Feature
Racial Implications of Victoria's Proposed Protest Legislation
The Victorian Government's recently announced proposal, ostensibly designed to combat antisemitism, represent a dangerous expansion of police power that will disproportionately impact racialised communities, particularly Black, Brown and Indigenous activists and marginalized communities. This announcement, rather than addressing hate and discrimination, will exacerbate existing systemic racism and further marginalise those already targeted by police overreach. The Premier’s references to ‘extremism’ are a familiar dog-whistle, heralding the political basis upon which the Government is seeking to curb Victorians’ right to freedom of expression, assembly and association.
Systemic Racism Embedded in the Legislation
1. Policing and Racial Profiling
The proposed legislation will fundamentally enhance police powers in ways that will reproduce and amplify existing racist policing practices. These laws are designed to increase police discretionary powers to:
- Remove face coverings
- Stop and search protesters
- Seize and destroy "attachment devices"
The Centre Against Racial Profiling knows that police practices that depend on police discretion have a higher probability of targeting racialised peoples. Our Racial Profiling Data Monitoring Project released data earlier this year showing that some racialised communities are searched more when police have wider discretion. For example, people who police believe to be Aboriginal are 11 times more likely to be searched than a White person. African appearing people are about 6 times more likely to be searched than White appearing people.
This proposal will create a legal framework that will legitimise and entrench already-existing racial profiling practices in Victoria. It will provide additional mechanisms for surveillance and harassment of racialised communities. It will criminalise protest tactics historically used by marginalised groups fighting for justice. These are all tools to control the way we fight against racism - including anti-Palestinian racism.
2. Differential Impact on Racialised Protest Movements
The proposed legislation outlaws protest methodologies critical to racial justice movements. Protest is a fundamental right, and while balanced with other rights, mass public assembly, and the use of masks, symbols and ‘lock on’ devices have played an important role in Indigenous and migrant protest actions.
Mask prohibition and removal of face covering will impact:
- Indigenous and migrant protesters facing potential professional repercussions
- Activists from communities with historical experiences of state violence
- Migrant community members on temporary visas
- Activists engaging in proactive public health measures during an ongoing pandemic
Use of symbolism in protests
- Racialised communities often use symbols and images that are unfamiliar to many Australians, or have only gained widespread public attention through biased media reporting which negatively influences perceptions of their meaning. These proposed laws can be used to criminalise images that symbolise self determination and self defence.
- Xenophobia and Islamophobia have deep roots in Australia, creating a false perception of threat associated with the public display of written Arabic regardless of meaning.
- Making the state the arbiter of what constitutes a ‘symbol of hate’ stifles communities’ ability to control their own identities and collective expression, and flattens the nuances of complex issues of identity and politics.
- Allowing police to exercise discretion about the difference between peaceful and harmful protest actions creates another level of murky and arbitrary decision-making that will serve as an amplifier for racial profiling.
3. Multicultural Policy as Racial Control
The new proposed laws add a ‘social cohesion pledge’ that organisations must make to obtain government funding. While the text of the pledge is not yet publicly available, it clearly represents a sophisticated and dangerous mechanism of racial governance. The establishment of a ‘social cohesion pledge’ will operate as a form of funding coercion. This can have the effect of forcing multicultural organisations to adopt state-approved narratives, suppress critical dialogue about systemic racism, neutralise radical political organising and divide and fracture community resistance. This ‘pledge’ will be a controlling mechanism for organisations to toe the line or risk defunding (including via the non-renewal of funding arrangements). The institution of a state-approved pledge to contribute to social cohesion will also do nothing to meaningfully contribute to anti-racist social change. Similar to mining companies and correctional facilities’ use of Reconciliation Action Plans, there is no guarantee that a pledge will encourage organisations to proactively address systemic racism.
4. Perpetuating Systemic Racism Through "Solutions"
Time and again, police powers are expanded under the guise of targeting organised crime, terrorism, or other perceived threats to public safety, only to be used to harass and harm communities of colour. It is important to underscore the fundamental connection between racist perceptions of threat and the criminalisation of racialised people and communities. Centring police and expanding police powers as a ‘solution’ to racism highlights the Victorian Government’s fundamental misunderstanding of what racism is and how it is perpetuated. Racism relies on and reinforces power differentials in society, including between the police and criminal legal system and marginalised communities. A carceral, police-centric response will not only harm racialised communities, it will also fail to address the perceived threat it claims to target. The proposed changes prioritize expanding police power instead of dismantling practices and institutions that perpetuate racial violence, including in the criminal legal system or immigration system. They do not address existing power imbalances or improve or encourage cross-community mutual understanding. By quashing the expression of legitimate grievance by oppressed communities, these changes will deepen rather than repair divides.
5. Racist Logics of "Social Cohesion"
The narrative of "social cohesion" perpetuates a racist logic, obscuring and refusing to name what is at the core of the issue - the perceived threat of public demonstrations against Australia’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Rather than acknowledging the detrimental impact of colonial violence on social relations, an emphasis on “social cohesion” suggests that social risk is solely generated by protest against a violent status quo. The narrative of social cohesion also positions the state as the arbiter of acceptable community behaviour. It demands that racialised communities assimilate to a dominant narrative of political expression, criminalising resistance to systemic oppression. It presents a sanitised, depolicticised version of multiculturalism, based on racist assumptions.The Premier’s implication that the social cohesion pledge will not refer to issues related to any other country also fundamentally misunderstands the realities of diaspora communities and of international solidarity. The growing threat of white supremacy requires direct confrontation and accountability, not a superficial call for ‘cohesion’. Australia is long overdue for a reckoning with the poison of systemic racism and the colonial violence it perpetuates domestically and supports internationally.
Conclusion
This legislation is not a solution to racism or social division. It is a sophisticated mechanism of racial control that:
- Expands state surveillance
- Criminalizes resistance
- Perpetuates systemic racism
- Undermines genuine community solidarity
Expanding the capacity of institutions of state violence will not “solve” racism. Anti-racism requires a genuine redistribution of power in society. Any meaningful attempt to combat racism must therefore begin by rejecting the premise that expressions of resistance against racial violence must adhere to a state-sanctioned set of norms. Protest is a fundamental right. We know that power is never given up without a fight, and as such, we must resist any attempt to diminish the legal protections currently available to racialised communities engaged in this struggle.
Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash