Month: July 2022

You’ve probably seen the actions of Blockade Australia. They’ve been active in traffic disruptions including a shutdown of Sydney’s major roads in reaction to Australia’s failure to respond to the climate and ecological crises.

But governments don’t like it.

In a recent action, NSW police made 23 arrests involving people allegedly engaged in the protests.

Those arrested came from Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, NSW and the ACT, and were aged from their 20s to their 70s.

And last month a farm north-west of Sydney, was raided by heavily armed police in dramatic fashion, with dogs and helicopters in tow.

Seven protesters were charged, with some facing up to 10 years in jail.

Disruptive protests like those of Blockade Australia certainly make an impact. And protest is an essential form of communication by the people and can influence our democratic representatives.

However, increasingly, state governments are cracking down. Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales have all recently proposed or introduced harsh anti-protest bills which deliberately target environmental and climate activists such as those involved with Blockade Australia.

And here in WA we have the Prevention of Lawful Activity Bill – introduced in 2016 in which there are harsh penalties for certain types of blockade actions including 2 years in jail and a fine of 24,000 dollars.

This rise of anti-protest regulation has been called draconian and undemocratic – an attack on our democratic right to peaceful, non-violent protest.

But do these laws suppress environmental protesters – and does criminalisation actually work?

I’m joined by Dr Robyn Gulliver – Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the The University of Queensland.

Robyn is also an author of a recent publication: Civil Resistance Against Climate Change.

Read Robyn’s article in the Conversation.

 

The COVID 19 pandemic has mostly disappeared from Australia’s news media over the last few months. We don’t have daily briefings with updates on the numbers of cases and deaths. We don’t wear masks. We don’t check in to venues and shops. And most of us are triple vaccinated. With a potential fourth shot becoming available.

Indeed, many of us – over 8 million Australians – have had COVID and survived.

So, everything is fine right?

Not really. Australia has now surpassed 10-thousand deaths from COVID-19, with most of those fatalities reported in the past six months.

And the daily rate of infections continues in the tens of thousands across the country.

Almost 3,000 Australians died of COVID in the first quarter of 2022, placing it between coronary heart disease and stroke as a major cause of death.

And on average some 50 people a day are dying from COVID. That’s one person every 30 minutes. And epidemiologists predict we will see tens of thousands more suffering from long COVID.

They say our health systems, schools and businesses are already struggling and the situation will get a lot worse.

And on top of COVID, there’s the re-emergence of the Flu. Sometimes debilitating. After virtually vanishing throughout the pandemic, the relaxing of COVID rules has allowed influenza to re-emerge in the community.

But how do they compare? Just how deadly are COVID and influenza?  To discuss this I’m joined by Professor Paul Glasziou from Bond University