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The scenes of police brutality at the Sydney protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday night have been, understandably, one of the biggest topics of discussion this week. And it will likely continue to be. So if there is only ONE piece of information you take from today’s newsletter, please let it be this:
The Sydney protest was legal.
The Sydney protest was legal.
The Sydney protest was legal.
NSW has the most oppressive restrictions on protest in the country, but none of these laws make protest illegal. The confusion — or perhaps misinformation — stems from the legal challenge over the protest that was heard and ruled in NSW Supreme Court on the same day. The protest organisers actually took it court, challenging the extra powers police were given. The organisers lost that challenge, which people have misunderstood as them losing the right to protest – that’s not true, all it meant is police got to keep their extra powers.
If you want to understand more of the legal context around the Sydney protest and those additional police powers, I interviewed lawyer Michael Bradley about it on the Cut Through podcast this week and he explained things thoroughly.
Besides that, there was something good at the Sydney protest (and all protests lately) that’s worth homing in on.
Crikey politics editor Bernard Keane made the point this week that NSW Chris Minns use of police as “violent goons” was reminiscent of Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the 70s and 80s. If you don’t know much about the Hillbilly Dictator’s reign over Queensland, try googling “the Fitzgerald Inquiry” — it was a judicial inquiry into police corruption that ended JBP’s career and sent three ministers plus the Police Commissioner to prison.
Anyway, someone left a comment about that comparison between Minns and JBP: “Everyone has a camera now, which is a big difference between today and 70s/80s QLD. Minns seems almost surprised that he gave police permission to use force and that it looks really bad on camera.”
Commenter is right. Because the scenes from Sydney on Monday night are not new — police have been used by those in power as a weapon against the people ever since the First Fleet put boot to soil. Protecting power and property from the people is what policing forces were always intended to do.
What is new? Those damn phones! Every person in attendance with a hi-def video camera in their pocket!
In the 70s and 80s when Queensland police were using agitation tactics and planting ‘provocateurs’ as way to spark chaos in order to justify police brutality, the general public could only see what the media was able to capture on camera. The police will give one version of events, the protesters another. If you weren’t there, how would you decide who to believe?
Now we’re able to see lots of on-the-ground coverage. We get video footage of multiple locations within one protest action, which is important for a big rally. We see multiple angles of a single incident: from ground level, off to the side, an elevated view from someone recording from their apartment window. There is a better chance of piecing together a complete picture of what happened before, during and after an incident with at least some video evidence. We don’t have to rely solely on the memory of an eyewitness or the Official Police Version.
On Monday night, Greens Senator David Shoebridge posts a video of an altercation between a man in business attire and a police officer on a bicycle, which quickly escalates into multiple police punching and pulling at the man. Shoebridge only has a short clip of the immediate attack by officers but not what lead to it.
On Tuesday morning, Lucy Carter from the ABC’s News Verify team goes on ABC News Breakfast with a call out for anyone who has any footage from the protest to send it to her team. She specifies that it does not have to be of anything in particular, because even if you think there’s nothing ‘happening’ in your video it may help them provide clarity to the total timeline of events.
Then, on Wednesday the ABC News Verify publishes this: New video shows full minute before Herzog protester punched by police.
It’s footage of the guy and the bike cop. Next to them is a minor exchange involving the bike cop and what appears to be a teenager. The man in the white shirt says something to the cop and puts his hand up (in what looks to me like a “just chill” gesture). The bike cop then pushes the man backwards. Soon multiple police officers are punching the man and trying to pull him to the ground by the long strap of his bag.
The police officer initiated the violence.
Imagine it’s 1972 or 1949 or 1903 and this happened. It would be really easy for the police to say that the man pushed or grabbed first, and that they were simply responding to prevent him from attacking a police officer. His version of events and the eyewitnesses around him could not only be very easily discounted, but you as a member of the public would probably never even hear their version of the story. Unless you were there too, you’d have nothing else to go on.
Thank fuck for smartphones.
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Private Equity & Prostitution: How Men Extract Value Everywhere <3 on chickenpotpielover69 substack
This writer has worked as both a sex worker and in private equity, and this is a fascinating comparison of those experiences. “Men follow the same playbook in their investing strategies as they do when they solicit sex: buy it for as little as they can, extract as much value as possible, and shift the debt—the burden of the transaction—onto someone else. In private equity, that debt sits on the company’s balance sheet. In sex, it settles into the woman’s body.”
Keli Holiday Breaks His Silence Over Cancelled Horse Racing Gig Backlash: ‘Chaotic’ on Pedestrian.TV
A news item, which I present here without comment.
Finally, a Smooth-Brained Wuthering Heights on Vulture
I’m going to see Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights today (Sunday)... if you watch it, email me your thoughts! “Who needs repression when you can have foreplay? Wuthering Heights is Fennell’s dumbest movie, and I say that with all admiration, because it also happens to be her best to date. Fennell has an incredible talent for the moment, for extravagant scenes that bypass all higher thought functions to spark a deeper lizard-brained pleasure, and for pop-music-scored montages of such lushness that they could levitate you right out of your seat. But thematic incisiveness has not proven to be her strong suit nor something her heart is in.”
A Day in the Life of a Bad Bunny Super Bowl Bush on Rolling Stone
As I’m sure you were well aware: there were people inside the bushes for Bad Bunny’s amazing Super Bowl half-time concert (which I’ve been listening to on repeat). One bush shares their story: “Garcia was going to take the field as Bush Number D83, joining about 400 other performers dressed like sugar-cane grass in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime-show performance. “I always imagined walking out of the tunnel for the Super Bowl as a football player,” Garcia says on a Zoom call. The moment was just as powerful as his fantasy: “Seeing all the cameras flashing, the cheers of the crowd … it fulfilled my childhood dream.””