Queensland Is the Sunny State. But the new laws being enacted would make it seem quite the opposite.

News

Sep 20, 2014

Terror laws also threaten right to protest

Mike Seccombe

Hidden in new anti-terrorism laws are wide powers governments want to silence dissent and quash protest.

Whoever came up with the list of items in schedule six of the Queensland government’s G20 (Safety and Security) Act has a heck of a criminal imagination.

Guns, knives and explosives are on the list, of course, but also blowpipes, whips, cattle prods, glass jars, metal cans, hand tools, urine or animal manure, baseball bats, eggs, bags of flour, chains, loud hailers and “graffiti instruments”.
The list goes on and on, becoming ever more ridiculous. Surf skis, kayaks, kites “or other device[s] suspended by airflow and controlled by a string or cord”, remote-controlled toy cars and, perhaps most bizarre of all, any “reptile, insect or other animal capable of causing physical harm if released in close proximity to a person. Among the powers are strip searches, warrantless searches of premises, and for anyone charged with an offence such as the unapproved possession of a kite, a presumption against the granting of bail.

“This is an example of anti-terror legal measures being used to control freedom of speech.”

But safety and security against what? Terrorism, they say.

But, terrorists do not usually use eggs as weapons. “Yet it’s now an offence for anyone who lives in certain areas to possess an egg.”
Of course, an egg could be thrown at a head of state. But what about a kite? Or a canoe?
“Clearly the reason they don’t want canoes is not that they are worried about them paddling up and clamping limpet mines on buildings, but about people having protests," “This is an example of anti-terror legal measures being used to control freedom of speech.”