Premiers’ decisions on protests leave us in a state of confusion

Protesters marching during a Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney, following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd. Picture: AAP

It’s official: the first state-sanctioned mass gatherings of Australia’s 2020 lockdown will be protests organised by the Socialist Alliance against police brutality on the other side of the planet.

The tortuous deliberations by several state governments over the protests in solidarity with George Floyd have provided a bit of everything.

From NSW we saw backflipping, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian initially defending the freedom to protest, only to shift position Friday amid a public outcry, saying the protest organisers could not guarantee social distancing.

Protests are the first mass gatherings to be held amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Picture: AAP

From Victoria we saw fence-sitting, with Premier Daniel Andrews saying he did not want people to attend the rallies, but police saying they wouldn’t be fined if they did.

But it was South Australia which trumped them all for capitulating, with Police Commissioner Grant Stevens announcing he would waive the ban on gatherings of more than 80 people so the protest could proceed, while the man who normally runs the state, Premier Steven Marshall, was lying low on Kangaroo Island.

The initial decision by state premiers to hide behind the skirts of their police commissioners in deciding whether these protests could proceed was both an abrogation of responsibility and the mother of all hospital passes.

What should have been a firm “No” based on the need for consistency in the application of social distancing has instead been marred by confusion.

Peaceful protest is a fundamental freedom in a democracy but the very point of the pandemic is that most of our freedoms have been suspended to keep us safe from disease.

We now face the hilarious scenario where the first major breach with social distancing rules is being staged in Melbourne by the good people at Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, one of whose leaders is on the record in 2018 as saying: “F…k Australia, I hope it burns to the f…ing ground.”

And in Adelaide, it’s a Trotskyist organisation, Adelaide Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, that’s staging today’s event in Victoria Square.

Protests have been held or are planned across Australia. Picture: AAP

You will, of course, still be fined if you let your daughter have more than 20 guests at her 18th birthday.

And here lies the problem with the inconsistent and confounding conduct of our state leaders.

Australians have commendably acquiesced to the suspension of their freedoms for the sake of the greater good.

Freedom of association, the freedom to work and learn as we wish, the freedom to go down the local park and kick the footy with your kids…all these things have been temporarily suspended to ensure we get through what we were told was the greatest health challenge in 100 years.

As a result, we have the absurdity where you can get fined in Victoria for daring to show up to the office to do your job, but not for lying on the road next to Federation Square in protest at something that happened on the other side of the world.

There is of course a major role for the commissioners to play in determining the operational implications of these protests. But political decisions have to be made. That’s where the premiers should have all come in straight away by declaring that in keeping with all the other social distancing and social gathering rules that remain in place, mass protests are still off the agenda for now, too.

I have read and heard countless comments asking if maybe at the MCG next Thursday 90,000 people could gather wearing Black and White and Black and Yellow in solidarity with George Floyd, or whether they could attend their beloved uncle’s funeral next week not to mourn but to protest against his death.

It’s as if the premiers have forgotten that it’s their job to make decisions. In doing so, they risk setting a precedent which violates the relationship of trust with the community that has made our pandemic response a success.