Silencing of activism in Australian law

Abstract

Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In response, govern- ments in several Australian states have enacted legislation designed to penalise and silence political protest. This article analyses Tasmania’s anti-protest laws and considers how the United Nations and scholars have reacted to them. We argue that protest suppression laws such as these reflect a neoliberal rationality which conceptualises society in market terms. This mode of thinking perceives protest as market interference rather than civic participation. Accordingly, anti- protest laws seek to secure the rights and interests of corporations to unimpeded market access.