should contact their representatives to demand the passage ofHR 9291, which calls for an investigation and report on Israel’s assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh. Voters in the EU should also call on their representatives to demand Israel cease targeting Palestinian human rights organizations with false accusations of “terrorism.” In the absence of action in this regard at the state level, advocates should coordinate efforts with organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists in calling for accountability and preparing Palestinian journalists with protective tools and training.
Finally, there are steps that can be taken immediately to empower Palestinians in the face of Israel’s tightening digital occupation. Palestinian OSINT analysts and citizen journalists should be given access and funding for training and digital security courses that will allow them to more effectively leverage OSINT collection methods towards human rights, while maintaining their own safety and security. Organizations likeBellingcat and theAtlantic Council offer free or low-cost courses that have proven to be immensely valuable as foundational resources.
Advocates should also support Palestinian-led OSINT initiatives like theAl Haq and Forensic Architecture lab with additional funding and resources. Emerging applications likeSourceable are aimed at empowering citizen journalists with tools to immediately verify footage, photographs, and other open-source evidence in order to directly connect them with media and human rights organizations around the world. Deploying these tools in Palestine would enhance the flow of information, reduce the adverse impact of disinformation, and protect Palestinian citizen journalists from retribution by Israeli regime forces.
Through a process of collecting, analyzing, and sharing publicly available content online, open-source intelligence (OSINT) OSINT analysts are exposing critical intelligence once monopolized by state authorities. Indeed, the decentralized nature of the OSINT process offers a potentially unique opportunity for the marginalized and oppressed to challenge the narratives presented by governments and mainstream media in pursuit of truth and justice. However, while OSINT sharing gives journalists unparalleled insights from the ground and provides activists with new tools for accountability and mobilization, authoritarian regimes are quick to co-opt the new technologies for their own repressive purposes. Colonized Palestine is a case in point.
This policy brief contextualizes the Palestinian struggle for liberation amid the global rise of OSINT. In doing so, it explains how OSINT has been leveraged both as a liberatory tool to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes and human rights violations, and as a means of further oppression by promoting false Israeli narratives. The policy brief recommends several steps that Palestinians, their leadership, and their allies should take in order to harness OSINT’s potential as a tool for liberation and mitigate the risks posed by those determined to weaponize it.
On May 11, 2022, Israeli forces shot and killed renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was reporting on their raid in the occupied city of Jenin. News of Abu Akleh’s assassination, along with footage of the moment Israeli forces opened fire, spread rapidly across social media. Prior to the resurgence in OSINT, widespread recognition of the truth surrounding Abu Akleh’s murder would have rested on the outcome of an Israeli investigation of its own military. Today, OSINT gives Palestinians an invaluable tool: the joint investigation carried out by OSINT teams around the world into Abu Akleh’s murder proved a remarkable feat considering Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinians’ digital rights and its crackdown on human rights groups.
However, glaring issues continue to put OSINT’s liberatory potential at risk. Firstly, the investigation into Abu Akleh’s murder showed that Palestinians continue to depend in large part on the good will of OSINT analysts abroad who enjoy unrestricted access to the online infrastructure on which they depend—infrastructure often denied to Palestinians. Secondly, Israeli OSINT analysts are attempting to suppress efforts to expose the truth by serving as purveyors of hasbara—Israeli state-led propaganda aimed at concealing Israeli crimes and distorting the reality of its military occupation and apartheid policies.
Indeed, many OSINT accounts like Aurora Intel, Israel Radar, and ELINT News source much of their information uncritically from the Israeli military, overreporting acts of armed resistance by Palestinians, and underreporting more pervasive Israeli structural violence. As a result, instead of the objective sources of information these accounts claim to be, they end up propagating Israeli hasbara, distorting the public narrative, and covering up the regime’s war crimes.
In theory, Palestinian OSINT analysts should be able to counteract Israeli disinformation campaigns by presenting the truth to a global audience. But under the Israeli regime’s brutal military occupation, even life on the internet for Palestinians is characterized by suffocating surveillance and obstructive barriers to access. Furthermore, the Israeli regime’s highly developed technology sector has given it valuable soft power and an unparalleled relationship with leading social media giants. This means Palestinians must once again rely on the international community to hold Israel accountable for censorship and privacy violations.
OSINT alone will not stop Israeli war crimes and human rights violations, nor ensure accountability. However, by exposing Israel’s crimes to the world, OSINT can be used as a liberatory tool in the pursuit of transparency, deterrence, and justice. Fundamentally, Palestinians should be able to access the internet reliably wherever they are. Human rights activists and organizations, Palestinian leadership, and UN member states must support the official establishment and ratification of internationally recognized laws that enshrine access to the internet as a human right. They should leverage these laws as a framework to demand the Israeli regime relinquish its control over Palestinian internet infrastructure.
Furthermore, Israel must be held accountable for targeting reporters, citizen journalists, and human rights groups. Activists in the US should contact their representatives to demand the passage ofHR 9291, which calls for an investigation and report on Israel’s assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh.
Palestinian OSINT analysts and citizen journalists should be given access and funding for training and digital security courses that will allow them to more effectively leverage OSINT collection methods towards human rights, while maintaining their own safety and security. Finally, advocates should also support Palestinian-led OSINT initiatives like theAl Haq and Forensic Architecture lab with additional funding and resources. Doing so would enhance the flow of information, reduce the adverse impact of disinformation, and protect Palestinian citizen journalists from retribution by Israeli regime forces.
Vast-scale human rights abuses are being committed in Ukraine, women’s rights have been trampled on in Afghanistan and LGBTQI+ people’s rights are under assault in Uganda, along with several other African countries. Military rule has been normalised in countries such as Mali, Myanmar and Sudan, and democracy undermined by autocratic leaders in El Salvador, India and Tunisia, among others. Even supposedly democratic states such as Australia and the UK are undermining the vital right to protest.
But civil society continues to strive to make a crucial difference to people’s lives. It’s the force behind a wave of breakthroughs in respecting abortion rights in Latin America, most recently in Colombia, and in making advances in LGBTQI+ rights in countries as diverse as Barbados, Mexico and Switzerland. Mass protests in response to the high cost of living have won concessions on economic policy in countries including Ecuador and Panama, while union organising has gained further momentum in holding big-brand companies such as Amazon and Starbucks to account. Progress on financing for the loss and damage caused by climate change came after extensive civil society advocacy. The events of the past year show that civil society – and the space for civil society to act – are needed more than ever.
Key findings
Civil society is playing a key role in responding to conflicts and humanitarian crises – and facing retaliation
Civil society is playing a vital role in conflict and crisis settings – including in conflicts in Ethiopia, Syria and Ukraine – providing essential services, helping and advocating for victims, monitoring human rights and collecting evidence of violations to hold those responsible to account. But for doing this, civil society is coming under attack.
Catastrophic global governance failures highlight the urgency of reform
Too often in the face of the conflicts and crises that have marked the world over the past year, platitudes are all international institutions have had to offer. Multilateral institutions have been left exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s time to take civil society’s proposals to make the United Nations more democratic seriously – starting with the appointment of a civil society champion.
People are mobilising in great numbers in response to economic shock – and exposing deeper problems in the process.
As it drove a surge in fuel and food prices, Russia’s war on Ukraine became a key driver of a global cost of living crisis. This triggered a mass wave of protests in at least 133 countries – from Argentina to Indonesia and from Ghana to Kazakhstan – demanding economic justice. Civil society is putting forward progressive economic ideas, connecting with other struggles for rights, including for climate, gender, racial and social justice.
The right to protest is under attack – even in longstanding democracies
Many states, unwilling or unable to concede the deeper demands of protests have responded with violence, including in Iran, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. The right to protest is under attack all over the world, including when people are mobilising to seek economic justice, democracy, human rights and environmental action. Civil society groups are striving to defend protest rights.
Democracy is being eroded in multiple ways – including from within by elected leaders
Economic strife and insecurity are providing fertile ground for the emergence of authoritarian leaders. In more democratic contexts, there are distinct trends of a further embrace of far-right extremism, and of the rejection of incumbency. In volatile conditions, civil society is working to resist regression and keep making the case for inclusive, pluralist and participatory democracy.
Disinformation is skewing public discourse, undermining democracy and fuelling hate
Disinformation is being mobilised, particularly in conflicts and during elections, to sow polarisation, normalise extremism and attack rights. Powerful authoritarian states and far-right groups are key sources, and social media companies are doing nothing to challenge a problem that’s good for their business model. Civil society needs to forge a joined-up, multifaceted global effort to counter disinformation.
Movements for women’s and LGBTQI+ rights are making gains against the odds
In the face of difficult odds, civil society continues to drive progress on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights. But breakthroughs have made civil society the target of a ferocious backlash. Civil society is working to resist attempts to reverse gains and build public support to ensure that legal changes are backed by shifts in attitudes.
Civil society is the major force behind the push for climate action
Civil society continues to be the force sounding the alarm on the triple threat of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Civil society is urging action using every tactic available, from street protest and direct action to litigation and advocacy in national and global arenas. But the power of the fossil fuel lobby remains undimmed and restrictions on climate protests are burgeoning. Civil society is striving to find new ways to communicate the urgent need for action.
Civil society is reinventing itself to adapt to a changing world
In the context of pressures on civic space and huge global challenges, civil society is growing, diversifying and widening its repertoire of tactics. Drawing on its special strengths of diversity, adaptability and creativity, civil society continues to evolve. Much of civil society’s radical energy is coming from small, informal groups, often formed and led by women, young people and Indigenous people. There is a need to support and nurture these..
Interviews For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: media@civicus.org
The aims of Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia as stated by the editor, Valerie Morse, are “to make visible interconnections between social struggles separated by the vast expanse of Te Moana Nui-A-Kiwi [the Pacific Ocean] … to inspire, to enrage and to educate, but most of all, to motivate people to action” (p. 11).
It is an opportunity to learn from the activists involved in these struggles. Published by the Left of the Equator Press, there are plenty of clues to the radical ideas presented. The frontispiece points out that the publisher is anti-copyright, and the book is “not able to be reproduced for the purpose of profit”, is printed on 100 percent “post consumer recycled paper”, and “bound with a hatred for the State and Capital infused in every page”.
By their nature, activists take action and do things rather than just speak or write about things, as is the academic tradition, so this is an important, unique, and rare opportunity to learn from their insights, knowledge, and experience.
Twenty-three contributors representing some of the diverse Peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, China, Hawaii, Japan, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tokelau, Tonga, and West Papua offer 13 written chapters, plus poetry, artworks, and a photo essay. The range of topics is extensive too, including the history of the Crusades and the doctrine of discovery, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist movements, land reclamation movements, nuclear resistance and anti-racist movements, solidarity and allyship.
Both passion and ethics are evident in the stories about involvement in decolonised movements that are “situated in their relevant Indigenous practice” and anti-militarist movements that “actively practice peace making” (p. 11).
Peace Action … the new book. Image: Left of the Equator
While their activism is unquestioned, the contributors come with other impressive credentials. Not only do they actively put into practice their strong values, but many are also researchers and scholars. Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Wairere, Tainui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Arawa and Ngāti Tarāwhai) holds a Fulbright Scholarship from Harvard University. Mengzhu Fu (a 1.5 generation Tauiwi Chinese member of Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga) is doing their PhD research on Indigenous struggles in Aotearoa and Canada-occupied Turtle Islands. Kyle Kajihiro lectures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is a board member of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic from the Yikwa-Kogoya clan of the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands. Ena Manuireva is an academic and writer who represents the Mā’ohi Nui people of Tahiti. Dr Jae-Eun Noh and Dr Joon-Shik Shin are Korean researchers in Australian universities. Dr Rebekah Jaung, a health researcher, is involved in Korean New Zealanders for a Better Future.
Several of the authors are working as investigators on the prestigious Marsden project entitled “Matiki Mai Te Hiaroa: #ProtectIhumātao”, a recent successful campaign to reclaim Māori land. These include Professor Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan (Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Te Ahiwaru), Frances Hancock (Irish Pākehā), Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Waiohua ki te Ahiwaru me te Ākitai, Waikato Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Pikiao), and Pania Newton (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Ngāti Maniapoto) who is co-founder and spokesperson for the SOUL/#ProtectIhumātao campaign.
Others work for climate justice, peace, Indigenous, social justice organisations, and community groups. Jungmin Choi coordinates nonviolence training at World Without War, a South Korean antimilitarist organisation based in Seoul. Mizuki Nakamura, a member of One Love Takae coordinates alternative peace tours in Japan. Tuhi-Ao Bailey (Ngāti Mutunga, Te Ātiawa and Taranaki) is chair of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust and co-founder of Climate Justice Taranaki.
Zelda Grimshaw, an artist and activist, helped coordinate the Disrupt Land Forces campaign at a major arts fair in Brisbane. Arama Rata (Ngāruhine, Taranaki and Ngāti Maniapoto) is a researcher for WERO (Working to End Racial Oppression) and Te Kaunoti Hikahika.
Some are independent writers and artists. Emalani Case is a writer, teacher and aloha ‘āina from Waimea Hawai’i. Tony Fala (who has Tokelauan, Palagi, Samoan, and Tongan ancestry) engages with urban Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau. Marylou Mahe is a decolonial feminist artist from Haouaïlou in the Kanak country of Ajë-Arhö. Tina Ngata (Ngäti Porou) is a researcher, author and an advocate for environmental Indigenous and human rights.
Jos Wheeler is a director of photography for film and television in Aotearoa.
Background analysis for this focus on Te Moana Nui A Kiwi, provides information about the concepts of imperial masculinity, infection, ideas from European maritime law Mare Liberum, that saw the sea as belonging to everyone. These ideas steered colonisation and placed shackles, both figuratively and physically, on Indigenous Peoples around the world.
In the 17th century, Japan occupied the country of Okinawa, now also used as a training base by the US military. European “explorers” had been given “missions” in the 18th century that included converting the people to Christianity and locating useful and profitable resources in far-flung countries such as Aotearoa, Australia, New Caledonia and Tahiti.
In the 19th century, Hawai’i was subject to US imperialism and militarisation.
In the 20th century, Western countries were “liberating other nations” and dividing them up between them, such as the US “liberation” of South Korea from Japanese colonial rule. The Dutch prepared West Papua for independence 1960s after colonisation, but a subsequent Indonesian military invasion left the country in a worse predicament.
However, the resistance from the Indigenous Peoples has been evident from the beginnings of imperialist invasions and militarisation of the Pacific, despite the arbitrary violence that accompanied these. Resistance continues, as the contributors to Peace Action demonstrate, and the contributions reveal the very many faces and facets of non-violent resistance that works towards an eventual peace with justice.
Resistance has included education, support to help self-sufficiency, medical and legal support, conscientious objection, human rights advocacy, occupation of land, coordinating media coverage, visiting sites of significance, being the voice of the movement, petitions, research, writing, organising and joining peaceful marches, coordinating solidarity groups, making submissions, producing newsletter and community newspapers, relating stories, art exhibitions and installations, visiting churches, schools, universities, conferences, engaging with politicians, exploiting and creating digital platforms, fundraising, putting out calls for donations and hospitality, selling T-shirts and tote bags, awareness-raising events, hosting visitors, making and serving food, bearing witness, musical performances, photographic exhibitions, film screenings, songs on CDs.
In order to mobilise people, activists have been involved in political engagement, public education, multimedia engagement, legal action, protests, rallies, marches, land and military site occupations, disruption of events, producing food from the land, negotiating treaties and settlements, cultural revitalisation, community networking and voluntary work, local and international solidarity, talanoa, open discussions, radical history teaching, printmaking workshops, vigils, dance parties, mobile kitchens, parades, first aid, building governance capacity, sharing histories, increasing medical knowledge.
Activist have been prompted to act because of anger, disgust, and fear. The oppressors are likened to big waves, to large octopuses (interestingly also used in racist cartoons to depict Chinese immigrants to Aotearoa), to giants, to a virus, slavers, polluters, destroyers, exploiters, thieves, rapists, mass murderers, war criminals, war profiteers, white supremacists, racists, brutal genocide, ruthless killers, subjugators, fearmongers, demonisers, narcissistic sociopaths, and torturers.
The resisters often try to “find beauty in the struggle” (Case, p. 70), using imagery of flowers and trees, love, dancing, song, braiding fibers or leis, dolphins, shark deities, flourishing food baskets, fertile gardens, pristine forests, sacred valleys, mother earth, seashells, candlelight, rainbows, rays of the rising sun, friendship, alliance, partners, majestic lowland forests, ploughs, watering seeds, and harvesting crops.
Collaboration in resistance requires dignity, respect, integrity, providing safe spaces, honesty, openness, hard work without complaint, learning, cultural and spiritual awareness. The importance of coordination, cooperation and commitment are emphasised.
And readers are made aware of the sustained energy that is needed to follow through on actions.
The aim of Peace Action is to inspire, enrage, educate and motivate. These chapters will appeal mostly to those already convinced, and this is deliberately so.
In these narratives, images we have guidance as to what is needed to be an activist. We admire the courage and bravery, we are educated into the multitude of activities that can be undertaken, and the immense amount of work in planning and sustaining action.
This can serve as a handbook, providing plans of action to follow. Richness and creativity are provided in the fascinating and informative narratives, storytelling, and illustrations.
I find it difficult to criticise because its goal is clear, there is no pretence that it is something else, and it achieves what it sets out to do. It remains to be seen whether peace action will follow. But that will be up to the readers.
Dr Heather Devereis former director of practice, National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN). This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.
Australian climate emergency protester Deanna “Violet” Coco last week won her appeal ato the delight of supporters. A 15-month jail sentence imposed on her for blocking one lane on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a truck was quashed. Instead, Coco, 32, was issued with a 12-month conditional release order last Wednesday after district court judge Mark Williams heard she had been initially imprisoned on false information provided by the NSW police. She told reporters she would pursue compensation against the police after spending 13 days in prison. Here investigative journalist Wendy Bacon reports for City Hub on the NSW police withdrawing the false ambulance accusation that led to Coco’s jailing.
ANALYSIS: By Wendy Bacon in Sydney
New South Wales police withdrew a false allegation that four climate change protesters who had stopped traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year blocked an ambulance.
Police included this false allegation in a statement of the so-called “facts” that police prepared on the day of the arrests. The false allegation was designed to paint a hostile image of four peaceful protesters and to successfully argue for onerous bail conditions, including severe restrictions on their movements, and tough sentences.
The documents drawn up on the day of the protest stated: “The actions today have not only caused serious disruption to peak-hour traffic, but this imposition to traffic prevented an ambulance responding to an emergency under lights and sirens as it was unable to navigate through the increased heavy traffic as previously mentioned. This imposition to a critical emergency service has the potential to result in fatality.”
An unprecedented tough sentence was given to Violet Coco who had already spent 84 days “imprisoned” at home between her arrest in April 2022 and her appearance before Magistrate Alison Hawkins in December.
Hawkins referred to the blocking of the ambulance in her remarks when she sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison and refused bail. After spending 10 days in prison, Coco was released on bail by District Court judge Timothy Gartelmann.
Her appeal against sentence was heard on March 15 when the matter of the false allegations was raised.
The new information emerged during the sentencing hearing against two of Coco’s co-defendants Alan Glover and Karen Fitz-Gibbon who appeared for sentencing earlier this month.
They pleaded guilty to charges arising from blocking one lane of the Harbour Bridge for 30 minutes in April last year. Magistrate Daniel Reiss sentenced both to 18 months Community Correction Orders with a fine of $3000 each.
Sydney protesters demonstrating against the anti-protest laws and harsh sentences imposed on climate emergency activists. Image: City Hub
Compared to previous sentences for peaceful protesters, these are harsh sentences. Their lawyer told the court that they regretted causing inconvenience.
Outside the court, Glover, a comedian and actor who has been a firefighter for 40 years, told the media, “I’m very unhappy and angry. I think the judgement is wrong and I’m going to appeal.”
Asked whether he thought the tactics were appropriate, he said, “I’m a firefighter and what do I have to do to make sure firefighters have the resources to do the job properly. I want the government to recognise that we are already in the midst of climate change problems…We’ve got people dying from smoke inhalation from bushfires that are bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.”
Asked by a journalist if he still agreed with his lawyer’s statement in court that he recognised the action was “inappropriate”, he said, “I do, I thought it was inappropriate at the time but we have to do something to get the government to act now now.. a few minutes delay is nothing compared to the massive disruption that will occur if we do not get action on climate change.”
Greens spokesperson and NSW Upper House MP Sue Higginson who has appeared for hundreds of environmental protesters wrote on Facebook: “I nearly fell off my chair when the Magistrate handed down his sentence — a conviction, an 18 month community corrections order and a $3000 fine. I have represented hundreds of environmental protesters and this sentence is just so wrong. He should not be punished this way. I hope he appeals.
“On the upside, the case today put to rest the dangerous false shrill claims that an ambulance was obstructed during the protest. It wasn’t! When you have a state government and an opposition in lock step in an anti-protest draconian stance and a legal intolerance to dissent and civil disobedience we fail our democracy, our climate, our environment and our communities.”
Greens Senator David Shoebridge agreed and wrote on Facebook: ”The police went into court and REPEATEDLY lied that this had blocked an ambulance — all to try to get a harsher penalty for a climate protector!
Magistrate Daniel Reiss noted that Glover’s two co-accused “Violet” Deanna Coco and Jay Larbalestier had both been sentenced on the “false ambulance assertion” and that “no emergency vehicles were obstructed”.
This could open the way for Larbastier to appeal on his sentence. Police acknowledged that they had taken no steps to inform him that the evidence used against him was partly false.
If it wasn’t for the publicity, he would not know about the ambulance lie.
The cases of the Harbour Bridge protesters were among the first to take place after the LNP government’s draconian anti-protest laws were passed with NSW Labor’s support in April last year.
CCL condemns disproportionate sentences of climate protesters
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is one of scores of organisations calling for the repeal of the laws. Its president Josh Pallas described the case as “an outrageous” example of “police misstating the facts which have been consequential in the sentences of others.
“The police have offered no justification for this misstatement of facts. They must be held accountable and at the very least, explain how they got this so wrong.
“Climate protesters are being increasingly and disproportionately subjected to punitive legal action by Australian authorities and this has taken that legal action to a new extreme,” he said.
Pallas described this period as “some of the darkest times our members have seen for protesters,” since CCL started advocating for protest rights in 1963.
“We have fought the slow repression of police and the state in cracking down on protest every step of the way. But the fight is hard when the government is protecting mining and business interests and when the mainstream media side with government and large corporates with vested interests to stifle the right to protest,” he said.
“These cases provide yet another example of why everyone should be concerned about increasing repression of public assemblies and protests in NSW and elsewhere around the country. The right to protest and public assembly is an essential democratic right.
“Stifling protest stifles freedom of expression. Enough is enough, the government and the police must respect the right to protest and be accountable for their actions.”
Magistrate focused on ambulance in Coco case
The non existent ambulance featured in the first sentencing hearing against Coco.
The police referred Magistrate Alison Hawkins to the “fact” that Coco had prevented an ambulance with lights and sirens indicating an emergency. Coco’s barrister did not dispute that the ambulance “may have been” on the bridge but warned the magistrate against drawing implications from that or overblowing its significance.
Magistrate Hawkins disagreed asking why she would be going too far to accept that “impeding an ambulance under lights and sirens might be something that potentially has the potential to cause harm to some other person? Why is that a stretch too far?.”
She accepted the existence of the ambulance and the sirens as relevant “facts”.
She then applied these facts in her sentencing saying, “You have halted an ambulance under lights and siren. What about the person in there? What about that person and their family? What are they to think of you and your cause?”
Because Hawkins accepted the ambulance as fact, she felt free to accept that inside the ambulance was a very real person whose life was in danger. This was part of the basis for her referring to the protest as a “childish” and “dangerous” stunt.
She then justified her harsh and angry stance on the basis that this “dangerous behaviour… deserves “condemnation from not only the courts but the community” because Coco had not only illegally protested but she had done so in a manner to cause a “significant level of distress to the community”.
Because of the seriousness of the situation, Hawkins said she had no other option than to impose a full-time jail sentence.
Protester uses body cam footage to prove innocence
One of the effects of the anti-protest laws is to make it less likely that protesters will plead not guilty. This is because the laws are framed so that, for instance, you are either on a road or off a road. You do not have to be given a direction to move.
If an accused pleads not guilty and is then found guilty, there is a risk that a sentence could be even harsher.
When people plead guilty, there is less likelihood that police version of the facts will be tested in cross-examination. This means that there is more latitude for police to create their own facts — in other words, fabricate evidence.
In another case this week, climate activist Richard Boult was found not guilty of all charges brought by NSW Police for stepping onto a road during a climate protest in Sydney last June.
Boult who is part of the Extinction Rebellion drumming group was charged under NSW road rules with obstructing traffic and causing a traffic hazard arising from his participation in Blockade Australia’s call for stronger climate action.
Green Left reported that after attending the protest, he attended a media conference. When he left the conference, police followed him to his car and laid charges alleging he left the footpath and stepped onto the road.
Boult pleaded not guilty, saying his movement from the footpath was at a point in the road designated as a closing point. Significantly, he used body camera evidence that validated his claims. So it was not just his word against the police version of events.
He also rejected a plea deal, which would have dropped one charge but retained another. The court upheld Boult’s plea of not guilty and dropped the charges.
Wendy Bacon was previously the professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and is supporting the Greens in the NSW election. One of the reasons, she supports the Greens is because they are the only party committed to repealing the protest laws. Wendy Bacon’s investigative journalism blog.
“The largest share (46 percent) of the unpaid household work was done by the paid labour force (females 25 percent and males 20 percent) with fulltime domestic workers, commonly known as ‘housewives’ doing 39 percent,” the report said.
“Students did a significant 11 percent of unpaid household work, 7 percent by female students and 4 percent by male students.”
The report also said that for students, the gender gaps began right from the earliest years in primary and the gaps continued to grow through secondary and tertiary ages.
“Females in the labour force generally did more unpaid household work per week (29 hours) than males (12 hours a week).
Labour workload gap
“The gap was 14 hours per week for wage and salary earners and employers, while it was an extremely large 23 hours per week for ‘others’ who are more in the informal sector such as family workers, self-employed and subsistence.
“Employees, employers and self-employed clearly have the highest work burdens with females working on average 64 hours per week or 13 hours per week more than the corresponding males.”
The report added that females were still doing the bulk of the unpaid household work in the labour force.
The report solidly based on official data sources such as the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Fiji Revenue and Customs Service and Fiji National Provident Fund to generate evidence on status of women and girls in the Fijian economy and society.
Supported by the Australian government through the We Rise Coalition, the report comprehensively documents the many inequities that women and girls face in the economy in paid work (formal and informal sectors), unpaid household work and in the use of leisure time.
According to the report, females are concentrated in employment status work with extremely low average incomes, such as family work and subsistence.
The report stated females were concentrated more in occupations and industries with low average incomes.
“The female average income in 2015-2016 was $10,880 — 14 percent less than the $12,691 for males,” the report said.
Wata Shawis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Old-fashioned AM radio was an information lifeline for many in Aotearoa New Zealand during last month’s Cyclone Gabrielle when other sources wilted without power.
Now a little-known arrangement that puts proceedings of Parliament on the air has been cited as a threat to its future. But is a switch-off really likely? And what’s being done to avoid it?
“Government websites are a waste of time. All they’ve got is a transistor radio — and they need to actually provide a means for these people who need the information to damn well get it,” Today FM’s afternoon host Mark Richardson told listeners angrily on the day the cyclone struck.
He was venting in response to listeners without power complaining online information was inaccessible, and pleading for the radio station to relay emergency updates over the air.
Mobile phone and data services were knocked out in many areas where electricity supplies to towers were cut — or faded away after back-up batteries drained after 4-8 hours. In some places FM radio transmission was knocked out but nationwide AM transmission was still available.
“This will sharpen the minds of people on just how important . . . legacy platforms like AM transmission are in Civil Defence emergencies,” RNZ news chief Richard Sutherland told Mediawatch soon after.
“We are going to need to think very carefully about how we provide the belt and braces in terms of broadcasting infrastructure for this country as a result of this,” he said.
Future of AM questioned
But while Gabrielle was still blowing — the future of AM was called into question.
On February 15, Clerk of the House David Wilson told a Select Committee he might have to cut a $1.3 million annual contract to broadcast Parliament on AM radio after 87 years on air.
The next day The New Zealand Herald’s Thomas Coughlan reported “radio silence could come as soon as the next financial year on July 1 unless additional funding is found in the next Budget in May”.
In last Sunday’s edition of RNZ’s programme The House (also paid for by the Office of the Clerk), Wilson explained his spending cannot exceed his annual appropriation.
He said costs have gone up and the AM radio contract might have to go to make ends meet.
RNZ reporter Phil Pennington discovered for himself how handy AM transmission was when he was dispatched from Wellington to Hawke’s Bay when Cyclone Gabrielle struck.
Several times on the road he had to switch to AM when FM transmission dropped out.
Sustainability issue
“It puts a huge question mark on its sustainability because the money that the Clerk pays for us to broadcast Parliament underpins the entire network,” RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson told Pennington this week.
“It is an irony that at a time when New Zealand has had one of its biggest lessons about the importance of AM, it also has this challenge around its viability,” Thompson said.
It was also a time when the funding of RNZ is under review after the collapse of the government plan for a new public media entity with an annual budget of $109 million. RNZ’s current annual budget is $48m.
“It puts a lot of pressure on us as an organisation. We won’t be able to pick up the ($1.3m) cost. The parliamentary contract is a significant contributor to RNZ being able to maintain the AM network nationally,” Thompson said.
“If that money is not available, closing the network is not going to be feasible. This is such an important asset for New Zealand — a truly critical information lifeline. We will have to find a way of keeping it going,” he said.
Some RNZ Morning Report listeners were alarmed by question marks over AM’s future.
“I live in Central Hawke’s Bay. AM is the only strong signal. Do not stop broadcasting on that frequency. We love you, stay with us,” Cam said.
Questions over AM network’s funding despite its essential status in disasters https://t.co/Ie9KUBL8Sd
FM off air in Gisborne
“RNZ FM was off air in Gisborne for two days during Gabrielle. But RNZ on AM kept going. It absolutely must be kept,” Gisborne’s Glen said.
There are in fact two AM networks run by RNZ.
One broadcasts RNZ National from transmission sites all over the country.
The other carries Parliament and is broadcast from fewer transmission sites and on a range of frequencies in different parts of the country. It also airs programmes for customers including religious network Southern Star.
Iwi broadcasters and some commercial broadcasters also use RNZ sites to broadcast locally.
When RNZ shut AM transmission down in Northland last November, the government urgently injected $1.5 million to upgrade the aging sites.
At the time, Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty said radio was “a critical information channel to help reach New Zealanders in an emergency”.
Other AM sites
He said Manatū Taonga/the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, NEMA, and RNZ were all “collaborating to develop criteria for future decisions about other AM sites to make sure communities are able to stay connected and access critical warnings and guidance in emergencies”.
Clearly it is a problem if an important national emergency service owned and run by the public broadcaster can be jeopardised by pressure on a fixed budget at the discretion of Parliament’s Clerk.
When RNZ’s Phil Pennington asked NEMA to comment on the future of the AM network this week, his request was referred to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson.
Jackson is also the Minister of Māori Development, which oversees Māori Broadcasting, including for Te Whakaruruhau o nga reo Irirangi, the umbrella group of iwi radio broadcasters around the country. Jackson was the chair of Te Whakaruruhau before he entered Parliament again in 2017.
After the government scrapped the plan for a new public media entity last month, Jackson will have to go back to cabinet with a new plan to address RNZ’s future funding.
Jackson was one of the ministers on the ground in the regions hit by Cyclone Gabrielle and overseeing the emergency response — and was unavailable for interview on Mediawatch this week.
Citing Northland
His office supplied a statement citing that intervention in Northland last year.
“AM transmission is a key priority for the government. Officials from Manatū Taonga, NEMA and RNZ are working closely to ensure radio services (including AM transmission) are always available for people in an emergency,” it said.
“Long-term work to develop funding approaches is also underway to ensure RNZ’s AM transmission strategy continues — and the minister is considering this as part of a package to strengthen public media and will be returning to cabinet with proposals soon,” the statement said.
Before Gabrielle, provisions for AM broadcasting would have been low on the list for reporters scrutinising the minister’s latest cabinet plan for RNZ’s funding.
After Gabrielle, it will be one of the first things they look for.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
How to be a Bad Muslim is a collection of 19 short essays by Mohamed Hassan, an award-winning poet and an international journalist. He was born in Cairo, but moved to Auckland at the age of eight.
This personal history underlies much of his writing: his fond memories of Egypt and its collectivist society and extended families, versus his adolescence as a migrant with a clearly identifiable Muslim name in individualist New Zealand. After 9/11, suspicions deepened and Muslims were subject to collective guilt and racial profiling, despite that fact that Muslims around the world condemned the attacks.
“To be granted citizenry and promised equality but to always be held at arm’s length. To be accused of plotting disharmony when all we have ever fought for was integration, acceptance, peace.” In other words, to be “welcome, but not welcome”.
This is all documented in chapter 11: “How to be a bad Muslim.”
Memories from his youth include spooky childhood memories from Cairo (chapter 2, “The witch of El Agouza”), followed by real-life memories and standing up to being bullied in school in New Zealand by someone who later became an All Black (chapter 3, “Showdown in the Kowhai Room”).
As a Muslim, the author’s refusal to enter the binge drinking culture of New Zealand, while entering the local poetry scene, shows that it is possible to enjoy oneself without alcohol (chapter 4, “The last sober driver”).
The author is well acquainted with IT, the internet, YouTube, social media, etc. An important chapter is the first, entitled “Subscribe to PewDiePie”, being the last words of the Christchurch shooter before entering Al-Noor Mosque. The chapter documents the seemingly innocent growth of YouTube and social media over a decade, all leading ultimately to the Christchurch massacre.
Many passages in the chapters touch on the misrepresentation of Muslims and Islam, as the author reports from first-hand experience. He was bullied at school, given the cold shoulder at work, passed over for promotion, regularly subjected to “random” searches at airports, etc. His brother no longer goes with his two young sons to Friday prayers in Manukau, because he does not feel they are safe.
“The growing mistrust was fuelled by grotesque and irresponsible media narratives that portrayed Muslim immigrants as an existential threat, and the public believed it” despite the fact that the public knew little about Islam and Muslims, and failed to find out about it.
“A Sikh man studying at a café outside his medical school had police called to interrogate him after a woman spotted wires hanging out of his bag. They were headphone cables.”
In chapter 10 “Ode to Elliott Alderson”, he catalogues the misrepresentation of Muslims in film, involving famous actors such as Rami Malek, Omid Djalili, Hank Azaria, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christian Bale, and Sigourney Weaver.
Throughout the chapters, the author reports his memories and experiences, but often with a sense of humour, and with a poet’s turn of phrase. He describes his baby sister sleeping “as only an infant can, her fingers curled into themselves and her breath like a moth dancing around a faint sun”.
As an Egyptian Muslim growing up in New Zealand, he was “a kid who wore the question of belonging like an ankle monitor everywhere I went.” As a keen observer of the effect of IT, the internet and social media, he wonders, “Will our greatest of grandchildren unearth our metadata and try and decipher what our selfies said about our civilisation?”
This is an important book for anyone wanting to understand the problems immigrants — especially Muslims — face in New Zealand.
Dr Adam Brown is an Auckland academic, author and the editor of a New Zealand Muslim publication. This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.
From July 1 this year, it will be legal in Australia to prescribe Psilocybine (the hallucinogenic chemical in ‘magic mushrooms’) and methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (better known as MDMA) after a landmark announcement by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) late this afternoon.
Psilocybine and MDMA have been used in trials in the US and other countries, and also in Australia, but pressure was mounting for the drugs to be reclassified in Australia to allow their prescribed use in treatments for illnesses such as depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
This afternoon, the TGA announced that from July 1, Psilocybin and MDMA – which are both currently classified as Schedule 9 substances (meaning their use is prohibited) – will be reclassified as Schedule 8 drugs (controlled medicines), paving the way for them to be prescribed by suitably qualified psychiatrists.
That doesn’t mean it’s legal to go out and obtain mushrooms or MDMA – the drugs retain their Schedule 9 status outside a prescribed, therapeutic environment, making it illegal to use or possess them. Psilocybine can specifically be prescribed for treatment resistant depression, and MDMA can be prescribed for treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The TGA noted that in deciding to reschedule MDMA and Psilocybine, it considered almost 10,000 public submissions across the two drugs (3,442 for Psilocybine and 6,505 for MDMA), along with other material including reports from an independent expert panel, input from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ (RANZCP)and a presentation to the TGA by Professor David Nutt, a renowned British neuropsychopharmacologist.
Chairman of Mind Medicine Australia, Peter Hunt AM said his organisation was delighted and would be welcomed by many Australians suffering from depression and PTSD.
“The decision specifically recognises the current lack of options for patients with specific treatment resistant mental illnesses and the supporting evidence of safety and efficacy from clinical trials,” Mr Hunt said.
“Whilst not yet a medicine registered on the Therapeutic Goods Register, this decision will enable appropriately screened patients with treatment resistant depression and treatment resistant post-traumatic stress disorder to access these medicinal therapies through authorised psychiatrists.”
Executive Director of Mind Medicine Australia, Tania de Jong AM said: “We want to express our enormous gratitude to the tens of thousands of people who have made this breakthrough possible including the TGA, the Delegate, the members of the TGA’s Medicines Scheduling Advisory Committee and all of the psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, world leading experts and all of the people who put in submissions of support.
“The support that we have had throughout this process has been incredible and overwhelming. We were also delighted that the work of Professor David Nutt who presented to the TGA last November was specifically recognised by the Delegate in the Final Decision.”
A spokesperson for the TGA noted there are currently no approved products containing psilocybin or MDMA that the TGA has evaluated for quality, safety and efficacy. “However, this amendment will allow authorised psychiatrists to access and legally supply a specified ’unapproved’ medicine containing these substances to patients under their care for these specific uses.”
First came the devastating flash floods in Auckland on Friday night. Then came the huge effort to help families evacuate to community shelters. And finally the ongoing clean-up operation.
We’re saddened by this unprecedented extreme weather that has impacted on some of our communities in Aotearoa. It was great to see the community come out to support and help evacuate flooded-out people to the community shelters. We were going door-to-door to help families as the flood waters were rising.
Special thanks to the volunteers who came out yesterday to help clean up at the NZ Ethnic Women’s Trust in Mt Roskill which was impacted by the flooding. Volunteers at the Wesley Primary School helped families with food, clothes and hot meals.
Thanks to the school leaders who opened the space to give shelter to families.
A massive thanks to the volunteers that worked alongside me to distribute food today in Albert-Eden and Puketāpapa. We distributed food and needed information door to door on O’Donnell Avenue in Mt Roskill to families and the church affected by the flood.
We also reached out to affected families in Fowlds Avenue, Kitchener Street and Lambeth Avenue.
About 80 meals delivered to 30 families — thanks to Humanity First International for the meals and to the Whānau Community Centre and Hub’s Nik Naidu.
All over Auckland, volunteers were doing a great job.
Need help, please contact these numbers:
Accommodation support: 0800 222 200
Clothes, bed, and blankets etc: 0800 400 100
Auckland’s flash floods
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Floods 1: A flooded Sandringham street. Image: APR
Floods 2: Community advocate Red Tsounga amid a Mt Roskill “lake”. Image: APR
Floods 3: Helping families evacuate. Image: APR
Floods 4: A floating car in the red.
Floods 5: NZ Ethnic Women’s Trust whānau and helpers.
Floods 6: Helping the NZ Ethnic Women’s Trust. Image: APR
Floods 7: The “Niu FM” touch at the NZ Ethnic Women’s Trust. Image: APR
Floods 8: Toys . . . but the floods are no fun. Image: APR
Floods 9: Kai from Humanity First International. Image: APR
In September 2021, New Matilda editor Chris Graham went from surfing almost every day to being air-lifted from a Queensland island, hospitalised almost a dozen times in 12 months, and bed-ridden for much of the rest of it. The trouble all started a couple of days after his second Covid-19 vaccination. In this special two-part feature, Chris explores ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ of Australia’s response to the pandemic, and asks hard questions of himself and others about life, death and the morality of mass vaccination.
Thanks to a three decades long career as a journalist, my default demeanour is ‘bitter pessimist’. But courtesy of genetics and my upbringing, I’m also trapped in the body of a hopeless optimist. And that explains why it wasn’t until my Cardiologist was walking out of my hospital room that I realized what she’d just told me was actually very bad news.
“Would you like me to close the door?” she asked me gently.
“Sorry?”
“Would you like me to close the door?” she repeated.
“Oh, no, it’s fine thanks,” I replied breezily, and a little confused. Why would she offer to close my door, I thought to myself. It was open when she came in, and I’ve been here more than a week and it’s never been closed. And how good is it that I got my own room this time ‘round? Score!
A few minutes earlier, she’d tried to explain what was wrong with my heart. It’s all a bit of a blur in hindsight, but I’d written down ‘Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy’, which she encouraged me to read up on.
And again, ever the optimist, as she was explaining to me that there is no cure, and that in cases like mine, I might recover some heart function but it’s unlikely I’d ever get back to where I was, I zeroed in on the ‘unlikely’ part and thought to myself… ‘Yeah well, that’s what happens to other people. Not me. I’m 49. I’m fit. I’m strong. I surf most days of the week. I paddle out into the middle of the ocean and swim with whales and sharks for f*ck’s sake. And I don’t just do that on a normal, boring old surfboard. I tackle big swells on a Stand-Up Paddle Board. I am exceptional. I am invincible.’
Happier times… me on North Stradbroke Island not all that long before everything went south. I’m wearing a Farnham wig in the surf because… well, you don’t need a reason.
Sporting delusions of grandeur aside, I was also spectacularly wrong. With the room to myself, I googled ‘Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy’. Turns out the ‘idiopathic’ part is just a fancy way of saying they don’t know the cause. I think I do, and so do some of the doctors and specialists I’ve seen since, but I’ll come back to that shortly. Because then, of course, I googled ‘Dilated Cardiomyopathy’ (DCM) and ‘life expectancy’… and it suddenly dawned on me why my cardiologist had offered to close the door on her way out.
What are the odds?
Twenty-five percent of people with my condition die within the first year of their diagnosis. Half are gone within five years. That’s obviously shitty odds to begin with, but mine are made worse by the fact that in addition to DCM, I’ve also developed moderate heart failure, and I have electrical problems in three separate chambers of my heart. Or in the words of another of the multitude of doctors, nurses and cardiologists who’ve treated me over the past year, “Your heart is on fire.” If only I were a romantic and not a bitter pessimist/hopeless optimist….
To give you the briefest of explanations, DCM is a condition where the left ventricle of the heart stretches, weakening its ability to pump blood around your body. There’s no cure for DCM – it’s a life-long condition.
Heart failure is something else entirely. It’s more generic, more widespread, and basically concerned with how effective your heart is as a pump. That’s assessed in part by what’s known as your ‘ejection fraction’ – i.e. how much of the blood sitting in your heart at any given time is ejected every time your heart pumps. You might think that 100 per cent ejection fraction (EF) sounds like a good aspirational figure – I certainly did. But it’s not. A normal EF is anywhere between 55 per cent to 75 per cent. That is, half to three quarters of the blood sitting in your heart is pumped out every time it beats.
Heart failure is when that EF drops to 40 per cent or lower. In my case, I was first admitted to hospital in October 2021 at around 36 per cent. After a few months, I regressed further to 25 per cent. As for the electrical problems, let’s just say in my case ‘it’s complicated’. In addition to a few known arrhythmias, I have signs of ‘severe conduction disease’, which is just a fancy way of saying the wiring in my ticker was clearly done by an unlicensed sparky.
As for the practical effects of all of the above, when I first got into trouble, walking up a set of stairs could be a pretty epic undertaking. One afternoon when I was feeling better than usual, I decided to go for a beach walk. I made it a kilometre before realising I still had to somehow make it home. The return journey took an hour.
Some days I would wake feeling literally like death warmed up, which is pretty unsettling for someone used to bouncing out of bed. Standing at a sink washing dishes was also a huge challenge. I used to get out of doing them by claiming my ‘sensitive skin’ couldn’t handle the hot water. But in the early days of a dicky heart, I could only stand at the sink for a few minutes at most before my back started to give way, courtesy of a lack of blood supply to my muscles.
The best way I can describe DCM, with the greatest of respect, is that having it along with heart failure and a few arrhythmias is what I always imagined it would be like to get really, really old. Everything is a bit of a struggle, and long naps throughout the day are no longer just a luxury. They’re non-negotiable.
This article in The Conversation explains DCM reasonably well, plus it’s about musician George Michael of Wham! fame, who died from it. In any event, once the news from my cardiologist had sunk in, I did what any self-respecting investigative journalist would do… I joined multiple Facebook support groups. That was my first mistake.
As the name implies, support groups on Facebook aim to be ‘supportive’. But the problem with that is what ‘support’ looks like depends on your perspective, and from mine, I don’t like my news sugar-coated. I just want the facts, which is something Facebook’s not exactly known for. If I’m going to die, then just tell me I’m going to die, and I’ll deal with it as best I can. Don’t tell me ‘everything will be okay if you just stay positive’, because ‘positivity’ won’t help me up the stairs nor will it get the dishes washed. And it certainly won’t cause my heart to shrink back to its normal size, nor improve my ejection fraction. In particular, I like to avoid phrases like: ‘Don’t believe what you read on Google. I’ve lived with DCM for 20 years, and I’m doing fine!’
All of the support groups I joined were thick with that sentiment, which I can appreciate was intended to lift me, and others, up. But while it’s certainly true that there are many people who’ve lived many years with DCM, and managed their lives quite well, that’s actually how statistics work. If half the number of people with DCM die within the first five years – and they do – that means the other half live more than five years. The problem is, you don’t get to hear from the first half, or from the 25 per cent who died in the first year, because… well, let’s just say they’re not as active on social media as they used to be.
Joining those pages, for me at least, felt like an exercise in confirmation bias, but with a megaphone of denial in an echo chamber of toxic positivity. Which sounds a bit harsh on reflection, because from my experience, the people I met there were overwhelmingly nice folk, and they fundamentally meant well. But I also quickly formed the view that it just wasn’t the place for me.
As Henry David Thoreau once said, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” I like that sentiment, but it’s obviously also a bit over the top. You can have any combination of that three and truth without too much hassle. But then, old Henry was always a bit dramatic. Plus in my case, the truth, like my heart problems, is complicated.
Making waves
Speaking of drama, I promised earlier to explain how this all came about. Or at least how I think it may have come about, because as we sit today – a year and a few months in – the causes are either contested or unknown, depending on your perspective and in particular your qualifications.
What I do know almost to the minute is when everything started to go south for me. It was 7:35am on Sunday, September 12, 2021 near the appropriately named South Gorge, a spectacular spot in the far north eastern tip of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), a semi-tropical paradise on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland.
A typical day at South Gorge on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in south east Queensland. (IMAGE: New Matilda)
Quite apart from Minjerribah’s role as a tourist mecca – on any given day you can see dolphins, turtles, manta rays, eagle rays, sharks, and Humpback Whales – South Gorge also happens to be home to my favourite surf break. That’s despite the fact that 18 months earlier I’d broken my ribs there in a big swell.
This particular Sunday morning, I didn’t really want to go out – it was overcast, and chilly. Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUPing) gives you a very good workout on the flat water of a lake, by smashing your core, arms and legs all at once. But riding a SUP in the surf is the same workout on steroids. Multiplied by 10. That said, I promised myself I would go out because I’d spent Saturday on the couch.
The day before (Friday), I’d had my second Covid-19 vaccine (Pfizer) in preparation for a trip south to Wilcannia, a remote Aboriginal community in the far west of NSW under siege from a Covid-19 outbreak, and official government neglect. But by Saturday the jab wasn’t agreeing with me – I was lethargic and just felt generally unwell, so I spent the day surfing the net, rather than the island.
By Sunday, I was feeling better, plus the swell had picked up, maybe two metres or so. While punching out through big waves on a SUP is never particularly appealing, surfing does happen to be an actual religion, and I consider that not going out on a Sunday without a very good excuse is blasphemous. So out I went.
As I paddled into the break zone, I could see a big set rolling in. I just managed to punch over the top of the first wave (surf SUPs are way too buoyant to duck dive under waves like you do on a normal surfboard) but I didn’t quite escape the suck of the breaking wave. I was pulled back ‘over the falls’, dumped heavily, then dragged backwards underwater for 46 metres. I know the precise distance because I was wearing a fitness watch, which records everything like time and average heart rate, even my exact route.
South Gorge, on Minjerribah. The red ‘X’ on the inset marks the spot where I got ‘dunked’.
Needless to say, it was a wild ride, but one I’d enjoyed many, many times before. As the board was dragged along in the whitewash, I bounced along the bottom of the sea bed, like a human anchor on a boat. I acknowledge that sort of adventure is not necessarily for everyone, but personally, as a fairly solid bloke, I genuinely love it. Where else can you get rag-dolled around like a kid, without losing skin?
When I finally came up for air, I realized I’d lost a lot of ground, and figured I’d better move my arse, otherwise I’d get smashed by another set. I climbed back on the board, pointed myself out to sea, went to paddle and… nothing.
Literally nothing.
My breathing was laboured, but I’d just had a thorough dunking. But I also had zero energy, like my tank was completely empty. That’s despite the fact I’d entered the water only a minute or so earlier. Trying to paddle felt like I was moving in slow motion. It was the strangest feeling, and completely foreign to me.
Good luck, not good management saw me narrowly beat the next set and make it out the back of the waves, where I sat for the next 20 minutes, absolutely spent and unable to stand up. My legs were like jelly and I couldn’t seem to properly catch my breath. My watch records a heart rate for the next 20 minutes of 184 beats per minute. At 49 years of age, that’s uncomfortably high. And that was just the average. I drifted around behind the breakers like flotsam for another 40 minutes before belly-riding it back into shore and slinking back to my car. Defeated, I spent the remainder of the Sunday back on the couch.
Up until that point in mid-September, my watch records me surfing eight out of a possible 12 days. It also records me surfing 21 days in August. But after that morning, I surfed only once more during the month of September, and only a handful of times throughout the month of October.
Exercise just seemed harder than usual. I put the sudden drop in output down to an exhausting year. But what I didn’t realize was that I was developing all the signs of something far less innocent than simple lethargy. On October 18, my right leg became so swollen that I thought it was funny. So I took a photo and sent it to a close friend, laughing about how ridiculous it looked.
My ‘ridiculous’ right leg, a month after my second Pfizer jab.
The reason why no alarm sounded is because my right leg was always a bit swollen – I trashed the central vein after an ice hockey accident in 2007 (I tore a hole in my stomach with my own stick, then developed a huge Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in my leg, followed by two pulmonary embolisms plus a life sentence on blood thinners). I was also getting palpitations in my chest, but that was also ‘normal’ for me. Ironically, when I had the ice hockey accident, I was in the middle of going through the motions to determine whether or not I had some sort of heart arrhythmia. I had to wear a Holter monitor during a hockey game to see what my heart did – it got to 245 beats per minute, which is definitely not recommended. Unfortunately, before we solved the heart mystery, I had the ice hockey accident, and the heart investigations got put on the back burner. Then, over time, forgotten.
By mid-October, my stomach was also starting to bloat, and despite being relatively fit, I could lie down and ‘jiggle it’. I put that down to ‘excess fluid’ from not exercising as often as I should over the last few weeks.
The most bizarre symptom – which I didn’t even know was a symptom until a doctor asked me about it later in hospital – was that I had suddenly started adding more pillows when I slept. I noticed it at the time, in passing, but thought nothing of it. Four pillows seemed a bit silly, but I just figured I needed to sleep more upright as I got older.
What I didn’t know then, but obviously do now, is that these are all potential signs of heart failure.
Oblivious to it all, my final surf session at Minjerribah was a monster three-hour, 8.42 km paddle on October 30, 2021, which took me across the top of the island, through ‘Shark Alley’ (you can guess why the locals call it that) and down the right-hand side to Frenchman’s Beach, a notorious spot just north of South Gorge that’s great for surfing, but occasionally fatal to swimmers if you’re silly enough to ignore the warning signs.
Frenchman’s Beach, on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in south east Queensland. (IMAGE: New Matilda)
The whole session was a struggle. I felt like my body was punishing me for the limited exercise I’d been doing and I resolved to try harder the next week. The following day I saw my GP about a skin cancer on my nose, but also explained that exercise felt a lot more challenging than it should, and that I was having more and more palpitations. She suggested I come straight in if I felt them, and they’d try and catch it on an ECG machine.
Two days later – five weeks after my second Pfizer shot – I was being airlifted from Minjerribah by an evac team from QGAir.
Down, Up And Away
Generally, it takes a bit over two hours to get from Minjerribah to the Princess Alexandra (PA) Hospital in Brisbane. There’s the 20-minute drive on the island itself – Minjerribah, the second largest sand island in the world behind K’gari (Fraser Island), is almost 40 kilometres long – then it’s 50 minutes across the bay on a car ferry, then another hour or so to the PA, depending on traffic.
By helicopter, it’s a 12-minute flight, plus you don’t have to look for parking at the end. Apart from the cost, the only downside I can see to commuting by helicopter every day is that it’s very, very noisy. Unless you’re hooked in to one of the headsets, you can’t hear anything beyond the roar of the rotors, and you certainly can’t communicate verbally with the people around you.
That explains why, shortly after we lifted off, the doctor leading the evac team leaned forward and showed me his phone. He’d typed, “Your numbers are good. You’re safe.” He’d added a smiley face at the end, which I thought was a pretty nice touch. Just prior, I’d watched my heart rate – which was visible on a monitor off to my side – jump from low 40s to more than 160 beats per minute, for no apparent reason. The look on my face, I’m assuming, suggested alarm, hence the doctor’s message.
Before we’d taken off, I’d asked him, “I’m a journalist, do you mind if I film this?”
“Sure, why not,” he smiled. Which is how I came to film my own evacuation on an otherwise uneventful Thursday afternoon from a sunny Queensland island. As stories go, this was going to be a cracker, I thought. I obviously had no idea how sick I really was, or how radically my life was about to change.
When we arrived at the PA, things unfolded precisely as you might imagine. When the chopper doors burst open, there was a huddle of serious looking people in masks ready to go about serious looking jobs. They worked quickly and precisely, with the sort of quiet efficiency that makes me question whether robots will ever truly be able to do what humans are capable of in a crisis.
I was rushed downstairs straight into the emergency department – no waiting, another perk of being brought in by chopper. My first and still one of my most vivid memories of the past year and a bit is of a group of nurses and doctors huddling around a screen monitoring my condition, and then occasionally turning to look at me with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.
Apparently, my heart rate was jumping all over the place, from very fast to very slow, and everything in between, along with jumping in and out of various rhythms (for the med nerds among us, there was Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT), bradycardia, sustained and non-sustained Ventricular Tachycardia (VT), plus regular Pre-Ventricular Contractions (PVCs) thrown in for good measure.
Things got so ridiculous that one of the nurses finally turned to me and, half-joking, asked, “You’re not controlling this are you?” I definitely wasn’t, although as I would realize over time, to some degree I actually could.
Very early in proceedings, one of my Cardiologists taught me a trick known as the ‘Valsalva manoeuvre’, which is designed to bring a racing heart rate back under control. While you’re lying in your hospital bed, the Valsalva involves ‘bearing down’ like you’re trying to poop while constipated. It’s not the most comfortable of procedures – physically, or emotionally, particularly in front of an audience – but in my case, it proved very effective.
When my heart rate would inexplicably jump to 160bpm or so – which would happen multiple times a day, for no apparent reason – alarms would go off and nurses and doctors would come running, ready to resuscitate me.
My airlift and maiden hospital visit was way back in October 2021, and since then, I’ve been re-admitted to hospital a further eight times, four of them in Brisbane, and four at the Prince of Wales Hospital (POWH) in Sydney. I’m proud to say that during all my stays, I performed the Valsalva to sell outs crowds of doctors and nurses, and in particular students, and not once did I ‘lose control’ and ‘follow through’, which if you’ve ever had any experience with the move, you’ll know is an ever-present threat.
Australian Valsalva sensation and all-round good guy…. (with friends who just ‘get me’).
Then things got serious
Two of my most recent hospitalisations were not heart-related. In mid-October 2022, I visited my GP for what we both thought was a mild eye infection. Later that evening, I was in an ambulance on my way to POWH with excruciating pain radiating out from just below my chest. Turns out I was suffering an acute attack of pancreatitis, the cause of which remains a mystery to this day.
As luck would have it, the morning after my arrival my ‘eye infection’ had somehow managed to spread to my face and scalp… I spent the next two weeks in hospital with Shingles, followed by two more admissions, one of which included a suspicion of meningitis (or possibly encephalitis) courtesy of some pretty ‘out there’ hallucinations. Like the pancreatitis attack, the cause remains a mystery, although unlike the pancreatitis, I do have some fond memories of it. A lot of the hallucinations (which a close friend had the foresight to film) I have no memory of, whatsoever. But a particular set of them I do recall vividly… twice I was caught trying to sneak into rooms where Covid-19 patients were being isolated, because I was convinced friends of mine were in there waiting to stage a surprise ‘get well concert’ for me.
This is just a personal opinion, but if you were somehow given the choice between Dilated Cardiomyopathy – notwithstanding its potentially life-limiting nature – and Shingles, my very strong advice would be go for the heart condition.
More formally known as the Varicella Zoster Virus (VSV), Shingles is the adult version of Chickenpox, which, like most folk, I had as a kid. What I didn’t know then, but know all too painfully now, is that once you get over Chickenpox, the virus doesn’t die, it lies dormant somewhere in your nervous system, waiting for a chance to re-emerge in all its glory as a full-blown Shingles outbreak.
Where that occurs on your body depends on where the virus was hiding. The most common place is in a band around your waist, which makes lying down pretty challenging. But the virus can sit virtually anywhere there are nerves, and obviously, your body has nerves everywhere. Particularly in your head and face. That’s where my Chickenpox decided to hide out 40 or so years ago, and so that’s where my Shingles decided to break out a few months ago. That, and in my right eye.
Shingles, particularly if it breaks out on your face and spreads to your eye, should really be a criminal offence.
Shingles is bad enough where-ever you get it, but the term ‘miserable’ doesn’t even begin to describe what it’s like having it on your face and in your eye. It’s so shithouse that the only way I can think to describe it is ‘obscene’. As in, ‘I have suffered an obscenity’. Generally, I reserve those sorts of fighting words to describe, say, lunch with Alan Jones, or waking up drunk beside Tony Abbott or Eric Abetz and having no memory of what I did the night before. But Shingles of the face and eye has forced me to reconsider what an outrage really is. Although on reflection, the word ‘Demtel’ is another that fits, because when it comes to Shingles, wait, there’s more. So much more.
In about one in five cases, Shingles kicks the shit out of your nerves so thoroughly that you develop a condition known as Postherpetic Neuralgia (PHN), and that’s where the fun really begins. In my case, I had (or rather, I have… it’s still weaving its magic) Postherpetic Neuralgia of the Trigeminal Nerve. Translated, that simply means ‘After a Varicella Zoster Virus from the herpes family (postherpetic) you developed nerve pain (neuralgia) in your face and scalp and eye (Trigeminal nerve)’.
Its location and intensity is only a small part of the obscenity. What makes PHN so thoroughly awful is its longevity. It can last months after the Shingles rash has cleared, or even years. Or until the day you die, which in some cases you might consider a relief, particularly if it settles into your Trigeminal nerve.
And I mean that literally. A condition similar to mine (basically the same problem, but with a different cause), called ‘Trigeminal Neuralgia’ is known as the ‘suicide disease’. Widely regarded as the most painful condition known to humanity, literally, the renowned Mt Sinai Hospital in New York describes it thus: “Unpredictable bouts of severe pain that makes everyday living unbearable. Every aspect of life becomes shrouded in currents of unrelenting shocks to the face, causing both physical and mental anguish”.
This is the part where my luck picks up a little: to this day, I haven’t fully recovered vision in my right eye, which drips like a tap all day, every day. And I’m on some pretty kick-arse nerve pain medications, which are doing God-only-knows-what to other parts of my body. But while I’m a long way from being pain free – at completely random times of the day it can feel like my face is being electrocuted – I can still function. It just means that occasionally I pull a face that makes it look like my finger is stuck in a power socket.
Surprisingly, that still makes me one of the ‘lucky ones’, Or maybe one of the ‘lucky unlucky ones’, because a lot of people in my situation aren’t faring nearly so well. Mind you, they probably don’t also have heart problems to deal with, but in my experience, cardiac issues exhaust you, and occasionally make you feel like death warmed up, but it’s not painful. For the first full year of my heart condition, I was very aware of, and grateful for, that fact. Shingles and PHN radically changed all that, and so I found myself once again circling the Facebook support groups.
For me at least, I found contemplating my mortality – as I was forced to do in the early stages of my heart failure – something best done alone. Well, more or less alone: I had a psychologist (Lena), who was a huge help, and a close friend who was even more so. I guess I mean that the input of complete strangers, regardless of whether or not we had something terrible in common, wasn’t that helpful for me. But as Shingles and PHN forced me to discover, the questions you ask yourself about your mortality are quite different when you’re in constant pain.
Suffice to say, I’m a member of several Facebook PHN groups, and I’ve found connecting with people who know what it feels like to have your eyeball scooped out with a hot spoon (metaphorically speaking) comforting. Or maybe, to quote English naturalist and botanist John Ray, a man far less prone to hyperbole than Thoreau, “Misery loves company”.
The good
The elephant in my room, obviously, is whether or not the Pfizer vaccine played a part in my heart issues, and even some of the extra silliness that followed. The truth is, I don’t know. Some doctors believe it did. Some believe it didn’t, and some are still having a bet each way. In all likelihood, that will probably be how it remains – the great mystery of my life.
My personal view is that the vaccine probably did play a part, because the timing of when everything started to go wrong for me – two days after my second Pfizer shot – is just too hard to ignore. But if I had to bet my life on it (irony intended), there’s a few issues that might have me hedging my bets too.
Firstly, I’m an ex-smoker, which increases my risk of cardiac events. Secondly, I have a significant family history of cardiac events at early ages. And finally, as mentioned above, I have a history of Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVTs), which means occasional rapid heartbeats. That’s not a death sentence by any means – lots of people have all sorts of heart murmurs, flutters and palpitations including SVTs without keeling over – but as I mentioned earlier, when your heart rate during exercise gets to 245bpm and you don’t even notice it, it suggests something else might be going on.
So I don’t know if the vaccine is responsible for my heart problems. In the words of one of my GPs, “… it might have been enough to tip you over the edge”. But there are other factors beyond my genetics which also have to be considered.
All vaccines cause some injury to some people. That’s a fact of life, and a reality of living in a responsible society. We mass vaccinate populations for the greater good, understanding that while a small number of people will suffer, the majority will flourish. Our diversity is actually one of the reasons humans are so prolific and successful as a species – it ensures that when something nasty like a virus comes along, it might get some of us, it might even get a lot of us, but (so far at least) it won’t get all of us.
It’s also simple math that if you’re forced to vaccinate a large population over a short period of time, then you’re going to have a larger number of injuries over a shorter period of time, injuries that in another context – for example, one outside a pandemic – would be spread over a much longer period, and would go unnoticed by media and the general public. It’s a bit like that old trope of buying a new purple car. Now, suddenly, you’re noticing purple cars everywhere. The purple cars were always there, it’s just now they’re on your radar. Or in the context of Covid-19 vaccines, almost everybody in the country bought a purple car all at the same time, so you literally are seeing them everywhere.
The equivalent of that trope in the news at the moment seems to be otherwise healthy athletes collapsing, mid-game. It’s been jumped on by some as proof that the vaccines – in particular the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) – are killing people. The most recent example was early January in the United States, when National Football League player Damar Hamlin, aged 24, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest during a game.
Damar Hamlin (No. 3) pictured in November 2020. (IMAGE: TigerNet.com, Flickr)
The fact is, athletes collapse on the field all the time, and always have. And they do it in numbers that might surprise you, but because they’re not in the shadow of a mass vaccination event, it doesn’t make the news.
A US study published in July 2020 – so before vaccinations for Covid-19 were a ‘thing’ – set out to determine the cause of “sudden cardiac arrest and death (SCA/D)” in competitive athletes. It looked at 179 cases of SCA/D over a two-year period, in ages ranging from 11 to 29; 105 of them died, while 74 survived. The study concluded: “The [cause]of SCA/D in competitive athletes involves a wide range of clinical disorders. More robust reporting mechanisms, standardized autopsy protocols, and accurate… data are needed to better inform prevention strategies.” In other words, they don’t really know what caused the injuries and death, beyond “a wide range” of issues.
An even broader study published in November 2021, looked at 331 cases of confirmed SCA/D (158 survivors; 173 fatalities) over a period of four years (July 2014 to June 2018). That equates to one incident every four to five days. There’s no evidence yet of an increase in ‘athlete deaths’, but you can almost guarantee that if it happens, it will be discovered – there’s simply too many eyes watching now for any other outcome.
Of course, it’s not just athletes who keel over. One of the best ways to find out if and when people are dying is to rely on ‘excess mortality’. It’s basically the number of people who died in a community, set against the number of people who were expected to die. If you have an excess of deaths, then you have excess mortality, not to mention some serious questions to answer.
The reason why it’s so useful in the case of the pandemic is that it accounts not only for Covid-19 deaths, but also deaths among people who, say, delayed getting medical attention during the lockdown, or other deaths related to the pandemic such as suicides caused by social isolation.
During the first year of the pandemic, the excess mortality rate was actually down in Australia thanks to the lockdowns, which kept people off roads and prevented the seasonal flu from spreading among the population. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): “Over the period from January to November 2020, Australia recorded lower than expected mortality (see graph below) with decreases in the winter months being statistically significant. Lower than expected numbers of deaths were particularly notable for respiratory diseases including pneumonia. This is in contrast to many other countries where excess deaths have been recorded during the pandemic.”
However, in the latter stages of the pandemic, excess mortality rates have risen, and quite significantly (an additional 15,400 deaths in the first eight months of 2022). According to the ABS, excess mortality sits at 16 per cent. The ABS has a good article on Australia’s excess mortality in 2022 here, but long story short, the Actuaries Institute (which also keeps numbers on excess mortality, and estimates the rise at 12 per cent) puts it down to Covid-19, not the vaccines created to fight it.
Some more good
There’s obviously no doubt that the vaccines used in Australia have caused injury. How many and how serious will be like trying to unscramble an egg – we’ll almost certainly never know the full extent. But what we do know for certain is that the vaccines have also saved a lot of lives. That’s a statistical fact. This feature was never intended to be a ‘war and peace’ on the pandemic, or Australia’s response to it. It was only really supposed to explain to readers what had happened to me, and where I’d been for the past year and a bit. But the more I researched and the more I read, the more I came to understand how different groups – some pro-vaccine, some anti – distorted facts to make their case. Sometimes it was deliberate, sometimes it was just born of ignorance.
One of the more egregious was a recent post from an Instagram ‘influencer’ adamant that vaccinated people were dying in much greater numbers than unvaccinated people. As proof, he posted a screen shot of data from the NSW government which covered the last fortnight of 2022 (December 14 to 31), showing 95 deaths. Just six of those deaths were among unvaccinated people. This was proof, he argued, that it was the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated, who were dying. The truth is something else altogether.
Vaccinated people in NSW are dying in greater numbers, which is exactly what we would expect to see. That’s because there’s a hell of a lot more of them. In NSW, 97.1 per cent of the population is vaccinated, which means just 2.9 per cent are unvaccinated. So, if unvaccinated people died at the same rate as vaccinated people, then they should make up just 2.9 per cent of deaths (or less, because as some claimed, unvaccinated perople were actually less likely to die). In the numbers posted by the influencer, unvaccinated people made up 6.3 per cent of deaths… almost double the rate at which they should be dying. But if you expand the calculations out six months or so (as I did in the graph below, from May to December last year), on average unvaccinated people died at a rate almost four times greater than vaccinated people.
The bottom line represents the numbers of unvaccinated people in NSW who should have died, while the top line represents the actual number of deaths. The difference is obviously pretty stark, and the data shows clearly that unvaccinated people got sicker, and died at greater rates. That’s consistent with the experience internationally, and the scary part is it could have been a whole lot worse.
When Australia first started locking down in March 2020, we were still dealing with the original strain of Covid-19, which was far more deadly than the variants dominating today. After Victoria locked down for its first major wave in June 2020, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) – that is, the percentage of people who caught Covid-19 and then died – by the end of the crisis was a staggering 4.3 per cent.
To give you some context of just how bad that number is, and how many people in Australia could have died had we not locked down, if our national CFR matched Victoria’s from the start of the pandemic until today, the number of dead would be in the hundreds of thousands.
As it stands, our Covid-19 death toll recently passed 17,000. If you compare that to three years of influenza (2017 to 2019), where 2,231 people died, Covid-19’s death toll is almost eight times greater, and that’s with a mass vaccination campaign and some of the most restrictive lockdowns in the world.
One of the questions people are still asking is whether or not those lockdowns were worth it. Well that depends on your value system, but from my perspective, I reckon saving a few hundred thousand lives – in particular elderly and vulnerable Australians – is a pretty good outcome. And how that came about is something for which I think all governments in Australia can take significant pride.
From the start of the pandemic to November 6, 2021 Australia recorded 178,946 Covid-19 cases, which ranked us 99th out of 219 countries. But our rate of infection - the number of cases set against our population of 26 million people – ranked us 161st, which is even more extraordinary. Other comparable performances at the time (by developed nations with reliable health data) were New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore.
Fast forward a year later to November 6, 2022, which was almost 12 months after most Australian governments eased lockdown restrictions and, in the words of their critics ‘let the virus rip’, and Australia had 10,418,986 cases, and was ranked 14th overall in total cases. That is by any measure a staggering increase. But the statistic that ultimately matters – the number of deaths – shows undeniably that the Australian response to Covid-19 was amongst the best on earth.
Our ‘deaths per million population’ rate was one of the lowest on earth, and what’s most notable about that is that the virus has already spread widely throughout Australia. Some other nations with lower death rates, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are yet to see mass infections, which means we don't yet know how what the real death rate will be until the virus spreads more widely among their citizens.
Australia's success was undeniably the result of lockdowns, followed by widespread vaccination programs. So as a nation, we dodged a very big bullet. But at what cost? After all, nations are made up of people, and if a lot of those people didn't fare so well, then how big a price did we really pay? And what do we owe those who were harmed so the rest of us could get out of lockdown, and start rebuilding our economy?
The fact is, many more Australians were injured by Covid-19 vaccines than you probably realize, and the data the Commonwealth keeps on vaccine injury makes that abundantly clear. The problem is, that data isn't really worth the paper it's written on, but even then, the 'official' injury toll appears to be the literal tip of a pretty big iceberg.
* Part 2 of this special feature will be published on New Matilda on Thursday, January 26, 2023.
Illegally dumped rubbish at Ihumātao, one of New Zealand’s most archaeologically significant and indigenous protected sites, has been piling up as high as the trees.
Turehou Māori Wardens Trust chairperson Mereana Peka is calling for gates to be installed to deter fly-tippers.
Peka regularly visits the site on Ihumātao Rd adjoining Auckland’s Ōtuataua Stonefields Reserve near the international airport to check for people drinking — in breach of the area’s liquor ban. She noticed more and more waste being left in the area towards the end of last year.
Peka took photos late last month of rubbish piled as high as the trees between Ellets Beach access and the Ihumātao stonefields.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said. “The area isn’t seen from the main road and it’s hidden away and a lot of people don’t even know about it.”
But she said the fact the rubbish had been dumped right next to the archaeologically significant stonefields made the offending even more brazen.
Turehou Māori Wardens Trust chairperson Mereana Peka . . . the illegal dumping of rubbish at Ihumātao’s Ōtuataua Stonefields Reserve is out of control and Auckland Council needs to do more to address the problem. Image: Stephen Forbes/Stuff/LDR
Peka took photos late last month of rubbish piled as high as the trees between Ellets Beach access and the Ihumātao stonefields.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said. “The area isn’t seen from the main road and it’s hidden away and a lot of people don’t even know about it.”
But she said the fact the rubbish had been dumped right next to the archaeologically significant stonefields made the offending even more brazen.
The rubbish in Peka’s photos includes everything from commercial waste and furniture to tyres, mattresses, pallets, timber and household rubbish on the side of the road in Ihumātao.
LOCAL DEMOCRACY REPORTING: Winner 2022 Voyager Awards Best Reporting Local Government (Feliz Desmarais) and Community Journalist of the Year (Justin Latif)
Copycat behaviour
Peka said there appeared to be some copycat behaviour, with offenders appearing to follow the actions of others.
She believed the council needed to install gates to prevent after-hours access to Ellets Beach.
Archaeologists have documented the long history of Māori settlement at Ihumātao stretching back as far as 1450. And gardening in the area’s lava fields dates back to the late 16th century.
Ihumātao was confiscated by the Crown in the 1860s during the Crown’s invasion of the Waikato.
The land had been owned by the Wallace family after it was confiscated by the Crown.
Fletcher Building bought the block in 2014 and had planned to build housing on the site which led to the occupation and protests.
In 2020, the government struck a deal with the Māori King, Tūhetia, to buy the disputed land at Ihumātao from Fletcher Building for $29.9 million and hold it in trust.
illegal dumping problem
Auckland Council senior waste advisor Jan Eckersley said the recent illegal dumping in Ihumātao Rd that Peka referred to was first reported to its call centre on December 30 and removed on January 4.
The area had had problems with people dumping waste illegally and similar incidents were recorded in the area in January, March, April, June and December last year, Eckersley said.
“We have had issues with illegal dumping on Ihumatao Rd in the past as it is a difficult road to monitor or capture offenders with surveillance cameras,” she said.
The problem is not isolated. Figures released by Auckland Council in 2022 in the year to September showed it dealt with 1699 tonnes of rubbish dumped illegally around the city — just over 32 tonnes per week.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a partner of the project.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says her Aotearoa New Zealand government will not back down on advancing Māori issues, even if National frames co-governance as central to the 2023 general election.
“You’ve got to be able to sleep at night, knowing that you’ve done your best and you’ve done what you’ve believed is right,” Ardern told TeAoMaori.news
The Māori Health Authority, Three Waters and Māori seats on councils were achievements Ardern said the government was proud of.
NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaking at Harvard University in Boston. … a standing ovation. Image: RNZ
Ardern said she was “comfortable” the government was doing its best to fulfil obligations under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
“We haven’t been perfect. But I am comfortable with what we’ve tried to do to make sure that we are fulfilling our obligations as the Crown, that we’re fulfilling our Treaty obligations.”
Ardern said the Government was proud of the 6.8 per cent Māoriunemployment rate,although she conceded homeless families living in motels still needed tackling.
“I don’t want anyone living in a motel. I want someone in a warm, dry, safe environment. But I also don’t want people living in cars. And so this has been a transition for us while we build more public housing, and we are,” she said.
Mandate protests
Reflecting on 2022, Ardern conceded it was another tough year, singling out the vaccination mandate protests on Parliament grounds as her biggest challenge.
Ardern said the protests were upsetting for many in Aotearoa who saw vaccination as key to reopening the country.
“For New Zealand, I think it deeply affected people,” Ardern said.
There were moments she thought about talking to the protesters but a previous attempt during a government walkabout with vaccinators that was scuppered by protesters prevented that.
“I did stop and try and have a conversation with the people there. And what became clear to me is that the starting point for that conversation was so different for me, and then that was very hard to cut through,” Ardern said.
“I had a practice in the past of talking to protesters in fact. I remember very early on the DPS [the PM security team] having to learn, that was part of the way that I was going to do the job.”
UN declaration
Ardern was asked about comments from Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson that he would be pumping the brakes on co-governance initiatives set out by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous people (UNDRIP), signed by the National government in 2010, because several recommendations would not fly with certain Cabinet members.
“Why is it someone in Cabinet is ‘not comfortable’ with co-governance? And should someone be in the Cabinet if they’re not comfortable with co-governance?” Ardern was asked.
“What he’s talking about are some of the thoughts and debate around the UN declaration, the next stages of ensuring that we are doing our bit, as yes, the National government signed us up and then did nothing, and left us to figure out ‘how do we fulfil our obligations?’
“What he’s [Jackson] talking about is through that process, there’s been a lot of ideas. Some of them, we can confidently say, New Zealand already does, othersare challenging. So he’s broadly discussing the next steps.”
Ardern said that as she looked ahead to this year’s election, she had no interest in fighting it on race, saying she would campaign on the government’s record.
“When there’s change… people will sometimes be confronted by that, and it’s our job to try and bring people with us, but that will sometimes be challenging,” Ardern said.
“Our record is growing Māori housing. Our record is growing Māori employment opportunities. Now our record is growing the Māori economy. I will happily campaign on our record.”
In any true democracy, the role of journalists and the media outlets they represent is to inform the people so that they can make educated and well-informed choices.
The role of politicians is to represent those who elected them.
They are to make decisions that best serve the public interest and to ensure that the concerns of citizens are heard, considered, and, where appropriate, acted upon.
In such a political system, the journalist and the politician must both serve the people but in peculiarly differing ways.
Journalists act on behalf of citizens by exploring and covering issues that concern the people and in doing so they include a diversity of voices and political opinions that offer different viewpoints and opinions.
The bottom line of their job is ensuring that politicians do their job transparently, with accountability and through better public service delivery.
In the end, journalism enhances, encourages meaningful dialogue and debate in society.
On the other hand, politicians use the media to reach the masses, make them understand their policies and through this — get acceptance and approval from the public.
Politicians love media spotlight
Politicians naturally love the media spotlight for without reporters nobody knows their policies and their good deeds, no matter how grand they may be.
Politicians love talking to reporters so they can get publicity.
Reporters like politicians too because they provide them with stories — there goes the long story of the symbiotic relationship between the press and powerful members of the legislature.
What a perfect relationship.
Absolutely wrong!
Some say the relationship is one of “love and hate” and always hangs in the balance.
This liaison of sorts is more than meets the eye and the truth is simple.
Like the legislature, the media has a prominent and permanent place in national leadership and governance (known as the Fourth Estate).
Critical components of democracy
Both are critical components of a democracy.
Because of their democratic mandate, the media and politicians cannot be fulltime bedfellows.
And as the saying goes, they will have their moments.
However, in past years The Fiji Times has always been seen as the “enemy of the state”.
This had nothing to do with the media’s work as a watchdog of society or the Fourth Estate, but rather with the way in which the former government muzzled the media and created an environment of fear through draconian media laws that stifled freedom of expression and constricted media freedom.
Simply put, a newspaper and any truly independent media outlet must be fair and in being fair, its content must reflect the rich diversity of views and opinions that exists in the public sphere, as well as the aspirations, fears and concerns of the varied groups that exist in the community.
Experts, academics or anyone outside of government is welcomed to use this forum of information exchange, dissemination and sharing.
Politicians, if they have nothing to hide, can use it too, provided what they have to say is honest, sincere and accurate.
Listening to pluralistic ‘voices’
A responsible government deliberately chooses to listen attentively to pluralistic “voices” in the media although these expressions may put it in an uncomfortable position.
A responsible government also explores avenues in which valid ideas could be propagated to improve its own practices and achieve its intended outcome.
In other words, a newspaper exists to, among other reasons, communicate and amplify issues of concern faced by citizens.
This includes voicing citizens’ complaints over any laxity in government’s service delivery, especially people in rural areas who often do not enjoy the public services that we so often take for granted in towns and cities.
So whenever, people use the mainstream media to raise concerns over poor roads, water, garbage disposal, education and inferior health services, the public does so with the genuine yearning for assistance and intervention from government.
And in providing this platform for exchange, the media achieves its democratic goal of getting authorities to effectively respond to taxpayers’ needs, keep their development promises and deliver according to their election manifestos.
Remember, a responsible newspaper or media does not exist to act as government’s mouthpiece.
Retaining media independence
If media outlets give up their independence and allow themselves to be used by politicians for political parties’ own political agenda and gains, then citizens who rely on the media as an instrument for meaningful dialogue, discussion and discourse will be denied their participatory space and expressive rights.
A responsible and autonomous newspaper like The Fiji Times does not exist to make government feel good.
For if this ever occurs, this newspaper will compromise its ability to provide the necessary oversight on government powers and actions, without which, abuse of power and corruption thrive to the detriment of ordinary citizens.
If media organisations and journalists who work for them operate in the way they should, then for obvious reasons, all politicians in government will “sometimes” find the media “upsetting” and “meddlesome”.
Copping the flak from ministers and those in positions of authority is part and parcel of the media’s work.
It is a healthy sign that democracy works.
This newspaper was instrumental in calling on the SVT (Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei) government and its then prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, (now Fiji’s Prime Minister again under the People’s Alliance Party-PAP/National Federation Party (NFP) and Sodelpa coalition) to account for the enormous financial loss which caused the collapse of the National Bank of Fiji in the 1990s.
Last government ‘vindictive, authoritarian’
But no government was as vindictive and authoritarian as the last government.
Today, early in the days of the PAP/NFP and Sodelpa coalition government, we are seeing the good old days of media freedom slowly coming back.
We can now doorstop the Prime Minister and call the Attorney-General at 9pm for a comment and get an answer.
The openness with which ministers talk to the press is encouraging.
We hope things stay that way and the government accepts that we will sometimes put out stories that it finds positive and there will be times when we will make its life difficult and uneasy.
At the end of the day, it is the people that we both work hard to serve.
Sometimes we will step on some people’s toes, be blamed for provoking disquiet and seem unpopular among powerful politicians.
That is to be expected and embraced.
Safeguarding press freedom
But we will continue to play a prominent role in safeguarding the freedom of the press so that all Fijians can enjoy their own rights and freedoms.
With the best intentions, our journalists will continue to forge forward with their pursuit of truth and human dignity, regardless of the political party in power.
As we rebuild Fiji and regain what many people think we’ve lost in 16 years, this newspaper will play a pivotal role in allowing government to reach the people so that they make informed choices about their lives.
We must face it — Fiji is heavily in debt, many families are struggling, the health system is in a poor state, thousands are trapped in poverty and the most vulnerable members of society are hanging in the balance, taking one day at a time.
It is in this environment of uncertainty that the media and politicians must operate in for the common good.
And as a responsible newspaper, we will listen to all Fijians and provide a safe space to express their voices.
That is our mandate and our promise.
John Mitchellis a senior Fiji Times feature writer who writes a weekly column, “Behind The News”. Republished with permission.
The swearing in of the extremist leadership in Israel demands the Aotearoa New Zealand government reassess its policy towards the Middle East.
New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his top priority is to build more illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
This policy declares the leadership’s intention to:
“advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights, and Judea and Samaria”. (These are the Biblical names for the occupied Palestinian West Bank)
New Zealand has bipartisan support for UN Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016 which was promoted by the former John Key National government. It declares Israeli settlements on Palestinian land as “a flagrant violation under international law” and says all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, must “immediately and completely cease.”
With the announcement of its intention to escalate these flagrant violations of international law, Israel is giving us the middle finger.
If our support for international law and United Nations resolutions is to have real meaning, then our government must urgently reassess its relationship with Israel.
The new Israeli leadership includes several extreme racists and supporters of anti-Palestinian terrorism such as Itamar Ben-Gvir as Minister of National Security. Ben-Gvir has expressed support and admiration for Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish Israeli man who killed 29 Palestinians in a shooting at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994.
Israeli protests against the most rightwing government in history. Video: France 24
Just a few weeks before his swearing in as Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir described as a hero an Israeli soldier who shot to death a young Palestinian at point blank range — widely described as an assassination.
We have had our own deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch in which 51 New Zealanders (including six Palestinian New Zealanders) were killed. Why would we have relations with a government whose senior leadership includes Ben-Gvir who for many years had a picture of the terrorist Goldstein on his living room wall?
Alongside Palestinian groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s largest and most respected human rights group, B’Tselem, have all declared Israel to be an apartheid state.
Because the new Israeli leadership has declared its intention to accelerate its apartheid policies against Palestinians, we should suspend our relationship with Israel and finally recognise a Palestinian state.
John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.
Alongside Palestinian groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s largest and most respected human rights group, B’Tselem, have all declared Israel to be an apartheid state. Image: TDB
Across the US, lawmakers and interest groups are stepping up efforts to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes, occupation, and apartheid. They are doing so by restricting Palestine solidarity advocates’ First Amendment rights to free speech and political boycotts. In June 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold an Arkansas law punishing state contractors who boycott Israel. Since 2014, dozens of states have adopted similar laws designed to punish individuals and companies that refuse to do business with those who profit from the Israeli regime’s occupation. They are also actively silencing calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions that pressure Israel to comply with international law.
The message to US citizens is clear: Take action to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and you will pay. The implications are far-reaching: Not only are anti-boycott laws limiting spaces for Palestine solidarity, they represent the first step in a wider assault on the constitutional protections designed to safeguard US citizens’ rights to advocate for justice. Following the Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, the issue is now expected to move to the Supreme Court, setting the stage for a ruling that will have significant long-term implications for the rights of all US citizens to engage in any kind of politically motivated boycott and advocate for change.
This policy brief situates the recent trend of US anti-boycott legislation within the coordinated push to crack down on the increasingly effective Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. It also explains how, by targeting the right to boycott, reactionary forces are eroding US citizens’ ability to leverage their long-standing, constitutionally protected rights to demand justice and political change both at home and abroad. With their right to boycott being threatened by an increasingly conservative and partisan judicial system, US citizens must take matters into their own hands to defend their constitutional rights. This policy brief recommends several steps that should be taken in order to do so.
Anti-Boycott Legislation: The US National Context
As of October 2022, bills and executive orders designed to penalize those participating in boycotts of Israel have been introduced in 34 states and apply to over 250 million US citizens. The laws are as absurd as they are troubling. In 2017, officials in Texas blocked access to hurricane disaster relief funds from those who refused to renounce their right to engage in BDS, only conceding the rule as a misapplication of the law after facing public pressure. In 2018, Bahia Amawi, a child speech pathologist in Texas, sued the state after losing her job for refusing to pledge that she “will not boycott Israel” or illegal Israeli settlements.
That same year, The Arkansas Times, a local newspaper based in Little Rock, sued the state of Arkansas after an advertising contract with a public university was withdrawn as punishment for refusing to relinquish their right to boycott Israel. In July 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court became the highest-level court to consider the issue when it ruled against the newspaper, stripping it of its right to boycott. This ruling, which is binding to Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, is a sign of what may be to come.
Whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods Click To Tweet
Federal district courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas have blocked the enforcement of their states’ anti-boycott laws, considering them unconstitutional compelled speech and violations of the First Amendment. However, instead of discarding them on the grounds that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain political expressions, these laws are being amended and reintroduced. Several states have amended their anti-boycott laws to exclude individuals and sole proprietors; however, larger companies that conduct more than $100,000 worth of business with the state continue to face anti-boycott certification requirements.
State legislators have also placed financial burdens on companies accused of boycotting Israel through blacklists and pension fund divestments. Efforts to shield Israel from the human rights standards applied across the globe are likewise extending into sustainable investing and corporate governance. In September 2022, South Carolina’s treasurer joined a growing list of officials threatening to cut ties with the multibillion-dollar investment firm Morningstar over claims that their Sustainalytics program’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating is biased against Israel. ESG ratings, which assess ethical corporate practices ranging from environmental standards to labor practices, have proven integral in holding companies accountable regardless of where they operate. Indeed, Sustainalytics drew attention to Israel’s documented human rights violations in the assessments it provided to investors.
In the face of mounting pressure, Morningstar hired an independent review commission to carry out an exhaustive investigation into any potential bias. The investigation found “neither pervasive nor systemic bias against Israel in Sustainalytics products and services;” however, this has failed to bring an end to the smears against the rating system. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt decried Morningstar practices as “woke ESG investing,” and Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee suggested that the very idea of reviewing Israeli companies for the same standards to which all other companies are held was anti-Semitic. This, despite the fact that Morningstar’s chief executive officer, Kunal Kapoor, repeatedly insisted that his company does not support the BDS movement and that the Sustainalytics assessment merely provided a warning for investors, rather than a call to boycott.
Since then, Morningstar has caved to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, adopting a host of anti-Palestinian measures that include refraining from both references to the West Bank as “occupied” as well as reliance on reports issued by the UN Human Rights Council. Clearly, to the pro-Israel lobby, Israeli companies should not be held to the same human rights, labor, and environmental standards as other companies. As a result, whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods.
Who is Behind These Bills?
The ongoing proliferation of anti-boycott bills, recently described by Human Rights Watch as “part of an increasingly global campaign” against Palestine rights advocates, has been spearheaded by the Israeli regime itself. Over recent years, Israel has successfully bypassed US foreign interference laws by establishing non-governmental organizations through which it funnels millions of dollars to US groups who then advocate for anti-BDS legislation. But the Israeli regime is not alone. The war on boycotts of Israel is being led by the same reactionary lawmakers and interest groups actively engaged in undermining the tenets of a healthy democracy.
Some of the most vociferous proponents of anti-BDS efforts in the US are conservative interest groups and evangelical Christian organizations that are engaged in a nationwide campaign to roll back hard-fought liberties. For example, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an ultra-conservative venture backed by the Koch brothers, drafts legislation for state and federal governments on behalf of corporate interests. In addition to unconditionally shielding Israel from accountability and drafting anti-BDS bills for conservative lawmakers, groups like ALEC have also targeted public education, climate activism, and LGBTQ+ rights, while defending the “Stand Your Ground'' laws, bans on Critical Race Theory and the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, groups like Christians United for Israel (CUFI) smear BDS activists through advocacy campaigns on university campuses, as well as in churches and across social media. These alliances prove that being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy.
Being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy Click To Tweet
What is more, efforts to roll back the right to boycott have also represented a bipartisan affair. In 2016, New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo, signed an executive order blacklisting businesses that refused to do business with Israel. He put it bluntly: “if you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.” Three years later, Senator Joe Manchin (D – WV) co-authored the Combating BDS Act alongside Senator Marco Rubio (R – FL), which aimed to give legal cover to various state anti-BDS laws before it was blocked on the Senate floor. In August 2022, New York State Assemblyman Dan Rosenthal joined 18 Republicans in their campaign against Morningstar for warning investors of Israel’s human rights record. While the bipartisan tradition of providing unconditional support to Israel is waning, democratic establishment holdouts continue to side with conservatives against progressive voices, both in the electorate and in the halls of Congress.
Constitutionally Protected Rights Under Threat
US citizens have long leveraged their right to boycott as a means of making their voices heard. From the pre-Civil War boycott of goods produced with slave labor, to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that called for an end to racial segregation, boycotts have proven a vital tactic in challenging human rights abuses and fighting for political change in the US. The tactic has also been wielded against injustice abroad; indeed, economic, cultural, and even academic boycotts proved instrumental in bringing an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa. However, many exhibit a disturbing selective intolerance for the right to boycott when it comes to holding Israel accountable.
Political boycotts are widely viewed as a cornerstone of the First Amendment, both by the US public and as a matter of legal precedent. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the most regularly cited precedent on the issue, the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s right to regulate economic activity “could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott.” That case began in 1966, when the local NAACP chapter in Claiborne County, Mississippi, coordinated a boycott of white-owned businesses, calling for local government and business leaders to meet their demands for racial justice. White business owners affected by the boycott sued the NAACP and the action organizers for economic damages.
After the case made its way through the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP’s boycott was protected by the constitution because it was composed of elements protected by the First Amendment — namely, speech, assembly, and petition. Justice John Stevens emphasized the boycott’s end goal in the ruling, noting: “the purpose of petitioners’ campaign was not to destroy legitimate competition,” but rather, to “vindicate rights of equality and of freedom.” In part, the court found it persuasive that the boycott was wielded for an expressive purpose: a list of racial justice demands.
In the NAACP v. Claiborne case, the Supreme Court found that through constitutionally protected acts of speech, assembly, and petition, “petitioners sought to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens.” By this logic, the right to boycott Israeli goods produced in the West Bank — an act that inherently involves the aforementioned constitutionally protected activity — falls squarely within US citizens’ constitutionally protected rights. While courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas confirmed this logic, the Eighth Circuit Court ruling in Arkansas serves as a reminder of how easily precedent can be overturned.
Understanding the Eighth Circuit Court Ruling
In 2018, The Arkansas Times sued the state after being asked to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in order to maintain an advertising contract with the University of Arkansas. After the suit was initially dismissed, the newspaper appealed, and a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit overturned the ruling, finding that the statute “imposes a condition on government contractors that implicates their First Amendment rights.” The state then requested that the full Eight Circuit – known to be one of the most conservative circuit courts in the country – rehear the case, resulting in the June 2022 ruling against The Arkansas Times.
While affirming that requiring someone to “give up a constitutional right” in order to receive a government contract does “impose an unconstitutional condition,” the Eighth Circuit Court went on to reinterpret precedent – namely, the protections set in NAACP v. Claiborne. The ruling argued that constitutional First Amendment protections apply only to the expressive actions that accompany a boycott. In other words, the speeches, petitions, and marches that promote a boycott are protected by the First Amendment, while the actual act of economically boycotting an entity is not. Along this line of reasoning, the Eighth Circuit decided that the act of economic boycott itself was considered an example of “non-expressive” conduct.
The Eighth Circuit’s decision has attracted widespread criticism from those who claim that the judges misrepresented the precedent entirely. NAACP v. Claiborne clearly establishes that the right to boycott is protected by the First Amendment, and when Supreme Court judges analyzed each of the associated elements of the boycott in that case, they did not differentiate between accompanying speech and the act of boycott itself. Justice Jane Kelly, who authored the Eighth Circuit’s dissenting opinion, took this logic further. According to Kelly, by instructing the State to consider a company or individual’s prior speech and actions to determine whether they are participating in a boycott of Israel, the Arkansas statute might deter entities from engaging in constitutionally protected acts of speech and protest unrelated to boycotts. In other words, companies and individuals might feel pressured to avoid protests and petitions that criticize Israeli policy out of concern that they may fall under the state’s definition of a boycott of Israel, “thereby limiting what a company may say or do.”
Wider Implications
While the judiciary can prove instrumental in countering attempts to curb constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to participate in the BDS movement, US citizens should not depend upon it alone to safeguard civil liberties. That is, while only 59 of the 261 anti-boycott bills introduced have so far been passed at the state and local levels, the pro-Israel lobby continues to adapt. As long as BDS remains under assault, so too is the right to use boycotts as a tool for advocacy on a range of issues. In other words, the ongoing crackdown on freedom to boycott has wider implications, even for US citizens who do not support the BDS movement.
The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy Click To Tweet
In fact, several states have already used anti-BDS legislation as a template for “copycat laws” that would criminalize other boycotts and forms of protest, such as preventing businesses from boycotting fossil fuels and firearms industries. For example, Kentucky’s SB 205 prohibits the state from entering into contracts with companies unless they submit written certification that they will not engage in a boycott of energy companies. Similarly, Indiana’s HB 1409, if passed, will prevent the state from entering into a contract with companies without written certification that they will not discriminate against a firearm entity or firearm trade association in their business dealings.
Efforts to curtail the right to boycott represent one tactic amid an overall strategy by reactionary elements on both sides of the partisan divide to undermine democratic values in the US. If they are successful, these forces will undoubtedly direct their efforts at other forms of protest and free speech that are being leveraged in calls for justice. Since 2017, 38 states have enacted anti-protest bills, mostly in reaction to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and environmental protesters. Heightened voting restrictions in key swing states are making it increasingly difficult for US citizens to carry out their civic duty. As a result, black activists and other disadvantaged communities are disproportionately targeted. The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy.
Taking Action
The Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, which came two days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of the right to abortion on June 24, 2022, serves as another reminder that US citizens should not count on the judiciary alone to defend their civil liberties. With this in mind, it is critical to raise awareness, mobilize grassroots activism aimed at pressuring lawmakers, and develop stronger checks to a flawed system. More specifically:
Members of Congress should fulfill their constitutional duty to defend the rights of US citizens, including the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts. This means voting against pending federal anti-boycott legislation like the ones introduced by Congressman Lee Zeldin (R) in March 2022 and Senator Tom Cotton (R) in July 2022, both of which are aimed at elevating state anti-boycott legislation to the national level.
Activists, civil rights defenders, and concerned citizens should contact their representatives to express opposition to laws that restrict their right to boycott. They should highlight the intersectional nature of this assault on social and political expression, and organize alongside other groups being affected by copycat legislation. More information about how to get involved can be found at Palestine Legal, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
As workers across the country unionize at the highest rates in decades, civil society organizations should prepare union leaders and members to collectively mobilize against attempts by employers to revoke constitutionally protected rights. Trainings and briefings should prepare union leaders to explicitly incorporate the right to boycott into their labor demands and provide support to Palestinian or pro-Palestine workers who are targeted for their engagement in boycotts or other forms of political protest.
Activists, academics, and NGOs should coordinate efforts to produce informational material for public campaigns aimed at raising general awareness and providing US citizens with tools to advocate for their constitutionally-protected rights. The recent documentary film Boycott (2021)serves as an example of how to mobilize free speech activists, as well as the general public, who may still be unaware of the wider consequences of these coordinated anti-BDS campaigns when it comes to the assault on constitutionally protected rights.
Civil society organisations which make up the National Alliance for Criminal Code Reform have slammed the decision by the Indonesian government and the House of Representatives (DPR) to ratify the Draft Criminal Code (RKUHP) which is seen as still containing a number of controversial articles, reports CNN Indonesia.
Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chairperson Muhammad Isnur criticised the DPR and the government because the enactment of the law was rushed and did not involve public participation.
According to Isnur, a number of articles in the RKUHP will take Indonesian society into a period of being “colonised” by its own government.
“Indeed the latest version of this draft regulation was only published on November 30, 2022, and still contained a series of problematic articles which have been opposed by the public because it will carry Indonesian society into an era of being colonised by its own government,” said Isnur in a statement.
The Civil Coalition, as conveyed by Isnur, has highlighted a number of articles in the RKUHP which are anti-democratic, perpetuate corruption, silence press freedom, obstruct academic freedom and regulate the public’s private lives.
According to Isnur, these articles will only be “sharp below but blunt above”, meaning they will come down hard on the poor but go easy on the rich, and it would make it difficult to prosecute crimes committed by corporations against the people.
“Once again this will be a regulation which is sharp below, blunt above, because it will be difficult to prosecute criminal corporations that violate the rights of communities and workers,” he said.
Criminalised over ideas The Coalition for example highlighted Article 188 which criminalises anyone who spreads communist, Marxist or Leninist ideas, or other ideas which conflict with the state ideology of Pancasila.
According to Isnur, the article is ambiguous because it does not contain an explanation on who has the authority to determine if an idea conflicts with Pancasila.
According to Isnur, Article 188 has the potential to criminalise anyone, particularly government opponents, because it does not contain an explanation about which ideas conflict with Pancasila.
“This is a rubber [catchall] article and could revive the concept of crimes of subversion as occurred in the New Order era [of former president Suharto],” he said.
Then there are Articles 240 and 241 on insulting the government and state institutions.
He believes that these articles also have the potential to be “rubber” articles because they do not provide a definition of an insult. He is also concerned that the articles will be used to silence criticism against the government or state institutions.
The Coalition believes that there are still at least 14 problematic articles in the RKUHP. Aside from the spreading of communist ideas and insulting state institutions, there are several other articles such as those on morality, cohabitation and criminalising parades and protest actions.
Law ‘confusing’
The DPR earlier passed the RKUHP into law during a plenary meeting. A number of parties believe that the new law is confusing and contains problematic articles. These include the articles on insulting the president, makar (treason, subversion, rebellion), insulting state institutions, adultery and cohabitation and “fake news”.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly has invited members of the public to challenge the law in the Constitutional Court if they feel that there are articles that conflict with the constitution.
“So we must go through constitutional mechanisms, right. So we’re more civilised, be better at obeying the constitution, the law. So if it’s ratified into law the most correct mechanism is a judicial review,” said Laoly earlier.
Deputy Justice and Prosperity Minister Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, meanwhile, is asking those who consider the law to be problematic or rushed to come and debate the issue with the ministry.
“You try answering yourself, yeah, is 59 years rushed? If it is said that many oppose it, how many? What is the substance? Come and debate it with us, we’re ready and we are truly convinced that if its tested it will be rejected,” said Hiariej.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pleased that a Sydney magistrate jailed protester Deanna “Violet” Coco on Friday. But he is out of step with international and Australian human rights and climate change groups and activists, who have quickly mobilised to show solidarity.
On Monday, protests were held in Sydney, Canberra and Perth calling for the release of Coco who blocked one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for half an hour during a morning peak hour in April.
She climbed onto the roof of a truck holding a flare to draw attention to the global climate emergency and Australia’s lack of preparedness for bushfires. Three other members of the group Fireproof Australia, who have not been jailed, held a banner and glued themselves to the road.
“Free Coco” protesters at Sydney’s Downing Centre. Image: Zebedee Parkes/City Hub
Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges, including disrupting vehicles, possessing a flare distress signal in a public place and failing to comply with police direction.
Magistrate Allison Hawkins sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months and fined her $2500. Her lawyer Mark Davis has lodged an appeal which will be heard on March 2, 2023.
Unusually for a non-violent offender, Hawkins refused bail pending an appeal against the sentence. Davis, who will again apply for bail in the District Court next week, said refusal of bail pending appeal was “outrageous”.
Climate change protester sentenced to jail over Sydney Harbour Bridge protest. Video: News 24
‘People shouldn’t be jailed for peaceful protest’ In Sydney, about 100 protesters gathered outside NSW Parliament House and then marched to the Downing Centre. The crowd included members of climate action groups Extinction Rebellion, Knitting Nannas and Fireproof Australia but also others who, while they might not conduct a similar protest themselves, believe in the right of others to do so.
One of the protest organisers, Knitting Nanna Marie Flood, was unable to attend due to illness. Her message called for the release of Coco and an end to the criminalisation and intimidation of climate activists.
It was read by another Knitting Nanna, Eurydice Aroney:
“Nannas have been on Sydney streets protesting about gas and coal mines for about 8 years now. Over that time we’ve had lots of interactions with the Sydney Events police, and not a lot of trouble.
“You could say we are known to the police. We were amused and surprised at the recent climate emergency rally at town hall, when one of the police said to some Nannas that he thought we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd!
“Looks like we better clear some things up.”
Knitting Nannas protesters Helen and Dom at a previous protest. Image: Environmental Defenders Office/City Hub
“We ARE the crowd who knows that climate action is urgent and it starts with stopping new gas and coal. We know the importance of public protests to bringing about social and political change.
“We will stand up against any move to take away the democratic right to protest. What is happening to Violet Coco is a direct result of the actions of the NSW government with the support of the ALP opposition.”
The message ended with a call to all climate activists: “Now is the time to BE THE CROWD — we can’t afford to fall for attempts to divide the climate movement. We all want to save the climate, and to do that we need to protect democracy.”
The Knitting Nannas have launched a challenge to the validity of the protest laws through the Environmental Defenders’ Office.
Snap rally at NSW Parliament and a march to the courts at the Downing Centre where climate activist Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months in prison last week.
We demand repeal of the draconian anti-protest laws, an end to new fossil fuel projects and serious climate action now! pic.twitter.com/F1Yxs8L0DG
One of those attending the protest was Josh Pallas, president of NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Civil Liberties has been defending the right to protest in NSW for more than half a century.
In a media release, he said: “Peaceful protest should never result in jail time. It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers.
“Protesters from Fireproof Australia and other groups have engaged in peaceful protest in support of stronger action on climate change, a proposition that is widely supported by many Australians across the political divide and now finding themselves ending up in prison.
“Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”
Deputy Lord Mayor and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore told the crowd that they had the support of the City of Sydney which recently passed a unanimous motion calling for the repeal of the NSW government’s draconian anti-protest laws.
“If you are a group of businesses in the City of Sydney and you want to close the street for a street party, this state government will give you $50,000. If you are a non-violent protester who cares about climate change and you are blocking one lane of traffic for 25 minutes, they will give you two years [in jail].
“We know these laws are designed to intimidate you… Thank you for being the front line in the fight. you are the ones to put your bodies on the line to protest about issues we all care about, ” she said.
Amnesty International support for democracy
Amnesty International spokesperson Veronica Koman emphasised how important it was to see the defence of democratic rights from a regional perspective. She said that Amnesty was concerned that severe repression of pro-independence activists in West Papua was spreading across to other parts of Indonesia.
She fears the same pattern of increasing repression taking hold in NSW.
Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeil, who has won many awards for her journalism, was another person who was quick to respond.
“Outrageous. Climate activist who blocked traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge jailed for at least eight months” she tweeted on Friday.
Since then she has followed the issue closely, criticising the ABC for failing to quote a human rights source in its coverage of the court case and speaking at a protest in Perth on Monday.
Today she posted this tweet with a short campaigning #FreeVioletCoco video that has already attracted nearly 13,000 views:
Authorities in #Australia are disproportionately punishing climate activists in violation of their basic rights to peaceful protest
Violet Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison
‘If you’re reading this, you’ll know I am in prison’
In jailing Coco, Magistrate Hawkins went out of her way to diminish and delegitimise her protest. She described it as a “childish stunt’ that let an “entire city suffer” through her “selfish emotional action”.
Coco has been involved with climate change protests for more than four years and has been arrested in several other protests. On one occasion, she set light to an empty pram outside Parliament House.
Rather than fight on technicalities, she chosen to plead guilty, knowing that if the magistrate was hostile, she could be taken into custody at the end of Friday’s hearing.
Several steps ahead of her critics, she made a video and wrote a long piece to be published if she went to prison.
The piece begins: ”If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change.”
She describes how her understanding of the facts of climate science and the inadequacy of the current response led her to decide to give up her studies and devote herself to actions that would draw attention to the climate emergency.
“Liberal political philosopher John Rawls asserted that a healthy democracy must have room for this kind of action. Especially in the face of such a threat as billions of lives lost and possibly the collapse of our liveable planet.
“But make no mistake — I do not want to be protesting. Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent. They refuse to feed me, refused to give me toilet paper and have threatened me with sexual violence.
Jailed Australian climate protester Deanna “Violet” Coco . . . “Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent.” Image: APR screenshot
“I spent three days in the remand centre, which is a disgusting place full of sad people. I do not enjoy breaking the law. I wish that there was another way to address this issue with the gravitas that it deserves.”
She describes how she has already been forced to comply with onerous bail conditions:
“I was under 24 hour curfew conditions for 20 days in a small apartment with no garden. After 20 days effectively under house arrest, my curfew hours changed — at first I could leave the house for only 5 hours a day for the following 58 days, then 6 hours a day under house arrest for the following 68 days.
“This totalled 2017 hours imprisoned in my home for non-violent political engagement in the prevention of many deaths. Cumulatively, that is 84 days or 12 weeks of my freedom.”
Premier Perrottet says he does not object to protest so long as it does not interfere with “our way of life”.
If it does, individuals should have the “book thrown at them.”
His “way of life” is one in which commuters are never held up in traffic by a protest while endlessly sitting in traffic because of governments’ poor transport planning.
A way of life in which it is fine for governments to take years to house people whose lives are destroyed by fires and floods induced by climate change, to allow people to risk death from heat because they cannot afford air conditioners, open more coal and gas operations that will increase carbon emissions and turn a blind eye to millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.
It involves only protesting when you have permission and in tightly policed zones where passers-by ignore you.
Labor still backs anti-protest laws
Leader of the Opposition Chris Minns also says he has no regrets for supporting the laws which he says were necessary to stop multiple protests.
But laws don’t target multiple actions, they target individuals. He has not raised his voice to condemn police harassment of individual activists even before they protest and bail conditions that breach democratic rights to freedom of assembly.
There was no visible Labor presence at Sydney’s rally.
Perrottet and Minns may be making right wing shock jocks happy but they are out of line with international principles of human rights.
They also fail to acknowledge that many of Australia’s most famous protest movements around land rights, apartheid, Green Bans, womens’ rights, prison reform and environment often involved actions that would have led to arrest under current anti-protest laws.
They display an ignorance of traditions of civil disobedience. As UNSW Professor Luke Macnamara told SBS News: “[V]isibility and disruption have long been the hallmarks of effective protest.”
He believes disruption and protest need to go hand in hand in order to result in tangible change.
“There’s an inherent contradiction in governments telling protesters what are acceptable, passive, non-disruptive means of engaging in protests, when the evidence may well be that those methods have been attempted and have proven to be ineffective,” he said.
“It’s not realistic on the one hand to support the so-called ‘right to protest’, and on the other hand, expect the protest has no disruptive effects. The two go together.”
Wendy Bacon was previously a professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and is an editorial board member of Pacific Journalism Review. She joined the protest. This article was first published by City Hub and is republished with the author’s permission.
They come from all walks of life, and they work and play in all sorts of different ways, from journalists and performers to athletes and activists. But they all have one thing in common, and that is a history of excellence in supporting Australia’s LGBTQIA+ communities.
They have one other thing in common now as well – these 45 high achievers have each been named Rainbow Champions by Sydney WorldPride, for their work in promoting the rights and interests of LGBTQIA+ communities everywhere.
The 45 Rainbow Champions represent the 45 years since the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which was staged in 1978.
WorldPride is a global LGBTQIA+ festival that has been staged since 2000, with cities competing to host the event. The right to host it is licensed by InterPride which has representatives from nearly every Pride organisation around the world. Previous WorldPride celebrations include New York in 2019 marking 50 years since the Stonewall uprising, and Copenhagen in 2021 celebrating both WorldPride and the EuroGames.
Sydney was chosen by InterPride members to be the host of WorldPride in 2023, marking the first time a city in the southern hemisphere had been chosen. Sydney WorldPride will incorporate all the beloved Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras events, plus a broad festival offering across arts, sport, theatre, concerts, parties, First Nations programming and a human rights conference.
Over to the 45 Rainbow Champions….
Narelda Jacobs | Journalist
A Whadjuk Noongar journalist and presenter hailing from Boorloo/Perth now living on Gadigal Country in Sydney, Narelda has worked at Network 10 since 2000 and spent 19 years in the Perth newsroom before heading to Sydney, where she co-hosts Studio 10 and presents 10 News First Perth. Once a week, Narelda finds herself at NITV where she co-hosts the network’s flagship program The Point. Once a year, she also co-hosts NITV’s January 26 Sunrise Ceremony. She’s a regular on news panels at ABC TV & co-hosted Sydney Mardi Gras 2018-2020. Narelda has shared the stage with prime ministers, international leaders, humanitarian advocates and superstar artists. She is passionate about promoting equality, diversity and inclusion and is on the board of the Walkley Foundation, the National Indigenous Advisory Committee for Football Australia, and is an ambassador for MND Foundation, the WA Aboriginal Leadership Institute and The Pinnacle Foundation.
Steven Oliver | Performer
A descendant of the Kuku-Yalanji, Waanyi, Gangalidda, Woppaburra, Bundjalung and Biripi peoples, Steven Oliver is one of Australia’s most beloved performers. He was born in Cloncurry in North West Queensland and grew up in Townsville. Steven has worked with numerous theatre companies, festivals and arts organisations across Australia but became notorious with ABC’s Logie/AACTA nominated sketch comedy show Black Comedy, where he was a writer, actor and associate producer. Steven’s array of Season One characters saw him launch into popular culture, but it was his over the top, fabulously camp and highly competitive creations The Tiddas that cemented him as one of Australia’s leading funny people, and led to a Favourite Comedy Performer of the Decade nomination at the 2020 AACTA’s. Season Two of Black Comedy saw him join The Tiddas in holy matrimony, making a firm statement on marriage equality in the process. Little did Steven know that at the time, he had written and acted in the first ever televised same sex marriage of a gay couple on Australian screens. Simultaneously, it is only the second marriage between an Indigenous couple to air on Australian TV. Other Film/TV roles include Tiger Cops and A Very Sexy Xmas for ABC/Iview. Steven is co-creator/writer/presenter for Indigenous Arts Quiz Show Faboriginal as well as the documentary Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky which was awarded Best Documentary/Factual Single at the inaugural Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) Awards. Steven featured in the critically acclaimed documentaries Occupation Native and History Bites Back. He was a recipient of Screen Australia’s Blackspace Initiative for his premiere web series A Chance Affair, which went on to be nominated for best web series at both the 2018 LGBTIQ Australian Awards and Screen Producers Australia Awards. Steven has done voice work on Australia’s first Indigenous Superhero animation, Zero Point and cameoed as Cousin Carlo in Marvel Studio’s Thor; Ragnarok. His poetry is published in both national and international poetry journals and his plays Proppa Solid (Jute Theatre) and From Darkness (La Boite Theatre) are published by Playlab. Steven is currently nearing the end of a successful national tour of his one man cabaret show. Premiering at the 2019 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Bigger & Blacker was listed as an AdCabFave. Steven is currently in Brisbane being sexy.
Peter de Waal | Activist
Born in 1938, Peter de Waal was the foundation member of CAMP Inc (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) in 1970. As lifelong activists for the LGBTQIA+ community in Sydney, Peter and his partner Peter Bonsall-Boone established a counselling service from their Balmain home called ‘Phone-A-Friend’, which became a precursor of the new Twenty10/Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service, and national QLife. Peter is also one of the group known as the “78ers” who participated in the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade in 1978. In June 2017, Peter was inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours, “for significant service to the community as a LGBTIQ advocate and supporter, and through a range of volunteer roles”.
Rudy Jean Rigg | Creator
An autistic and non-binary transgender host, Rudy Jean Rigg is also a creator, advocate, educator and pop-culture fiend based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Rudy is the regular ‘teacher’ and host of social media sensation Rainbow History Class and has recently hosted and co-written a Screen Australia and TikTok funded documentary, TransAthletica. Rudy’s work is globally recognised, and was recently named a Top 10 online creator at the 2022 British LGBT+ Awards, as well as being named AiMCO’s (Australian Influencer Marketing Awards) 2021 Best Creator on TikTok for Rainbow History Class.
Katherine Wolfgramme | Educator
Katherine Wolfgramme transitioned over 30 years ago, and is a proud transgender woman of colour with a breadth of knowledge that is unique among trans inclusion educators. Through storytelling Katherine openly shares her experiences as a child born with gender dysphoria, a trans youth, a transgender woman in full bloom and now a transgender elder, community mother and Sydney LGBT community leader. Katherine has created positive impacts for the transgender community both in Australia and abroad, culminating in a fellowship at The Royal Society for Arts (RSA) global network of Positive Impact Makers (past fellows include Charles Dickens and Louis Pasteur; current fellows include Julia Gillard and Barack Obama). Katherine has served on several boards including Wear It Purple, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras and Sydney Transgender Day of Remembrance and has also served as The Ambassador of the Gender Centre. Katherine is currently on the board of Qtopia, Sydney’s Pride Museum due to open in 2023. Katherine’s unique style of education and trans advocacy has won her much acclaim in the corporate diversity and inclusion speaking circuit in Australia and internationally culminating in the Inspirational Role Model of the Year award at the prestigious Australian LGBT Awards in 2019. She has been twice nominated for Community Hero at The Honour Awards (2020 and 2022).
Deborah Cheetham | Composer, Musician
A Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator, Deborah Cheetham has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Deborah was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for “distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance”. In 2009, Deborah established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of her first opera, Pecan Summer. This landmark work was Australia’s first Indigenous opera and has been a vehicle for the development of a new generation of Indigenous opera singers. In March 2015 she was inducted onto the Honour Roll of Women in Victoria and in April 2018 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia for her pioneering work and achievements in music. Deborah’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, premiered to sold out audiences on-country at the Port Fairy Spring Festival in October 2018, and at Hamer Hall in Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2019. Deborah’s list of commissions for major Australian ensembles include works for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australia String Quartet, West Australian Symphony Orchestra String Quartet, Rubiks Collective, The Sydney Philharmonia, Plexus Collective, the Goldner Quartet and Flinders Quartet. In 2019, Deborah established the One Day in January project designed to develop and nurture Indigenous orchestral musicians. In this same year she received the Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award for service to music in Australia, the Merlyn Myer Prize for Composition and was inducted onto the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll. Deborah has been named the 2020 Composer-in-residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and begins her appointment at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University as Professor of Australia Music practice. Deborah is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Music and was named Limelight Magazine’s Artist of the Year for 2019. Deborah describes herself as a “21st century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.”
Caroline Bowditch | Artist
The Chief Executive Officer/Artistic Director of Arts Access Victoria and the Creative Lead of the Alter State Festival, Caroline Bowditch enjoyed an acclaimed career in the UK for over 16 years as a performance maker and industry leader. Caroline was Scottish Dance Theatre’s Dance Agent for Change (2008-2012), a Director of Dance with Paragon Music (Glasgow), Dance4 (Nottingham) and Imaginate (Scotland), and was Visiting Professor at Coventry University. She has been a regular consultant on accessibility and inclusive practice to Skånes Dansteater, Sweden, and the British Council. Caroline’s performance works include Leaving Limbo Landing (2012), an Unlimited festival commission for the Cultural Olympiad, Falling in Love with Frida (2014), which was awarded a prestigious Herald Angel award, and children’s works, The Adventures of Snigel and Snigel and Friends (2016) which was nominated for a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Festival (2017). Caroline returned to Australia to lead Arts Access Victoria. During her tenure, Caroline has developed strong partnerships with Arts Centre Melbourne, Regional Arts Victoria, MAV (formerly Multicultural Arts Victoria), Melbourne Fringe Festival, Music Victoria and many more. Caroline’s strong advocacy has resulted in significant reform of funding programs for deaf and disabled artists. Caroline has overseen the development of a new strategic plan at Arts Access Victoria and led the organisation through a successful transition to hybrid delivery throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Steph Lum | Advocate
An intersex advocate, poet and legal researcher, Steph Lum is based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. Steph strongly believes in youth intersex voices and founded YOUth&I in 2019, a publication of writings and artwork by young intersex people from around the world, in order to help establish a platform for young intersex creatives to share and be visible. YOUth&I engages intersex people throughout the publication and translation process and is currently in its third issue. Steph is involved in intersex legal and policy reform and takes a human rights-based approach to their research and advocacy. Steph was a member of the ACT LGBTIQ+ Ministerial Advisory Council (2016-2020), a co-Chair and board member of Intersex Human Rights Australia (2017, 2019) and was previously a project officer on the intersex project at the Australian Human Rights Commission (2018). Steph is a signatory to the 2017 Darlington Statement, an Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand intersex community consensus statement that outlines the priorities and calls for action of the local intersex community. Steph also writes poetry to help share intersex experiences in new ways. Through poetry, Steph hopes to connect with intersex people and help endosex people feel, even for a moment, what it can be like to live with bodies that are different. Steph has been published in the Australian Poetry Anthology and Not Very Quiet.
Keiynan Lonsdale | Performer
Born and raised in Western Sydney’s St Mary’s, Keiynan Lonsdale (aka Rainbow Boy) has gone from making his musical theatre debut straight out of high school in Fame – The Musical, to becoming a Hollywood star. Keiynan’s first role was on Aussie screens with ABC’s boundary breaking hit television drama series, Dance Academy, simultaneously becoming the face of MTV Australia and New Zealand at just 19 years old. This career momentum and non-stop determination led him to try his luck overseas, eventually landing his first US role in the box office smash The Divergent Series: Insurgent and Allegiant. The only way from there was up – he was cast in Disney Pictures’ The Finest Hours, then following up with the iconic Superhero role of Wally West/Kid Flash in CW’s The Flash. In 2018, Keiynan won an MTV Movie Award for his role in Love, Simon, got a number one Netflix hit with ‘Work It’, and he also appeared as a guest judge on the internationally popular RuPaul’s Drag Race. A bold and colourful music career has seen Keiynan reach exciting heights, garnering over 51 million Spotify streams, and releasing his original music on the debut album Rainbow Boy, garnering acclaim from Rolling Stone, GLAAD, Fader, and Billboard, the latter inviting him to perform a mini concert as part of their Pride at Home Series. Keiynan’s awards and recognitions include GQ Australia’s Actor of the Year, and the NYC LGBT Centre for the Youth Advocacy Award. He made his fashion runway debut at Paris Fashion Week for Louis Vuitton and Off White, and graced the prestigious MET Gala pink carpet in 2019. Keiynan can currently be seen leading Amazon Prime’s My Fake Boyfriend, and will next star alongside Ne-Yo and Christina Milian in Starz/Lionsgate’s series Step Up.
Jessica Johnson | Graphic Designer
Warramungu Wombaya artist, graphic designer and advocate, Jessica Johnson is the owner of design agency, Nungala Creative. Nungala is an expression of lived experience and commitment to a better future for First Nations people centred around LGBTQ+ visibility, representation and wellbeing: “You are seen, loved and sacred.” Jessica’s work is self described as a hot mess and very much a reflection of who she is – her desire to curate an alternative reality void of the BS, while navigating the complexities of contemporary existence as an outsider on stolen land. Jessica is also the artist behind Sydney WorldPride’s logo and festival artwork. “Creation of the new logo and artworks for Sydney WorldPride was inspired by my belonging to a big, multigenerational queer First Nations community and our extended family. We embody intersectionality and I wanted the design to express that through the vibrancy, colours and textures,” she says. “Each and every aspect reflects a sense of movement like light and shadows cast through nature, the trees and water. The tactile, hands-on, textural aesthetic is a nod to the nostalgic tools of our predecessors and an era of people power and protest definitive in our existence today. The electric colour palette draws from the Rainbow Eucalyptus tree and all the wondrous magic our country has on offer.”
Kerry Chin | Activist
An aromantic, asexual, autistic, and transgender beacon of visibility, Kerry Chin is most often seen riding around Sydney on an iconic bicycle. He has a substantial media portfolio, representing the asexual community on Triple J Hack, You Can’t Ask That, Abbie Chats, and in various interviews in both English and Chinese. He has also done modelling in the Bonds Pride Portrait Exhibition, Outing Disability, and various ACON photoshoots. Behind the scenes, he brings the aromantic and asexual perspectives to various advisory roles, such as Autism Spectrum Australia’s LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee and ACON’s People with Disabilities Co-Design Advisory Group. In the online space, Kerry has helped organise Aussie Ace Week events, and spoke at various international asexuality events such as PANACEA: Asexuality Asia Conference and the International Asexuality Conference 2021. He provides advice on the Tumblr as part of the Asexual Advice and Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week group blogs, and volunteers as a translator with AUREA and International Asexuality Day. Kerry has helped organise various Mardi Gras floats over the years. Some of his favourites include the “Fly Free from Religion” and “No Exemption to Anti-Discrimination Laws for Religions” with Sydney Queer Atheists, and “Neurodiversity Rainbow” with Autism Spectrum Australia. Kerry works as an electrical engineer in the rail industry. Alongside the specialised technical work, he extends his asexual visibility to multiple workplace LGBTQIA+ networks, including Pride and Ally Transport Network, Pride in NSW, and InterEngineer. Kerry’s account of his transgender experience is published in the Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words anthology.
Crystal Love | Performer
Australian and Northern Territory royalty living between Darwin and the Tiwi Islands, Crystal Love is the queen of the Island, respected for being the loving and caring person she is. When Crystal is in a show, she is always a headlining act. Crystal is called ‘Aunty’ because she is an elder in a big family of Tiwi Sistergirls and Brotherboys. Comedy and sass are what she does best. She has represented her community at the United Nations plus many festivals and events around Australia and the world. She is the star of the award winning documentary ‘BLACK DIVAZ’.
William Yang | Photographer
Photographer William Yang came to Sydney from Brisbane in 1969. He came out as a gay man and has recorded much of his life in the Sydney gay community since the early 70s. Yang had his first solo exhibition “Sydneyphiles” at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney in 1978. Part of the exhibition showed scenes from gay life at the time: people, parties, shows, events, and nights at the sauna Ken’s Karate Klub. It was the first time that Australian images of this nature had been shown at a public institution and the exhibition caused a sensation. In 1989 he integrated his skills as a writer and a visual artist. He performed monologues with slide projection in the theatre. They told personal stories and explored issues of identity against a background of social history. He has done 12 full-length works and most of them have toured the world. Recently, William has converted three of his theatre performances into film. He has exhibited regularly at Mardi Gras, and is well known for his documentation of the AIDS epidemic in the early 90s. His Performance piece “Sadness” was made into a film by Tony Ayres in 1999. In 1997 he won the Outstanding Visual Arts Event at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for his exhibition “Friends of Dorothy,” the name he gives to his generic collection of photos of the gay community in Sydney: it has been a book, an exhibition, a performance piece which has toured overseas, and a DVD. In 2021 William had a retrospective exhibition Seeing and Being Seen at QAGOMA in Brisbane. It contained many images of the LGBTIQ community and was very favourably received by both the critics and general public.
Lawrence Bing | Educator
A bisexual transman based is western Sydney, Lawrence Bing is a content creator and a strong advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. He posts daily content for those inside or outside of our LGBTQ+ community to help and guide those who are wishing to support and/or educate themselves. Lawrence loves sharing his transitioning journey since it started over seven years ago, in 2015. His goal and wish is to help individuals through his content.
Jane Marsden | Activist
Jane commenced her career in the LGBTI+ communities later than many, starting in her mid to late 20s after learning of and understanding her own difference. In the early 80s she joined the organising committee of a Western Suburbs Social Group called Scandal. Then after moving into the inner city in the early 90s she was appointed to the Board of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras on which she served for five years. Shortly after she joined the Board of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Community Publishing Ltd (Sydney Star Observer). Jane was one of nine founding directors of The Aurora Group – A Ruby Foundation. For the 40th Anniversary of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras with the help of many, Jane conceived and produced Special Moments and Memories – The Other 39’ers float in honour of the thousands of volunteers, staff and activists who nurtured and supported Mardi Gras since the first protest march in 1978. She has remained an active participant in the community recently as an advocate for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Community Workshop and on the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Constitution Review Committee.
Jojo Zaho | Performer
After winning Miss First Nations 2017, Jojo Zaho was a contestant on the very first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. In 2015 Jojo started her drag career in the New South Wales country town of Dubbo as a political response to a council member stating that homosexuality is not part of Indigenous culture. For Dubbo’s first annual Central West Pride March, Jojo walked the parade in a costume she made with both the Indigenous and gay pride flags. She hasn’t looked back since. In 2017, she appeared in the inaugural Miss First Nations Indigenous drag queen pageant, as well as participating in the documentary Black Divaz about the competition that launched her drag career. Since then Jojo has been involved in some fabulous gigs such as making her first television cameo on Get Krackin, participating in the 2018 Broken Heel Festival in Broken Hill, and being chosen for the Broken Heel mentorship program, which has led to her becoming a Broken Heel festival’s First Nations Glambassador. Jojo has also had the honour of hosting the VIP party for the Newcastle leg of Cher’s Australian tour. More recently Jojo has been placed on the world stage as a competitor in the Stan original series RuPauls Drag Race Down Under, where she now holds the unofficial title of Drag Race Down Under’s Porkchop.
Zoe Terakes | Actor
Zoe is one of Australia’s most exciting new actors. They were most recently seen in the highly anticipated series, Nine Perfect Strangers, alongside Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy. Their other television credits including Foxtel’s Wentworth, Amazon’s The Moth Effect, ABC’s Janet King, and Foxtel’s The End. Zoe’s film credits include the coming of age hit, Ellie & Abbie (and Ellie’s Dead Aunt) and Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk To Me. They are soon to be seen in the Marvel Studios, Disney Plus series, Iron Heart. Zoe’s theatre credits include Belvoir’s Boomkak Panto, A Doll’s House Part II (MTC), A View from the Bridge (Ensemble Theatre), Metamorphoses, The Wolves, and A View From the Bridge (The Old Fitz). For their work in A View from the Bridge at the Old Fitz, they received Sydney Theatre Awards for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in an Independent Production, and as joint winner, the Best Newcomer Award. Zoe also received the Don Reid Memorial award at the GLUGS for this performance. Zoe was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play for MTC’s production of A View from The Bridge. Zoe identifies as nonbinary and trans masculine. They are a vocal advocate and activist for trans rights within the industry and on a global scale.
G Flip | Artist
A Melbourne-born and LA-based music superstar, G Flip is the real thing: unfiltered, driven and bursting out of their bedroom with ideas to burn. In the last few years, Georgia Flipo has gone from unknown artist to international talent. The artist, producer and drummer has won the hearts of fans and media both in Australia and abroad, scoring support from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NME and The FADER, among others. Their 2019 debut album has amassed more than 200 million streams to date and debuted #1 on the vinyl charts and #6 on the overall charts. For the past few years G has dominated the Triple j Hottest 100. Their live show has seen them play all over the world at festivals, venues and sold out US tours. Originally a session drummer by trade, their music starts from the drums up. Lyrically, G Flip writes of relationships, heartbreak, and acceptance. Authentic, relatable and always energetic, G Flip is a bonafide powerhouse.
Chloe Logarzo | Athlete
A professional soccer player and a member of the Australian women’s national team, The Matildas, Chloe Logarzo commenced her professional football career with Sydney FC in 2011- 2012 season of the W- League, and continued with the club in 2012-13 before moving overseas. While at Sydney FC she captained the Australian U-20’s national team, then made her first debut for the Matildas in 2013. Chloe joined US W-League’s Colorado Pride in 2014 and went on to be awarded 2014 USL W-League Rookie of the Year. From 2015 until 2017 Chloe went on to play for the Newcastle Jets, Swedish team Eskilstuna United and Norwegian Toppserien side Avaldsnes. It was during this time, Chloe suffered an injury and decided to broaden her skillset to landscaping. In 2016 Chloe returned to the Matildas and has represented Australia in the 2016 Summer Olympics, 2018 AFC Asian Cup, 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup as well 2020 Women’s Olympic Qualifiers. 2017 saw Chloe return to Sydney FC where she remained until signing with Bristol City in 2020. In February 2021, Chloe embarked on another new adventure joining Kansas City for their inaugural season as a part of the National Women’s Soccer League in the USA. Chloe recently played an integral part at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic campaign for the Matildas, notching up 50 games in the green and gold. When Chloe isn’t playing the game she loves, she enjoys quality time with her partner and when she can, comes home to spend time with her family in Sydney. Chloe is extremely proud of the country she represents and hopes to mentor young boys and girls and help them also reach their dreams.
Fran Kelly | Journalist
One of Australia’s leading interviewers and commentators, Fran Kelly has earned a reputation as an intelligent, informed and balanced journalist who has been a key contributor to the nation’s political, social and cultural debates for the past 25 years. In that time Fran’s been the ABC’s Europe Correspondent based in London, the political editor for The 7.30 Report and the political correspondent for the prestigious AM program. Fran was, until recently, presenter of ABC RN Breakfast, Australia’s leading national current affairs radio show, which she hosted for 17 years. She has shifted to ABC TV for her next project, host of a new Friday night TV chat show called Frankly.
Robyn Lambird | Athlete
A Paralympian bronze medallist, content creator, model, and disability advocate, Robyn Lambird has just achieved a bronze medal at the Toyko 2020 (2021) Paralympics – making her the first ever out non-binary Paralympics medallist. As a content creator with cerebral palsy, Robyn sets out to challenge society’s negative perceptions of disabilities. Robyn has been featured on such platforms as the BBC, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, The West Australian, SBS, ABC radio, and Triple J. In 2015 Robyn was included in Triple J’s ’25 Under 25’, awarded as one of the 25 remarkable individuals under the age of 25, for her work to promote disability equality and sporting achievements. She has also been ranked 3rd in the Sunday Times Magazines ‘Hot List’ in 2020. Robyn also offers services in public speaking as a disability consultant, and as a mentor in overcoming adversity and increasing confidence. She is also a strong LGBTIQA+ member/advocate and identifies as non-binary.
Casey Donovan | Performer
After a meteoric rise to fame at the age of just 16, Casey became the youngest ever winner of Australian Idol in 2004. A proud Gumbaynggir and Dungari woman, over the last 18 years, Casey has made her mark not only as a musician, but also in the areas of stage, screen, presenting and writing. Casey is a multi-Award winner and nominee, including an ARIA No. 1 Award and Triple Platinum for ‘Listen With Your Heart’ from the Double Platinum Album ‘For You’. She has also won Deadly Awards for Best Album, Best Single and Most Promising New Talent. After taking a break from music, in 2010 Casey returned to the music arena with the release of her hotly anticipated single Big, Beautiful & Sexy. She took that ethos on the road by touring in her own show, which has seen Casey perform to sell-out crowds at some of the country’s most coveted venues. Casey has also headlined her own Mama Cass Tribute concerts and supported the legendary Cyndi Lauper on her 2011 Australian National Tour. Throughout the pandemic in 2020/ 2021, Casey has not only entertained her fans, but nourished her own musical soul, with a Facebook Live performance BluesDay Tuesday, where each week, she acoustically performs some of her favourite songs but also fan requests. “Bluesday is a show that uses music for healing, thought, interaction, distraction, storytelling whether it be m music or someone else’s” says Casey. With thousands tuning in each week, Casey has decided to do a short mini tour in her home State of Victoria in October & November 2021. In 2021 Casey took on the hosting role alongside Noni Hazelhurst and Kurt Fearnley of SBS TV’s What Does Australia Really Think?, a series that reveals what Australia thinks about disability, obesity, and old age through emotional personal stories, confronting social experiments and a nationwide survey. 2022 sees Casey return to the stage as a lead in the hit musical 9 TO 5, playing the role of Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda’s role from the hit movie) opening at the Capitol Theatre Sydney in February, then around the country throughout the year. Casey is also currently working on new music to be released in 2022 and her ‘Bluesday’ Tour is on sale now. She will co-host and perform at Sydney World Pride 2023.
Ian Thorpe | Athlete
Unarguably one of the greatest swimmers whose ever lived, Ian Thorpe’s highlights includes nine Olympic Medals (five of them Gold); 22 World Records; 11 World Championship Titles; 11 Commonwealth Games Medals (10 of them Gold); Four World Swimmer of the Year titles (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002); and nine Pan Pacific Games Titles. Out of the pool, Ian has been just as successful, having been named a Member of the Order of Australia; winning the Australian Sports Medal; and celebrated as Young Australian of the Year. Ian has received honorary doctorates from Macquarie University and Western Sydney University, and he’s been awarded the Human Rights Medal 2012 for his work with Indigenous Australians. He’s also served as an Ambassador – Australian Marriage Equality, AIS, Invictus Games, AIME; and is a Patron and Board Member for ReachOut, and a Board Member for Parley.
Trevor Ashley | Performer
One of Australia’s most sought-after and successful performers, Trevor Ashley has been starring on stage and screen for over 20 years. In musical theatre, Trevor starred as Thenardier in Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Miserables, for which he was nominated for his third Helpmann Award. He has also appeared as Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar, Edna Turnblad in Hairspray and created the role of Miss Understanding in Priscilla Queen Of the Desert. Last year he appeared as Gaye Wray (from Home and Away) in his smash hit play The Lyin’ Queen, at The Sydney Opera House. He will soon star as the Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat during Sydney World Pride. Trevor directed the national tour of the cult musical Heathers, as well as Mack and Mabel at the Hayes Theatre Co. He was the curator and artistic director of Sydney International Cabaret Festival, and this year the curator of the Vivid Sydney Supper Club. In 2017 he completed a national symphony tour of Diamonds Are For Trevor, which was also recorded as a TV special for Foxtel. He has also appeared in Les Norton (ABC), Get Krackin’ (ABC) and Dance Academy (ABC) and the films Holding The Man, and the soon to be released Seriously Red. He is also a regular cast member of RFDS (Channel 7), playing the fabulous Dolly Hardon.
Alex The Astronaut | Performer
An unforgettably original lyricist, the music of Australian singer/songwriter Alex the Astronaut cycles through a series of radiantly detailed slices of life. In her latest album, How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater, Alex documents moments of both the seemingly mundane – from a haircut, a therapy session, a trip to the beach and to the supermarket – to the utterly life-changing experiences as a caregiver (along with the PTSD that followed) and her recent diagnosis with autism. The 27-year-old artist imbues her songs with equal parts self-awareness and sensitivity, imagination and idiosyncratic humour. Alex intimately explores friendship, love, loss, pain, and change in her work, weaving a constellation of stories about the personal reckonings that come with growing up. Her bright melodies, plucked guitars and unmistakable vocals cement Alex as a truly essential songwriter, capable of transforming the way we view ourselves and the world around us. Born in Sydney, Alex first started writing songs at 12, then moved to New York in 2017 to study math and physics at Long Island University. That same year, she delivered her debut EP To Whom It May Concern and its follow-up See You Soon, whose opening track “Not Worth Hiding” became an unofficial anthem of the Australian Gay Marriage referendum. The song is an open letter to Alex’s 16-year-old self that details the journey to owning her sexuality. It clearly struck a chord with audiences around the world, and was played by Elton John on his Beats 1 radio show. In addition to releasing albums The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing and How To Grow a Sunflower Underwater to widespread acclaim, Alex has taken the stage at major festivals like SXSW, Primavera Sound, The Great Escape, and Splendour in the Grass, along with touring Australia on a sold-out headline run.
Jordan Raskopoulos | Comedian
A Sydney based comedian, singer, digital content creator and Twitch streamer, you might know Jordan Raskopoulos from her work as the lead singer of The Axis of Awesome, the singing bumble bee from TikTok, her Ted Talk on anxiety or that commercial where she threw a book at Michael Bolton. Jordan came out as transgender in 2016 with the comedy song The Elephant in the Room and has continued to use humour as a tool to educate and inform. Jordan’s quite a name on the internet but her credits also extend into film, television and publishing. She has contributed stories for numerous anthologies and has had her work published by The Guardian and Junkee Media. Jordan has also appeared in two Australian films: as Trax, Julian Assange’s hacker compatriot, in Underground: The Julian Assange Story, which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival to critical acclaim, and as Helen Reddy’s housekeep and friend Sylvia in I Am Woman. Jordan is a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ and mental health causes. She is an ambassador for Twenty10, a social services organisation for LGBTQIA+ youth. In 2020 she set the world record for the longest performance of The Song That Doesn’t End (5 hours 43 minutes) in a charity live stream supporting Twenty10.
David Parsons | Athlete
David has a passion for fostering meaningful connections within the LGBTQIA+ community through sporting activities. This passion can be seen in his previous experience serving as president of the Sydney Stingers Water Polo from 2015-2019, after joining the club in 2010. During this time he fostered the clubs female and gender diversity participation, helped lead the club’s yearly fundraising efforts and coordinated corporate sponsorships. In 2016 the club was celebrated with a legacy award by the Federation of Gay Games for the most outstanding local organisation. David is a founding partner and current Director of Finance and Membership for Emerald City Kickball Inc, a community sporting organisation with leagues currently operating in Sydney and Perth, and expansion plans for Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane. David helped bring Kickball to Sydney with a small group of friends after experiencing a game in California, where he enjoyed the low barrier of entry, social aspect and inclusive nature of the sport. David’s taken many of the lessons learnt from his experience at the Sydney Stingers when helping set up Emerald City Kickball – ensuring the organisation focuses on inclusion, diversity, participation and creative, campy fun. The league also gives back to the community through events such as a yearly charity tournament, which raises funds for the winning team’s organisation of choice. The mental and physical benefits of the sport have since been recognised by the NSW Ministry of Health, which awarded the league a grant to help deliver the 2022/23 seasons to players in Sydney. David spends his non-Kickball time managing his own architecture practice, and in his spare time enjoys sailing, swimming, cycling, and exploring the great outdoors. He’s also very excited for the international Kickball tournament to be held as part of Sydney WorldPride.
Courtney Act | Artist
Boy, Girl, Artist, Advocate. Courtney Act is more than just the sum of her parts. In 2003, Courtney made it to 13th place on the first season of Australian Idol and then signed to Sony/BMG. In 2014 she was top three on Season 6 of the Emmy Award winning RuPaul’s Drag Race before releasing her debut EP, Kaleidoscope, and touring internationally with her original show, The Girl From Oz. In 2018, Courtney was crowned the winner of Celebrity Big Brother UK, educating viewers on queer issues such as gender fluidity and sexuality. After her successful world tour Under the Covers, Courtney made television history as the host of the UK’s first bisexual dating show The Bi Life (E!). That Christmas she hosted her own variety TV special, The Courtney Act Show (Channel 4 UK and 10 Peach). She competed in Eurovision – Australia Decides and then danced her way into the hearts of the nation finishing runner up on Dancing With The Stars. 2020 saw her new live show FLUID debut at Darlinghurst Theatre in the Mardi Gras Festival. In 2021 Courtney hosted her own series of One Plus One (ABC TV) and launched the podcast Brenda, Call Me (NOVA) with best friend Vanity, and Building Queertopia (BBC Sounds). 2021 concluded with the release of Caught In The Act: A Memoir, which went into reprint on the first day of sales and quickly became a bestseller. Courtney has recently appeared as a finalist in Dancing with the Stars: All Stars (Ch7), Elvira in Blithe Spirit with Sydney Theatre Company and launched Courtney’s Closet (Ch10).
Magda Szubanski | Performer
Famous for making Australia laugh for over three decades, Magda Szubanski is perhaps best known for her role as ‘Mrs Hoggett’ in Babe and ‘Sharon’ in Kath & Kim, but more recently her advocacy in the Marriage Equality Campaign, for which Vogue Australia listed her as a “Game Changer”. Magda advocated tirelessly, making the case for equality with reason and dignity. Her most notable appearances included a pivotal debate on the ABC’s Q&A, interviews on A Current Affair and an address she gave at the National Press Club, ‘What it feels like to be an unwilling human guinea pig in a political experiment’. In 2012, Magda came out live on national TV and has been an active and high-profile campaigner for LGBTI+ rights ever since. She has been a patron of Twenty10, an ambassador for the Pinnacle Foundation and also volunteered for the Orlando Victims’ Fundraiser concerts in Melbourne and Sydney. She has spoken at numerous Marriage Equality fundraisers. Magda’s film credits include The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, alongside the late Steve Irwin and The Golden Compass, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Australian films include Dr Plonk directed by Rolf de Heer, Bran Nu Dae by Rachel Perkins and starring alongside Ronan Keating in the musical comedy, Goddess in 2013. Magda’s many stage appearances include hit productions of Guys and Dolls, the late Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss and What I Wore, The Melbourne Theatre Company production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the national tour of Grease: The Arena Spectacular with John Farnham. In 2012 she performed alongside Geoffrey Rush and Hugh Sheridan in Simon Phillip’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Magda is also a best-selling, award-winning author, as seen from the release of her internationally acclaimed memoir Reckoning in late 2015.
Maria Thattil | Advocate
Australia’s most celebrated contemporary South-Asian media personality and Miss Universe Australia 2020, Maria Thattil is a staunch diversity advocate, media personality, commentator, panellist, writer, model, creator and speaker. Crowned Miss Universe Australia in 2020, Maria placed in the top 10 in the international pageant in 2021. She was only the third woman of colour to represent Australia in the pageant’s then 69-year history and was also the shortest international entrant standing at a proud 5’3. A current panellist on Channel 9’s ‘Talking Honey’ and ‘Today Extra,’ Maria is also a contributor/columnist for top lifestyle site 9Honey and national publication Stellar Magazine. Her appeal continues to escalate given her warm personality and ability to speak and write eloquently on a wide variety of issues. Many of Maria’s discussion topics and projects target social justice issues including anti-racism, diversity, inclusion, representation, youth empowerment, mental health, sexism, gender equality and LGBTIQIA+ issues. As an insightful and skilled opinion writer, she has also authored powerful pieces for a variety of reputable outlets. Leveraging her degrees in psychology and management in her creative endeavours, Maria has collaborated with major brands on panels, campaigns and content geared toward representation and equality. She has headlined national campaigns as a face and ambassador for iconic brands including Olay, Clinique, L’Oréal, Witchery, Adore Beauty, Elite Eleven, ulta3, Seamless1 and Eimele. Not only did she serve as the 2022 Mardi Gras Ambassador for Olay, but she was also the 2021 and 2022 Australian Open ambassador for Piper-Heidsieck. Maria also serves as a member of the United Nations Association of Australia. She aims to develop her career further in Australian entertainment with an ongoing interest in hosting, presenting and acting.
Teddy Cook | Activist
Teddy Cook has over 15 years of experience in community health and non-government sectors. Teddy is ACON’s Director, LGBTQ+ Community Health, where he oversees client services and LGBTQ+ health, equity, and harm reduction programs. Teddy specialises in community development, health promotion and program delivery, he led the development of TransHub and established ACON’s Trans Health Equity program. Teddy is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Kirby Institute UNSW and a queer man of trans experience.
Mon Schafter | Journalist
A Walkley Award winning journalist, Mon Schafter leads the content for ABCQueer – the ABC’s home of stories and advice for young LGBTQIA+ Australians. An experienced presenter and reporter, Mon has co-hosted the Mardi Gras parade on ABC TV and told countless stories for the 7.30 program and Hungry Beast. They also host the ABC podcast Innies + Outies, featuring uniquely Australian stories about coming out or staying in. Mon has interviewed Hollywood’s biggest names such as Jodie Foster and Margot Robbie, human rights pioneers like former High Court Justice Michael Kirby, and LGBTQIA+ trailblazers such as non-binary author, model and former Olympian Casey Legler – not to mention hundreds of everyday Australians with fascinating stories. Mon is the co-chair of Twenty10, a non-profit organisation that supports young LGBTQIA+ people in NSW, and in 2020 was named as one of Australia’s Outstanding 50 LGBTQI+ Leaders in the ‘Out50’ report.
Paul Capsis | Performer
One of Australia’s most versatile performers, Paul Capsis’ extensive career has included theatre, live concerts, cabaret, television, and film. Paul has worked with many leading Australian theatre companies (STC, MTC, Malthouse Theatre, STCSA, and Company B Belvoir) and has performed in Vienna, Valletta, Hong Kong, London, Edinburgh, and New York. In 2021, Paul was able to perform in two original works at Sydney Festival: The Last Season for Force Majeure; and Rapture: a Song Cycle of Desire, Ecstasy, Murder and Mayhem directed by Michael Kantor and co-starring iOTA. Previously in 2019, Paul captivated audiences with a sell-out season of his critically acclaimed show Paul Capsis with Jethro Woodward and the Fitzroy Youth Orchestra at Sydney Festival’s Spiegeltent and a sold-out season at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Paul’s other theatre credits include Barrie Kosky’s The Lost Echo (2006, STC) which earned him the 2007 Helpmann Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play; Boulevard Delirium in Vienna and Australia, earning Paul the 2006 Helpmann Award for Best Contemporary Concert Performer and the 2006 Green Room award for Best Cabaret Artiste for the Australian run. More recent theatre credits include The Bridge Of San Luis Rey (Brink Productions Adelaide), Lady Tabouli (Griffin Theatre), Resident Alien (45 Downstairs), Black Rider (Malthouse), Cabaret (Hayes Theatre and Athenaeum), Rumpelstiltskin (Windmill Theatre and Southbank Theatre London), The Wizard of Oz (Belvoir), Calpurnia Descending (Malthouse/STC), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Newtheatricals), Angela’s Kitchen (Griffin Theatre) for which he won the 2012 Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor and STC’s 2020 production of Terrence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea. Paul has also appeared in a variety of television shows. More recently he has featured in the critically acclaimed miniseries Deep Water for SBS and Black Fella Films. Paul’s film credits include Ana Kokkinos’ 1998 film Head On which won him the 1998 Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for an AFI Award in the same category. Paul’s other awards include the 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award, the 2004 Green Room Award Best Cabaret Artiste, and the 2002 Helpmann Award for Best Live Musical Presentation for Capsis vs Capsis at the Sydney Opera House. This year Paul performed in the Victorian Opera’s production of The Who’s Tommy and the Perth International Cabaret Festival.
Katie Brennan | Athlete
Richmond Tiger’s captain, Katie Brennan is one of the AFLW’s elite. The gun forward and midfielder earned All Australian selection in 2021 and finished second in the club’s best and fairest award as the side’s leading goalkicker. Katie played in the inaugural season of AFLW as a marquee signing and captain of the Western Bulldogs. She led the Bulldogs to the 2017 Grand Final, kicked 15 goals in 13 games and was the leading goalkicker in 2019, despite an injury riddled time with the club. Katie signed with the Richmond Football Club at the end of 2019 season, joining the expansion club for a fresh start. The signing was historic as she was the first player to sign with the Richmond Football Club women’s team and was the first AFLW player to sign a two-year contract with a club. Brennan is the founder of her gym, KB.Performance, which looks to educate, inspire and empower women on and off the field in what is a women’s only elite performance space.
Vanity | Performer
One of Australia’s premiere drag queens, Vanity has played a pivotal role in the evolution of drag over the last 25 years. Starting in the 90’s, Vanity pioneered a whole new style of drag with her ultra-feminine look and mastery and knowledge of pop culture, ultimately changing the face of drag forever. In 2003 Vanity and Courtney Act began Wigs By Vanity largely inspired by RuPaul’s flawless lace-front wigs. Being a master wig stylist, Vanity travelled to China to work with manufacturing experts in the wig field. Together they created a new hand-made custom lace-front hairline to create a one-size-fits-most wig that was previously unavailable on the market. These days the world-famous wigs are worn by almost every drag Queen in the world, including RuPaul herself. Vanity has also had an extremely successful career in musical theatre. Working closely with the team that produced and created Priscilla the Musical production, Vanity worked her way up from a makeup artist to a department head, earning herself the title of Associate Makeup designer. She travelled the world with the show, working everywhere from Broadway in New York to the West End in London. If that’s not enough her skills in hair also allowed her to work on big budget Hollywood films shot here in Australia. Vanity is continually designing and launching new products in Wigs by Vanity line, performing in drag around the country alongside some of the world’s greatest Drag superstars, all while sharing stories and learning new things on her and Courtney Act’s wildly successful Brenda Call me podcast.
Daniel McDonald | Artist
A Gadigal and Wonnarua man who represents Aboriginal art through ‘Deadly Hand Talk’, Daniel is also dedicated to amplifying the voices of people living with disabilities in the arts and culture sectors. He is an LGBTQIA+ Indigenous man living with a disability (Deafness), a member of Sydney Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and a member of the Inclusion Disability Advisory Panel at Sydney City Council. To his knowledge, Daniel has been the only deaf Indigenous man living in the Darlinghurst/Paddington area over the past 30 years. He is proud that locals have been happy to pick up some Auslan sign language from him. Daniel is now working as an artist having culturally learnt a style of Aboriginal dot painting from his grandmother and his Aunty Mum Shirl. Daniel plans to continue delivering his Deadly Hand Talk Exhibition each year, showcasing his evolving style of works, and to continue his contribution to the Arts and Cultural sector as a queer person with a disability.
Deni Todorovic | Activist
A vocal activist for queer rights and human rights, Deni Todorovic pushes the narrative forward around topics of gender, sexuality, politics, race and equality. They are a respected voice within the industry, advocating for inclusivity and inclusive language. Deni identifies as non-binary and presents themself as a neutral combination of gender expression, of which they affectionately call ‘The Space In Between’. Deni has built an amazing online community, and uses their platform to entertain, educate and inspire. Deni has become a respected voice within the LBGTQIA+ and wider Australian community, and through the power of storytelling and content creation, is helping to create change and inspire more diversity and inclusion within society. Deni’s core values are to inform and inspire, whilst always remaining authentic to their sense of self. Deni hosts the Mamamia podcast ‘What Are You Wearing?’ with co-host Tamara Davis. They break down the wonderful world of fashion culture and give fashion tips and tricks that work for the needs of every body type. Deni also has 12 years of industry and freelance experience in fashion, with roles spanning across Fashion Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Celebrity Stylist, Creative Director, Content Creator and Host. Deni is now writing their first book – ‘Love This For You.
Bhenji Ra | Performer
An interdisciplinary artist and community leader whose practice combines dance, choreography, video and event making, Bhenji is the mother of the House of Sle, as well as the pioneer to the Australian ballroom community. She has been a pivotal voice in shaping the community and creating events such as the award-winning Sissy Ball, of which she was the director from 2018 to 2020. Her own artistic work is often concerned with the dissection of cultural theory and identity, centralizing her own personal histories as a tool to reframe performance. With an emphasis on occupation and at times collective action, Bhenji’s work plays with the multiplicities of spectacle while offering strategies to disrupt normativity and western dance convention. Collaboration is key to her work as she regularly accesses her own community as an essential critical voice. She is also a co-founding artist in the collective Club Ate.
Josh Cavallo | Athlete
An Australian professional footballer (soccer) who plays as a left back and central midfielder in the A-League for Adelaide United, Josh Cavallo has represented the Australian under-20 national team. In October 2021, Josh made sports history and international headlines by coming out as gay, making him the first in the Australian A-League and the only openly gay male professional footballer currently playing top-flight football in the world. The announcement caused shockwaves across the professional sports and footballing world, generating inspiring messages from the globe’s top players, clubs and leading sports organisations, including FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, the Premier League and legendary players and managers such as Barcelona’s Gerard Piqué, Lionel Messi, Marcus Rashford, Antoine Griezmann and Liverpool F.C.’s Jurgen Kloop. Josh’s release of his very personal coming out story and heartfelt video was praised by millions for his courage and bravery, making him the number one trending sports story in the world at the time, with over 20 million views. In January 2022, Josh signed a global deal with Ralph Lauren to launch the new RLX Clarus, a high-performance polo shirt created from natural fibres. Josh appeared on the cover of the January issue of GQ Australia magazine and showcased the RLX polo shirt at the 2022 Australian Open. On February 26, 2022, Josh and Adelaide United made sports history by staging the first official Pride Game in the Australian A-League. On the awards front, Josh was nominated for the prestigious 2022 British LGBTQ Awards and will be honoured in Berlin, Germany with the 2022 Soul of Stonewall Award.
Joel Creasey | Comedian
One of Australia’s most-popular, acclaimed and charmingly controversial stand-up comedians, radio and television presenters, Joel Creasey was described in the Daily Telegraph as “an unstoppable force and the crown prince of Aussie comedy”. In 2021, Joel made history by being the first openly Versace-wearing man to feature on the cover of Men’s Health Magazine. Joel took a huge leap into the radio world in 2020, becoming co-host of Australia’s number one national drive show ‘Kate, Tim & Joel’ on Nova. In 2021’s ACRA Awards the show was awarded the prize for being Best Syndicated Australian Program and Best Networked Program and Joel was personally recognised with the award for Best Newcomer. A self-described shameless “fame whore”, Joel has become a television staple on commercial networks and streaming platforms. Joel’s stand-up special ‘Thirsty’ is on Netflix’s Comedians of the World and was launched globally to rave reviews. A second broadcast stand-up special, ‘Fame Whore’, filmed at the iconic Sydney Opera House, features on Amazon Prime worldwide. Joel can frequently be seen in the ‘funnies chair’ on Network Ten’s The Project, and is the resident host of SBS’s ‘Eurovision’ and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. He has been a team captain in Network Ten’s ‘Show Me The Movie’ and has hosted the worldwide phenomenon dating show, ‘Take Me Out’ on Network Seven. Joel has harnessed his outrageous wit, sass and unrivalled storytelling abilities to cement himself as Australia’s undisputed ‘Crown Prince of Comedy’ and one of the most-sought after and hottest comedians in the world.
Kylie Kwong | Chef
An Australian-Chinese chef who uses food as a catalyst for positive social impact and cultural exchange, Kylie Kwong collaborates with artisans, farmers and the community to develop initiatives that empower people to rethink food through the lens of sustainability, Indigenous traditions and interconnectedness. This energy is driven by a philosophy that the best way to ‘care of self’ is to be connected to community. Kylie believes that when we take care of ourselves, we are better equipped to take care of others. Kylie has become synonymous with modern Chinese cooking in Australia. As a third- generation Australian, she has drawn on her southern Chinese heritage to reinterpret Cantonese cuisine, combining uniquely Australian ingredients with traditional Chinese cooking methods and flavours. Kylie’s food highlights partnerships with the local community and collaborations with long-term suppliers and producers, which feature on her daily menu at Lucky Kwong, her eatery in Sydney’s South Eveleigh. Kylie is also the ambassador for food, culture and community for the South Eveleigh precinct where she shares her love of food and family by connecting and working in the melting pot of Sydney’s Redfern. Her advocacy of sharing and sustainability also extends to her involvement with a number of community organisations including The Wayside Chapel, Two Good Co and Addison Road Community Organisation. On a global scale, Kylie is Parabere Forum’s Australian correspondent, an independent and not-for-profit platform featuring women’s views and voices on major food issues. Kylie continuously thinks critically about what it means to be a cook and how she can best serve the community around her.
Patrick Abboud | Journalist
A Walkley award winning journalist, filmmaker, TV presenter & podcaster, Patrick (Pat) Abboud’s documentaries uncover LGBTQIA+ stories you never knew existed from around the world. Pat’s unique LGBTQIA+ storytelling has also won 3 New York Festivals TV & Radio Awards, Best True Crime Podcast and the Creativity award at this year’s Australian Podcast Awards, a United Nations, Media Diversity Australia, and Kennedy Award. He’s been nominated for LGBTQIA+ Presenter of the Year twice, the prestigious Rose D’Or in Europe and SXSW’s Innovation Award. Pat is the founder of Only Human, a production company making original factual films, television, podcasts and interactive documentaries. Commissioned by Audible/ Amazon, Pat’s latest queer true crime series, ‘The Greatest Menace’ journeys behind the bars of “the world’s only gay prison” – a prison in a tiny Australian town with a dark secret. His investigation into what happened inside reveals the full story for the first time. Pat also currently reports and hosts for nightly TV program The Project (Network 10). He’s hosted Conversations on the ABC, Australia’s most downloaded podcast and just developed and hosted a new weekly documentary podcast for the ABC called Days Like These. Pat’s co-hosted the SBS TV Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras broadcast alongside Joel Creasy and Magda Szubanski annually. He founded irreverent news and current affairs program The Feed on SBS TV. He’s directed and fronted documentaries for Dateline. Pat’s unique insight on the arts and pop culture also saw him curate, write and host a special international queer movie show for VICE TV. As a correspondent, to date he’s explored 53 countries, scouring almost every continent for untold stories. As an interviewer, his popular TV series #PatChat where he sits down with pop stars, politicians and everyday people with extraordinary stories has clocked up more than 40 million views across social media. Recently voted one of Australia’s 50 most influential LGBTQIA+ voices, Pat is ambassador for Twenty10 and Wear it Purple advocating for LGBTQIA+ young people. Pat speaks Arabic and German and is Daddy to a two-year-old. When he’s not on TV or radio, you’ll find Pat in the kitchen cooking up a feast with his Middle Eastern family.
Electric Fields | Performers
Multi-award winning Electric Fields create a striking and haunting merging of living traditional culture with electronic music, bringing moments of breathtaking beauty and power to the stage. Featuring the rare and beautiful voice of Zaachariaha Fielding (who often sings in his traditional languages of the Anangu people) and the brilliance of producer and composer Michael Ross, Electric Fields music ranges from soulful pop, to epic-scale electronic works, through to intensely intimate story-songs. Finalists for the ARIA Awards 2019’s Best Australian Live Act, Electric Fields took out seven awards in 2019 – the 3 top spots for the National Live Music Awards: Best Live Act, Best Live Voice, and Electronic Act of the Year; the National Dreamtime Award; the Corner Award, and two South Australian Music Awards. Coming a close 2nd in Eurovision: Australia Decides, they trended worldwide on Twitter at number seven within an hour of their performance. Appearing in three editions of Vogue Magazine, they were named as ‘movers for the Next Gen’. They’ve played for Apple, the APRA Awards, Spotify’s Front Left showcase, Splendour in the Grass, Vogue Magazine, live at the AFL Grand Final, and again for the AFL Dreamtime Round. They opened the Mardi Gras Parade, Parrtjima Festival, headlined Garrmalang Festival, and closed the First Nations Fashion + Design show for Australian Fashion Week. They have played in 10 countries – throughout Asia, NZ, the UK, Germany, Poland, Hungary and the USA – and in July 2022 presented an awe-inspiring collaboration with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Georgie Stone | Actress
Georgie Stone is an actress, and an advocate for trans and gender diverse children and youth. She played Mackenzie Hargreaves on the long running television drama Neighbours, as the first trans actor in a trans role on the show, earning her a nomination for Best Daytime Soap Star at the Inside Soap Awards. Georgie has also contributed to the series as a writer and has been invited to participate in other script developments for drama projects. At just 20 years of age, Georgie was recognised nationally and globally for her activism. She has been awarded the Globe LGBTI Person of the Year, the Young People’s Human Rights Medal, the Young Voltaire Award, the Victorian Young Australian of the Year, the Australian LGBTI Hero of the Year, and the Medal of the Order of Australia OAM.
Mo’Ju | Singer/Songwriter
Mo’Ju has been called “one of Australia’s most exciting singer/songwriters” and their music has garnered critical, commercial and cultural influence. 2018’s release Native Tongue was one of the year’s most important and award-winning releases, impacting not only Mo’Ju’s life and music but also the Australian musical landscape. With the album being a career definer for the sing/songwriter, Mo’Ju had documented a deep and intimate exploration of family and identity, in particular her Wiradjuri and Filipino roots. The album represented a turning point in both Mo’Ju’s career and also the ways in which Australian songwriters are telling their stories. 2019 saw the release of a mini-album Ghost Town, reaching into an electronica inspired sound and 2021 sees a new E.P. ‘O.K.’, a vulnerable and introspective reflection on mental health and loneliness, which, through Mo’Ju’s provocative songwriting, offers up music as an antidote for sadness. Not only is Mo’Ju known for being a prolific recording artist but also for their hard work on the touring circuit. A career of which was at an all-time high for the artist right before the pandemic, having completed almost 200 shows on three continents in 18 months. Highlights included national tour supports for both The Hilltop Hoods and Paul Kelly, Festival dates including WOMAD and SXSW and two headline tours including dates at Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Arts Centre. In February of 2021 Mo’Ju returned to the stage with a full band for a one off show accompanied by the Victorian Orchestra at Sidney Myer Music Bowl. A thought-provoking and articulate speaker, Mo’Ju took on a BIGSOUND keynote address in 2019 and hosted her own panel in 2020. Currently Mo’Ju is working on a 4th studio album.
Activists have protested at Indonesia’s Ternate Police headquarters in North Maluku demanding that the security forces release eight people arrested while commemorating West Papua Independence Day on December 1.
December 1 marked 61 years since the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence, the Morning Star flag.
Tabloid Jubi reports Anton Trisno of the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) saying the demonstration where the group was arrested was a peaceful one.
“We expressed our aspirations peacefully. Some ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers infiltrated the crowd to disperse the protesters. This is a violation to our freedom of speech,” he said.
Trisno asked the police to immediately release eight of his colleagues.
“We urge the Ternate police chief to immediately release the eight activists who are still detained. We demand the police release them unconditionally,” he said.
Different tactic
Meanwhile, an activist group has reported a different tactic used by the security forces, which it says is concerning.
“The Papuan People’s Petition Action (PRP) in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the ‘West Papua Declaration of Independence’ received escort and security unlike usual actions from the Indonesian Security (colonial military),” a statement said.
“Apart from vehicles such as patrol cars, dalmas, combat tactical vehicles, sniffer dogs, intelligence/bin, bais, and tear gas launchers or other weapons.
“There is also security in the form of hidden security, such as a [sniper] placed on the balcony of Ramayana Mall and Hotel Sahit Mariat which are near the location or point of action.
“This certainly shows that there is something planned to actually push back and close the democratic space for the people and resistance movements in the Land of Papua, especially in the city of Sorong.”
In Port Vila, Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change and a long-time supporter of the West Papua people, Ralph Regenvanu, attended the West Papua flag-raising day.
In line with Vanuatu’s stand in support of West Papua freedom, the Morning Star flag was raised to fly alongside the Vanuatu flag outside the West Papua International Office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In solidarity with West Papua, the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called for a boycott of all Indonesian products and programmess by the Indonesian government.
The Fiji-based PCC said this should be done until Indonesia facilitated a visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate alleged human rights abuses in West Papua, which included torture, extrajudicial killings, and systemic police and military violence.
General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said the call for a boycott came in response to the lack of political will by the Indonesian government to honour its commitment to the visit, which had been made four years ago.
“Our Pacific church leaders are deeply concerned that the urge by our Pacific Island states through the Pacific Islands Forum has been ignored,” he said.
“We are also concerned that Indonesia is using ‘cheque-book diplomacy’ to silence some Pacific states on this issue. Our only option in the face of this to apply our own financial pressure to this cause.
“We know that the Pacific is a market for Indonesian products and we hope that this mobilisation of consumers will show that Pacific people stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers of Tanah Papua.”
On Thursday, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) held a flag-raising ceremony to mark 61 years since the Morning Star, the West Papuan national flag, was first raised.
Women, girls suffered
FWCC coordinator Shamima Ali said as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign, FWCC remembered the people of West Papua, particularly women and girls, who suffered due to the increased militarisation of the province by the Indonesian government.
“We also remember those women, girls, men and children who have died and those who are still suffering from state violence perpetrated on them and the violence and struggle within their own religious, cultural and societal settings,” she said.
Ali said Pacific islanders should not be quiet about the issue.
“Fiji has been too silent on the issue of West Papua and the ignorance needs to stop,” she said.
“Keeping quiet is not the answer when our own people are suffering.”
Shayal Deviis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Only about three in every 100 women fleeing family violence received the long-term housing they desperately needed during the first two years of the pandemic, a new analysis of national data reveals.
In 2019-20, 39,408 people fleeing family violence came to homelessness services in need of long-term housing. Just 3.1 per cent were re-housed.
The following year – 2020-21 – demand increased slightly to 39,680, but even less (2.9 per cent) were re-housed.
Homelessness Australia also cross-referenced the demand identified in Nowhere to Go – a landmark report into homelessness completed by Equity Economics in July 2021 - against the Commonwealth’s commitments over the next five years.
Federally, 4,000 additional homes have been promised over five years (800 per year) to assist women and children fleeing violence. However, annual need equates to more than 16,810 homes, meaning new housing commitments only deliver about five per cent of what’s actually required.
Homelessness Australia chief executive, Kate Colvin, said while Australian governments’ recognition that housing is key to women’s safety in the national plan to end violence against women and children was important, the scale of ambition had to lift.
“A secure home is absolutely central to the safety of those fleeing family violence. Without a home, women and children must choose between homelessness and violence. This is not a choice anyone should have to make," Ms Colvin said.
Homelessness Australia CEO, Kate Colvin.
“This is a basic moral proposition. We live in one of the wealthiest societies in the world and we have all the material and financial means we need for women and children to be safe. It’s a matter of priority.
“The Commonwealth has made important strides forward in recognising this problem and committing to take action by delivering additional social housing homes.
“However, we urgently need to expand the number of properties available to women to achieve safety.”
ANALYSIS | Violence by brown people: bad. Violence by white people: Mmmmm, more please! Chris Graham trolls former politician Cory Bernardi’s Twitter page, with predictable results.
I’m not sure about anybody else, but politics in Australia has been much the poorer without Cory Bernardi’s innate ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and look ridiculous while he does it.
Briefly, for those who don’t remember him, Bernardi was elected to the Senate for the South Australian Liberals in 2006, but after the 2016 election he quit the party in a huff because they weren’t right-wing and/or religious enough for him. Go figure.
And that explains how Bernardi came to found his own political party, Australian Conservatives, which promptly collapsed two years later under the weight of its own bullshit. Shortly after that, Bernardi quit parliament altogether.
If you still can’t place him, just think of every extreme view on the right, multiply it by 10, and Bernardi thinks it’s too progressive. Exhibit A: Bernardi doesn’t believe global warming is caused by humans; he supports major cuts to the ABC; he’s opposed to same-sex marriage (claiming it will inevitably lead to polygamy and bestiality, a rant that led to him being nicknamed ‘Corgi Bernardi’); he’s anti-abortion; and his views on Islam are… well, take a guess.
Former Liberal extremist Cory Bernardi, speaking at the Senate Inquiry into the certification of foods.
In 2011, Bernardi objected to the Commonwealth paying the funeral expenses of asylum seekers who died while in our custody. Then he claimed he wasn’t against Muslims, just Islam itself. And then he clarified those remarks with this zinger: “When I say I’m against Islam, I mean that the fundamentalist Islamic approach of changing laws and values does not have my support.” Because, you know, the fundamentalist Catholic approach to changing laws and values is sooooo much better (we need more paedophilia, not less!).
And who could forget his ill-fated Senate inquiry into halal certification in Australia, the funds from which Bernardi boldly claimed were being used to fund terrorism… only for Bernardi to list Hamas as a “proscribed terrorist organisation” that was probably getting the cash… only for it to turn out that Hamas wasn’t a proscribed terrorist organisation… and in any event wasn’t receiving the cash anyway.
‘Cory Takes On Halal’ was easily one of the most farcical albeit entertaining wastes of taxpayer time and money in living memory. But while Bernardi has disappeared from the halls of parliament, we’re delighted to report he hasn’t disappeared from politics altogether, holding court on his very own Twitter page where almost 60,000 folks hang on his every word. Give or take.
And that’s how on Sunday, Bernardi came to tweet a warning to the West, about “the price of diversity and tolerance”. Except that without a well-paid Liberal staffer to help him, it came out like this: “It (sic) the price of diversity and tolerance as the West writes its own suicide note.”
It the price of diversity and tolerance as the West writes its own suicide note. https://t.co/bWVqRjDPGz
The tweet features a video of a violent clash in a street somewhere in London, in which dozens of people appear to target a single individual, and occasionally the police protecting him. But while the video is big on action, it’s very short on detail. Specifically, it could have happened last week, last month, or last millennia – the video, and Cory’s tweet, don’t say.
The mystery wasn’t helped by the fact that Bernardi was just amplifying someone else’s tweet – he didn’t actually create it. That ‘honour’ appeared to belong to Marina Medvin, a woman from the United States who describes herself as a “Defense Attorney” and a “Patriot Advocate”. So, you know, a cooker. But upon closer inspection it turned out that she was also just retweeting someone else… someone called ‘TXdeplorable’.
And as you might have guessed, that’s where things really started to go pear-shaped, because, if we’ve learned anything about social media over the last decade, it’s that you should never retweet an anonymous somebody with a silly Twitter name. Unless, of course, they’re saying something you agree with!
Inevitably, the whole story started to fall apart rather quickly, because while Bernardi and Medvin weren’t smart enough to check the provenance of their retweet, Txdeplorable was actively working to mislead people about it… with mixed success.
Notwithstanding his dismissive response, TXdeplorable – who lives in the United States if his actual Twitter handle of “@Texas_Made” is anything to go by – continued to be challenged by people who actually live in London about when the footage was captured. Eventually, he was forced to concede. Sort of.
And by weeks, they mean months. Two to be precise. The footage is from an incident in London in mid-September. But – and here’s the rub – it’s not just random violence from ‘brown people’ aka ‘the price of diversity’ ‘aka Muslims’. The footage is actually from a protest by predominantly Iranian ex-pats living in England, and what they’re protesting turns out to be a little ‘inconvenient’ for the narrative Bernardi et al routinely push. Over to the facts for a bit clarity.
22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody in Iran recently, sparking protests around the world.
On September 16, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, aged 22, died in a Tehran hospital shortly after being arrested by the ‘Guidance Patrol’ – the Iranian Government’s ‘morality police’ – for the offence of not wearing a hijab in accordance with government mandated standards. While Iranian officials have denied any violence was inflicted on Amini, eye witnesses claim she was severely beaten by police, and leaked medical scans reportedly back up this version of events.
Amini’s death has sparked widespread and continuing protests from Iranians and their supporters all over the globe, with more than 300 Iranians already killed at home. And that is what underpinned the incident in London.
On September 25, protestors gathered outside the Iranian Embassy in South Kensington, where clashes with police protecting the embassy saw more than a dozen arrests, and at least five police officers injured.
The police line ultimately held, and so, unable to reach the Embassy, protesters turned their anger a short distance north to a suburb called Maida Vale, which also happens to be home to the Islamic Centre of England (here’s a link to the exact spot on Google Maps where the footage is shot, which is about 150 metres east of the Mosque).
It’s there that the video in Bernardi’s retweet captures a mob of men attacking an older man who, it’s alleged, had minutes earlier threatened protesters that their families in Iran would be harmed as a result of their participation in anti-Government actions. The crowd obviously had other ideas.
A crowd of predominantly Iranian protestors in London turn on a man accused of threatening that family members of protestors back in Iran would be harmed.
Does that make it all okay? Well, let’s just say it’s complicated, because whether you agree with the mob’s conduct or not, the men depicted in the video were protesting the killing of a young woman by government officials for not wearing a hijab, and calling for the toppling of the Iranian Government. So… you know, not the sorts of protests Brits are used to seeing (for example, whenever Tottenham faces Arsenal, or Manchester United faces anyone, or whenever [INSERT RANDOM PREMIER LEAGUE TEAM] plays [INSERT RANDOM PREMIER LEAGUE TEAM]).
In any event, attacking the Iranian Government is, surely, something on which Cory Bernardi can get on board? Like he does here in 2016 while he was still a member of the Libs. And here, a few months back in June 2022. But most notably, here, just days after the London protests, where Compassionate Cory notes:
“This week the tales of women killed [in Iran]because they refuse to wear the hijab – or Islamic headscarf – have been horrifying. There are reports that 76 protesters have been killed while demonstrating in support of Mahsa Amini – whose family believe she was killed by the morality police.”
Yeah, no shit Sherlock.
And just in case Bernardi tries to slither his way out of this one by suggesting that ‘violence is never the answer’, here he is two days earlier, retweeting a post which celebrates someone being knocked out with a coward’s punch.
Narelda Jacobs | Journalist
Steven Oliver | Performer
Peter de Waal | Activist
Rudy Jean Rigg | Creator
Katherine Wolfgramme | Educator
Deborah Cheetham | Composer, Musician
Caroline Bowditch | Artist
Steph Lum | Advocate
Keiynan Lonsdale | Performer
Jessica Johnson | Graphic Designer
Kerry Chin | Activist
Crystal Love | Performer
William Yang | Photographer
Lawrence Bing | Educator
Jane Marsden | Activist
Jojo Zaho | Performer
Zoe Terakes | Actor
G Flip | Artist
Chloe Logarzo | Athlete
Fran Kelly | Journalist
Robyn Lambird | Athlete
Casey Donovan | Performer
Ian Thorpe | Athlete
Trevor Ashley | Performer
Alex The Astronaut | Performer
Jordan Raskopoulos | Comedian
David Parsons | Athlete
Courtney Act | Artist
Magda Szubanski | Performer
Maria Thattil | Advocate
Teddy Cook | Activist
Mon Schafter | Journalist
Paul Capsis | Performer
Katie Brennan | Athlete
Vanity | Performer
Daniel McDonald | Artist
Deni Todorovic | Activist
Bhenji Ra | Performer
Josh Cavallo | Athlete
Joel Creasey | Comedian
Kylie Kwong | Chef
Patrick Abboud | Journalist
Electric Fields | Performers
Georgie Stone | Actress
Mo’Ju | Singer/Songwriter
