Australians have long watched overseas riots on the telly. ‘Those crazy foreigners, lucky it doesn’t happen here,’ we’d say. Well, those riots are no longer just on the telly, they are happening on Australian soil. Rather than condemning this violent behaviour, the Australian Greens are effectively cheering them on.
The irony of the riots is that the crowd outside the Melbourne Convention Centre, many of them wearing masks and keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, were protesting for peace. The Land Forces defence expo had protesters calling for citizens’ arrests of key public figures attending the expo. And then it went sour.
The protestors’ narrative goes that Australia should not be hosting events that promote weapons of war as well as being (somehow) connected to the ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Many of the protestors then went on to become violent, allegedly pelting police and their horses with manure, projectiles, and even acid (‘food grade acid’, according to SBS News).
Victoria Police were prepared for the riots, with a police presence of some 2,000 officers including mounted police and the riot squad. It is the first time a riot of such scale has occurred in Melbourne since the anti-World Economic Forum S11 riots of September 2000.
The cost of the police presence is estimated to be somewhere around $15 million.
Following the first day of the riots, several Greens MPs accused police of using excessive force to prevent the expression of legitimate criticism against the ‘War Expo’.
And state-owned media, SBS News, reported the protests were:
‘…sparked by the government’s stance on the conflict in the Middle East with many weapons on display inside the convention used on civilians in Gaza.’
But Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said of the protesters:
‘The only way I can describe them is [as] a bunch of hypocrites.’
The ‘holistic’ mix of protestors ranged from pro-Palestine supporters to pro-Hamas and Hezbollah cheerleaders to radical Marxist provocateurs. Their collective involvement in the weekly anti-Israel rallies over the last 11 months makes it clear that key to the riots has been the weak response by our state and federal governments to these essentially pro-Hamas demonstrations since October 7 last year.
The mantra of a terrorist-held regime is being superimposed onto Aboriginal activism.
Should people be more upset about this?
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Michael de Percy (@FlaneurPolitiq) joins @SpectatorOz
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Freedom of speech has been prioritised over public order in what is replicating the ‘two-tier policing’ that has occurred in the UK. For example, 200 anti-lockdown protesters were arrested in Melbourne following the CFMEU’s construction site lockout. But we don’t recall bins being set on fire in the streets.
On the first day of the riots in Melbourne, despite the omnipresent terrorist sympathiser element, only 42 arrests were made.
Having said that, Victorian Police Minister, Anthony Carbines:
…has accused the Greens of inciting Wednesday’s protest violence, sneering at the party’s call for an inquiry into the tactics and “excessive force” used by Victoria Police.
He also said of the Greens:
‘They played a role here in inciting violence and inciting bad behaviour, illegal behaviour, criminal behaviour by some of the protesters.’
Here we are in a situation where an Australian political party is championing the ideas (From the River to the Sea) of what is essentially a proscribed terrorist organisation.
A bridge too far you might say. Or perhaps we are drawing a long bow?
Yet just before the riots began, a Melbourne art gallery was displaying an inverted red triangle, an art installation that has been described by others as ‘legitimising terrorism’.
This is because the symbol:
‘…has its roots in Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to showcase in propaganda videos which Israeli targets it would seek to destroy. Its use was recently banned by the Berlin state Parliament.’
To make matters worse, a protestor carrying a Palestinian flag on the second day of the protests was allegedly shouting, ‘Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah!’
This was happening on Australian soil.
While the right to protest is the first point that Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen made when she was interviewed about the violent riots, in the same breath she supported police actions.
Much of this is like the inquiry into antisemitism at universities – one cannot mention antisemitism without uttering in the same breath Islamophobia. It is a way of watering down the fact that we now have home-grown terrorist supporters in Australia, and they seem to enjoy significant support from staff and students of some of our universities.
Things must change and they must change quickly if we want to continue to enjoy the Australia we all know and love.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is National Vice President of the Telecommunications Association, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022.
Professor Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann @SdBachman is Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub, University of Canberra, and a Research Fellow with the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. He is also a Fellow with NATO SHAPE – ACO Office of Legal Affairs where he works on Hybrid Threats and Lawfare.