Pip Hinman, Sydney

NSW police charged Socialist Alliance activist Alex Bainbridge on April 26 with “Use/operate a loudspeaker/public address system” for his involvement in a February 17 protest against the state-funded memorial service for deceased billionaire Kerry Packer.

On April 27, those who had been arrested and charged at the February 17 demonstration itself had their second court appearance. This revealed that the police intended to pursue the charges.

The charge against Bainbridge was brought under the relatively new Sydney Opera House by-law. This restricts democratic rights in the vicinity of the Opera House and is characterised by heavy penalties.

“This police action demonstrates that the Opera House by-law has nothing to do with combatting terrorism and instead is about taking away democratic rights”, Bainbridge told Green Left Weekly. “The law should not be used to restrict people's right to engage in reasonable protest activities. However, that is exactly what appears to be happening in this case.”

“The latest charges are part of an escalating pattern in NSW”, according to Socialist Alliance spokesperson Duroyan Fertl. “Cops have unfairly arrested and charged people at the protests against the Kerry Packer memorial, the visit by [US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice and the student protest against” the federal government’s voluntary student union legalisation.

“In addition, there was a completely over-the-top police presence at the Villawood refugee-rights protests over Easter — more than four cops for every protester, according to protesters’ reports.”

“Let's remember what was involved in the Kerry Packer protest”, said Bainbridge. “We were quite some distance from the entrance to the Opera House, we were not trying to obstruct anyone's passage, we were not being rude or offensive and the event was not a funeral — it was a state-funded memorial for a tax cheat.

“People are entitled, if they wish, to endorse John Howard's conservative celebration of a parasitic exploiter, but we should be just as entitled to express a different view — and that is exactly what these police charges are aiming to prevent.”

From Green Left Weekly, May 3, 2006.
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