Editorial: Activists in court is a terrible look

Charging the Parliament protesters with disturbing the legislature is a punishment that does not fit the crime, writes the editor.

Dr Lee Coaldrake, pictured with husband Professor Peter Coaldrake, is one of the protesters charged.

NOTE: The Press Council has partially upheld a complaint about this article. Read the full adjudication here.

In May 1992, the Goss cabinet approved legislation to give Queenslanders the formal right to public protest. The accompanying announcement said the change was a critical part of the Fitzgerald process. Labor premier Wayne Goss declared: “Governments who try to restrict the right of the people to freedom of expressions are governments scared of scrutiny. This government is not.”

In November 2022, Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reinterpreted that freedom, telling parliament: “People have the right to protest silently in public.” She followed that extraordinary statement by encouraging her Speaker Curtis Pitt to criminally prosecute a group of Extinction Rebellion protesters – most aged over 50 and a number of them grandmothers – who had interrupted proceedings of parliament for three minutes.

Those protesters – the first Queenslanders since before the Fitzgerald Inquiry to be criminally charged for disrupting state parliament – are due to appear in court today. Among them is the 69-year-old wife of the man the Premier tasked last year to lead a review of the culture of her government, Professor Peter Coaldrake.

 

The protesters interrupted proceedings of parliament for three minutes at Parliament House in Brisbane. Picture: Zak Simmonds

That fact is awkward. But the bigger issue here is what this saga tells us about how far this third-term Labor government has drifted from the North Star set out by the Fitzgerald inquiry and the subsequent reforms enacted by Ms Palaszczuk’s political hero, Mr Goss.

While Mr Goss died in 2014, those who remain with us from that generation of former Labor MPs who cut their political teeth loudly, bravely and, yes, illegally protesting the excesses of the Bjelke-Petersen government are watching in disbelief.

Now, as we have said here before, it is indeed illegal to “disturb the Assembly” and to be “disorderly while parliament is sitting”. Both are technically crimes punishable by up to three years in prison.

Sending a clear message that this protest was the wrong thing to do is therefore appropriate. But the response should be proportionate. Nobody was hurt. There was no property damaged. And the entire disruption lasted for a total of three minutes. Charging the protesters with the criminal offence of disturbing the legislature is a punishment that clearly does not fit the crime. Considering our state’s political history, that this was done at the behest of a Labor Premier is troubling.