Kathy Newnam

More than 40 people gathered at the “Let’s get seditious” forum at Groove Cafe on January 28, to hear from speakers challenging the federal Coalition government’s new anti-sedition laws.

Anti-war campaigner Emma King spoke about the history of sedition laws and their use in Australia, explaining how the broadening of the definition of sedition will widen the scope for the targeting of anti-war and other political activists.

A range of local activists contributed their seditious ideas to the forum, including long-time solidarity activist Rob Wesley Smith, who described PM John Howard in colourful language before burning a letter bearing Howard’s signature.

Socialist Alliance member Jon Lamb argued that the real intention behind the new laws is to “break solidarity” in the face of growing attacks on working people and the poor. He pointed out the increasing disparity of wealth in Australia, with the average CEO now earning 63 times the average worker’s wage. “Today, 51 of the leading CEO’s in the country have an average weekly salary of $65,000”, Lamb told the forum. He pointed out that the Howard government’s new industrial relations laws “are about increasing the disparity between ordinary workers and those who exploit them”.

Gary Meyerhoff from the Network Against Prohibition spoke about the Northern Territory sedition laws, which were used to convict activists who held a peaceful protest in the NT parliament against repressive drug laws in 2002. He spoke of the connection between the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror” — both of which are aimed at creating a “climate of fear”.

The forum also heard from Stuart Highway, who was recently released from Berrimah prison where he served a three-month sentence for a conviction arising from a drug law reform protest. He spoke of the inhumane treatment of prisoners as a form of control of the broader community. “They’ve already got a totalitarian regime”, he said. “It’s called prison, where they’ve been refining the methods of control and thought control for centuries. They treat prisoners like animals.”

Anti-war activist Karen Davies highlighted the 2003 amendments to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act, which criminalise the communication of information that could “prejudice the physical security of nuclear material, or an associated item”. Davies pointed out that this would make it a crime to plan protests against the shipment of nuclear materials such as radioactive waste from the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney.

From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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