There was a time when Melbourne prided itself on being the most liveable city in the world, tolerant, thoughtful, creative and diverse. We wore that badge with pride and spoke of it often with confidence, not arrogance. Ours was a city in which ideas, not ideology, competed. Where people could disagree without despising each other. But somewhere along the way, and particularly since the COVID lockdowns, Melbourne has lost its way.

It’s a difficult truth to confront, but it’s one we must. The pandemic demanded leadership, but in hindsight it also took something from us: our collective empathy, our civic spirit and our tolerance for dissent.

Many supported Melbourne’s long lockdowns at the time, believing we were protecting our health system and by extension one another. But as the years have passed, their unintended consequences have become impossible to ignore. The mental scars, the fractured trust and the polarisation they seeded continue to be the lasting legacy of Daniel Andrews.

Melbourne now feels angrier, edgier, more brittle. We’ve gone from a community that not only valued difference but celebrated it, to one that too often condemns it. We are quick to label, slow to listen and far more inclined to shout someone down rather than hear them out. The city’s streets have become battlegrounds for outrage. Every week seems to bring another protest that descends into confrontation. What used to be the free expression of democracy now risks becoming its weaponisation.

This is not a call to ban protests. They remain an essential bedrock of democracy. It’s how social movements have shaped history from women’s rights to Aboriginal land rights and environmental crusades. But just as free speech is not absolute (defamation laws prove that words have limits), so, too, do protests come with guardrails. Democracy depends not only on the right to speak, but also on the right to feel safe while others do.

We need a system that protects both. That’s why it’s time for Melbourne to introduce a CBD protest permit system, designed not to silence anyone but to ensure fairness, safety and access for all. The idea is simple: protests that take place over major city arteries, block trams or surround landmarks like Parliament House should require a permit, much like event organisers do for marathons, marches or festivals.

At the same time, we should establish designated areas across the city where people can gather and demonstrate as a right – spaces that are public, accessible and symbolic of democratic engagement. The Fitzroy Gardens, outside 1 Treasury Place, Flagstaff Gardens or the lawns around the Arts Centre could all serve this purpose. Each is connected to public transport, visible and open, perfect for ensuring protesters can be heard without paralysing the city or intimidating bystanders.

Importantly, protected industrial action must remain exempt. The courts have already deemed such action lawful and rightly so. Workers fighting for fair pay or safe conditions should never fear being locked up or fined simply for standing up for their rights. The right to organise is a cornerstone of our democracy, not an inconvenience to it.

But what we’re seeing now on our streets goes well beyond lawful assembly or peaceful dissent. Too many demonstrations have tipped into intimidation of Jewish communities, of police, even of Melburnians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a protest about war overseas makes people in our own suburbs afraid to walk through the city, something has gone wrong. When demonstrators drape themselves in flags of terrorist organisations and chant slogans that call for the destruction of others, we can’t just shrug and say it’s democracy in action.

There’s nothing democratic about fear.

The truth is, Melbourne’s social compact is fraying. COVID, like an earthquake, has exposed fault lines we never knew we had. How quickly many people sold out the collective for themselves. The constant policing of movements, the isolation, the economic shock – all of it combined to make us wary, even hostile. Some now see government as the enemy, while others see government as the answer, regardless of the question. And both sides accuse the other of being the problem.

That’s not who we were, and it shouldn’t be who we are or become.

Reclaiming Melbourne’s spirit doesn’t mean pretending those divisions don’t exist. It means rebuilding the trust that can bridge them. That begins with restoring civic order, not through heavy-handed crackdowns but through commonsense frameworks that protect both freedom and responsibility. A permit system for protests isn’t censorship. It’s co-ordination. It ensures police, councils and the public can plan ahead, while still guaranteeing people the space to assemble and be heard. It helps protect the very freedoms the protesters claim to exercise.

Other global cities, from London to New York, have long had such systems in place. They manage to balance activism with access, passion with peace. Melbourne can do the same, if we’re willing to accept that democracy requires structure as well as spirit.

Because if we don’t, we risk normalising chaos. We risk letting the loudest voices drown out the rest. And we risk driving more people, the silent majority, into disengagement, cynicism or, worse, fear.

Melbourne was once the city that gave us Federation Square not riot squads, the Eureka spirit not mob rule. We can be that city again. But it will take courage – the kind that listens as well as leads, that welcomes disagreement without surrendering decency.

If there are protests for anything, let them be by the silent majority; the people who just want to be respected, to live without fear and to know that democracy is being used to protect them, not to abuse others.

Philip Dalidakis was a minister in the Andrews government from 2015 to 2019. He is now managing partner at consulting firm Orizontas.

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