We were suspended for protesting against Malcolm Turnbull, but we’d do it again

Last week, the two of us, both socialist activists in the University of Sydney’s Students’ Representative Council, were suspended from studying for a semester. Our crime? We protested during a speech by Malcolm Turnbull when he was invited onto campus to speak at an event organised by the Sydney University Law Society in September.

Since then, along with several other activists, we have been dragged through a lengthy disciplinary process, where we were gagged from speaking publicly about the investigation.

Deaglan Godwin and Maddie Clark have been suspended from Sydney University.Credit: Edwina Pickles

We are alleged to have violated Turnbull’s freedom of speech, yet this is absurd when you consider the power imbalance between us and him. It’s about putting forward an alternative perspective. So we expressed ourselves as many have done before us, and many will do after us – through collective action. Yes, we interrupted an event and spoke over him, and are aware that some attendees had turned up to listen to him, but we never intended to shut down the event.

Even so, how could a few students with a megaphone possibly have as loud a voice as Turnbull? We simply don’t have the avenues available to a former prime minister with book deals and speaking tours. Immediately after the protest, he was interviewed by several national media outlets, where he expressed what he thought of the event and decried us as “fascists”.

Why were we angry at Turnbull’s presence on campus?

Turnbull was a shareholder and chairman of Axiom Forest Resources, whose logging of the Solomon Islands was labelled as “some of the worst in the world”, although Turnbull says he was aware and concerned.

He then moved onto the notorious investment bank Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid” that played an instrumental role in triggering the 2008 global financial crisis and then made immense profits out of it, although Turnbull had left the company by then.

As prime minister, Turnbull oversaw the inhumane robo-debt scheme, which unlawfully sent erroneous debt notices to Centrelink recipients. He continued the Abbott government’s cruel refugee policy, Operation Sovereign Borders, attempted to introduce anti-trade union laws (the Australian Building and Construction Commission) and failed to implement serious action successfully on climate change despite his attempts.

These decisions affected the lives of workers, students and other citizens, and they are decisions that should not be forgiven or forgotten now that Turnbull is out of office.

Deaglan Godwin protests against Malcolm Turnbull at a Sydney University Law Society event in September 2022.Credit:

That is why we protested.

Universities claim to be marketplaces of ideas, a space for evolving minds to discuss and debate. Sydney University has clearly demonstrated which ideas and speakers are allowed and which are not. If you’re a politician or businessman, you are given a platform. If you’re a student who challenges the status quo, you are met with the full force of the university’s disciplinary processes.

This is a concerning attack on freedom of speech and the democratic right to protest. If we can’t protest against the rich and powerful, what are we meant to do to put forward our alternative to the current state of the world?

The university has kindly advised us that we are allowed to protest, but we must do so in a reasonable manner. But many things we now take for granted were won through means deemed “unreasonable” at the time. The Chartists and the Suffragettes won suffrage and then universal suffrage through tactics deplored by the political establishment. The civil rights movement disrupted and challenged the segregated US South through sit-ins at racist institutions and mass protests abhorred by the elite. The erection of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the very lawns of Parliament House was not an uncontroversial decision. If they had all allowed their political and economic rulers to determine the parameters of respectability, very few progressive achievements would have been made.

This is why, even if we incurred the same penalty, we would protest against Turnbull again. The latest Oxfam inequality report revealed that the rich are getting richer while most of the rest of us are getting poorer. Many of our fellow students are unable to find a house to rent, our grocery and energy bills are going through that roof we don’t have over our heads, and HECS debt is increasing quicker than our wages.

Powerful people are responsible for this state of affairs. We will continue to rally against them to continue our struggle for a more just world.

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