Right to Protest Bill 2025

Senator CASH (Western Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:13): I'm delighted to speak on the Right to Protest Bill 2025 put forward by the Australian Greens. I'm delighted that we're on broadcast while I do it, because the Australian people need to understand that (a) they already have the right to protest in Australia, and (b) let's call this bill what it really is.

It's been put forward by the Australian Greens for this reason—to give legal cover to the Greens activist base. For every small business listening in to this broadcast, these are the same groups who block highways, chain themselves to machinery, disrupt small businesses and—listen to this, mums and dads of Australia—even prevent emergency vehicles from getting through when they need to.

This bill has got nothing to do with the right to protest. Let me tell you what this bill does. We're going to go through a few of the clauses.

When you go through the clauses you actually understand what this bill does. It is basically seeking to legislate the right to cause chaos. Senator Shoebridge says that this is an essential reset of the right-to-protest laws in Australia.

It depends on what you mean by reset, doesn't it? I would have thought that the right to cause chaos and basically have a society based on anarchy is possibly not something that the Australian people will accept. Let's have a look at the bill.

To say that it's an absurd bill is an understatement. It is designed to take away safety and civility from our streets, in favour of the Greens' activist support base. Let's have a look at what the bill actually does.

When you look at the bill, as opposed to listening to the comments of Senator Shoebridge, it is a one-clause bill of rights. Let's be very clear about what that does. The right is one that enshrines protest rights in a completely unfettered and unprecedented manner.

It's never been done before in any international human rights instrument or in any legislative charter of rights. I want to read the definition in the bill. Once you read the definition in the bill, you basically know that you can only go downhill from there.

This is what section 5 says: In this Act: protest includes the following: (a) actions that are political in nature; (b) actions that are disruptive, or that seek to be disruptive. Again, for those listening in to the broadcast, this is what the Greens want to do. They basically want to give, by this bill, legal cover to their activist base—those same groups, as I said, who block highways and cause you inconvenience, chain themselves to machinery and disrupt small businesses.

God help any small business—they don't need any more disruption; it's bad enough under the Albanese government. Senator Scarr: Collateral damage. Senator CASH: That's exactly right.

You've got to be kidding me. I have to say that it's pretty offensive when their activist base stops emergency vehicles from getting through. Let's be clear.

That is what the Greens want to entrench as a fundamental right for all Australians—the right to take actions that are disruptive or seek to be disruptive. Let's have a look at the practical effect of that on the ground. For all of those in their workplace today, I can come to your workplace and disrupt you because I don't like your race or religion or because you're an ex-partner and I don't like the way you're raising my kids.

That is actually a right that I would have under this bill. In the Greens' weird political-fantasy world, if this bill were to pass, this is what would happen: Australians would no longer have the right to be safe from crime and wouldn't have the right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs or to be educated in a faith based school. Guess what you would have?

You would have the right to disrupt whoever you like. The fact that the Greens can even put forward a bill of this nature in the Australian Senate shows that, as a political party, they are not serious and they are certainly not credible. That was only the definition.

As I said, if you actually read through the bill, it only goes downhill from there. The bill pretends to have a couple of guardrails in section 9. This is how they define those guardrails: 'restrictions on right'. 'Guardrail', though, I have to say, is probably too strong a term to use.

This is perhaps a better way to say it: a wobbly fence made of sticks. You and I might say, 'Well, okay, clearly a right to protest can't be at large.' Such a right could be abused. Let's face it.

The current right is abused by almost anyone with ill intent and puts at risk our public safety and national security or even, given this has occurred before, our public health. But then, as we do in the Senate, we actually look to the detail of the bill. Looking at clause 9(1), guess what that actually does?

It is a limitation on the ability to actually restrict the right. This is what the clause says: you can only have restrictions 'as are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of' those sorts of things. Then you go down to clause 9(2), and, again, the devil is always in the detail when the Australian Greens put forward a bill.

It's a great title—a bit like Labor—but guess what? If you read the clauses, Australians will start to get very, very scared. This is what clause 9(2) says: (a) a restriction is only necessary if it is intended to, and appropriately adapted to the goal of, addressing an unacceptable risk of harm related to a matter in paragraphs (1)(a) to (e); and (b) an excessive penalty— Get this, everybody.

Let me go back to what the Greens are good at—the activist space and blocking highways, chaining themselves to machinery, disrupting small business and even preventing emergency vehicles from getting through. This is what the bill says: (b) an excessive penalty is an unnecessary restriction regardless of whether the penalty is imposed for contravening a necessary restriction.

Quite frankly, I'm not even sure the grammar is actually correct in that clause. But this is what it actually says: exposing someone to a penalty for going to a public place or a workplace or a hospital with the deliberate intent of disrupting that place, under this bill, is now a right you would have. We would be legislating, if this were to go through, the right to chaos and, as I said quite frankly, the right for society to dissolve into anarchy, which is probably a long-held wish of the Australian Greens.

So you would now have that right, but the bill also says that you could never be exposed to an excessive penalty. You have to be kidding me! It's not enough to take a completely reasonable position and say, 'I want this hospital or this school or this business or this street to function as intended for the benefit of society at large,' because in the Greens's weird, fantasy world this would actually be a restriction on a right to protest.

There is no two ways about it. This bill has been brought forward because the Greens do not want—and this is where it's so dangerous—law-abiding citizens to go about their day. They do not want that.

We have an arbitrary rule that something called an 'excessive penalty', whatever that means, is an unnecessary restriction. Under this bill, go ahead and cause as much chaos as you like, because guess what? If the bill were legislated, you could, and what's worse is that the court can't then impose upon you an unnecessary restriction of an excessive penalty.

Honestly, you could not script this unless you actually lived in the Greens's weird, fantasy world. But it actually gets worse, and I know that was already pretty bad. The real kicker is in clause 10.

This is what clause 10 does, for everybody listening in, to a state or territory: clause 10 is an override of every state, territory or Commonwealth law that might seek to protect the community or provide essential services or guarantee the ordinary and rational functioning of civil society. Let me just read that out again, because most people would say, 'You're making things up.' No, it is actually there in writing in the bill that we currently have before the Senate.

This is what clause 10 does: it is an override of every state, territory or Commonwealth law that might seek to protect the community or provide essential services or guarantee the ordinary and rational functioning of civil society. Clause 10 says that every such law, regardless of who passes it, has no effect if—you're going to love this—it contravenes the Greens's right to protest.

Let's look at the practical implication of that. Senator Shoebridge: I have a point of order in that the senator is misleading the chamber by purporting to read from the bill, when she knows she's just making it up. She's made up everything she's said.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge— Senator Shoebridge: She just makes it up. It's not the bill. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge, this is a debating point.

Senator Shoebridge: But you can't mislead the chamber intentionally. She's the shadow— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge, resume your seat. That is a debating point.

Your colleagues will have plenty of opportunities to reply. Senator CASH: For anybody listening in, can I tell you, you know you're on the right track and you're telling the truth when, mid-debate, the lead senator from the Australian Greens has got to jump up and interrupt you. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge, on a point of order?

Senator Shoebridge: First of all, I'd like Senator Cash to refer to me by my title. Secondly, it is disorderly for the senator to respond to interjections. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: No, it's disorderly to interject; it's not disorderly to respond if you have the call.

I will remind Senator Cash that she should refer to members of the Senate by their correct titles. Senator CASH: I clearly hit a point, because Senator Shoebridge couldn't wait to jump to his feet for interjection No. 2. For all the Greens—we love the Australian people and we understand how they function.

Senator Shoebridge, I am delighted to give you your correct title because I would hate for people listening in to not understand who is responsible for the bill that would literally seek to legislate chaos and anarchy in society. As I said, clause 10 bells the cat. Let's just override every other law in the country!

No criminal law, no public safety law, no workplace health and safety law, no public health law, no law about traffic and orderly management of our streets and infrastructure, no zoning law, no law about permits or protests, no terrorism law—now, that's an interesting one, given what we now know about the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has actually caused terror on the streets of Melbourne and could have killed Australians.

Forget that—no terrorism law. There's no law that might provide for another right or freedom—nothing. It is a complete override, and it is an override without limits for every government everywhere.

I've got to give them credit, Senator Scarr. You and I would love to draft this type of law, seriously. Can you imagine you and I sitting down?

We're both lawyers. Would we have fun, Senator Scarr! Let's override whatever law we can in Australia— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge, on a point of order?

Senator Shoebridge: I know I can't stop the senator from misleading, but I can ask you to direct the senator to direct her contributions not behind her and over her shoulder to Senator Scarr, like she obviously wants to, but through the chair to show you respect. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: All senators should direct their comments through the chair. Senator CASH: What do they call it in cricket—a hat-trick?

A trifecta? I'm actually surprised, because I would have given Senator Shoebridge—through you, Deputy President—a little more credit than jumping up to interrupt me when I am clearly now hitting a sore point in relation to what is possibly the most contentious part of this bill—a complete override. For Australians who have turned on this debate, probably by accident, and are wondering, 'Good God, are they talking about actually legislating chaos and anarchy in the Senate?' Well, yes, absolutely.

That is what this bill is. Let's be very careful about what we're talking about and what has so offended Senator Shoebridge on behalf of the Australian Greens—the fact that Senator Scarr and I have actually read the bill. Senator Scarr and I have interrogated the clauses in the bill, and, yes, Senator Scarr and I are prepared to come in here and expose the Australian Greens for what they are: a party that, by this bill, is happy to legislate chaos.

Australians, quite frankly, have enough chaos in their lives on a daily basis. They do not need a bill to legislate even more. As I said, section 10 overrides everything.

It's a complete override. It is an override without limits for every government everywhere. Let us be very, very clear: we already have, and I think Australians appreciate, broad freedoms to protest.

Every week people rally in our cities and towns. They march on Parliament House. They gather in public squares.

They demonstrate for causes they believe in. That is, quite frankly, a healthy sign in a vibrant democracy. But Australians also know there is a line between legitimate protest and dangerous and disruptive conduct, and this bill deliberately blurs that line.

What makes this worse is the rhetoric behind it. The Greens claim that Australia is sliding into authoritarianism simply because states have chosen to impose penalties on reckless and disruptive protesters. Let us be clear.

The bill is ill-thought-out, undergraduate, excessive self-adulating pap from the most immature party in our political system. It deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history.