Are the police in their various guises being used by the States as agents provocateur?
First the peaceful protest; then the (over)reaction; then the (not-so)peaceful protest; and finally the definitive shut-down by those who have the big sticks.
Instead of deploying the police, why did the States not install a bank of port-a-loos and set up a soup kitchen? It would have been interesting to see how the dialogue then progressed.
As it is, no one knows anything much except the near certainty that there are a lot of people nursing grievances.
This could have been handled so much better.

I have no issue with protests/demonstrations but there have to be limits.

Once protesters start willfully damaging property, the protesters lose ALL credibility. Attacking the police is thoroughly unproductive (not to mention just plain wrong!) Protests tend to attract "professional protesters" (not the fault of the organisers, but still a problem) as well as those who have no idea why they are there.

Back in the day, I was involved with the occasional protest and all of the things I outline above were happening then too. Very annoying for those with a serious point to make.

There's more to the matter than this article discusses. A tad too Utopian to work...

I don't agree with much of what the Occupy people are on about (especially their socialist aspects), but I strongly agree they have a right to peaceful and non-destructive protest. And there's no time limit on that either.

NSW police are good at looking after themselves but quite authoritarian with everyone else.

the leader[or those close to them..
is usually the agent provocateur]

i tried joining them..
and they call new guys agent provocateur
thats how i learned..the minute you got a spokesperson..

TALKING FOR YOU..he is the agent

i know my rights
i have my right to speak
or listen..but not to be told to move
[unless im doing injury or damage]

look at the occupy protes
no leaders..so i went into town to watch

and found a spokesperson..talking..telling us the police told him to move[out of the shade into a hot kinggeorge square[a PUBLIC SPACE}

where i was watching the occupation..[lol] unoccupy the shade
they left as their leader instructed

so i went and simply sat in the shade
and was told by 4 hot sweaty dehydrated cops to move on

i said im in a public space
go away..anyhow they laid their hands on me..and carried me out into the hot sun[again]..then dropped me onto the hot grey stone pavement

they immediatly handcupped the unconcious me
then realised i had passed out and water boarded me with water on my head...and in my mouth..before finally undoing the handcuffs

anyhow in the end i was let to simply sit in the shade
in the public space..but by what right did the police service do what they did to me

[they are sworn to protect hrh..
[and her trusts..[estates/peoples]
not threaten then by council statute
assult me..

then pretend nothing hapend

its no use complaining..they refuse to accept the complaint
oh well thats what you get when police police revenue raising policy
instead of big business crime

we need both arms of govt..lower and upper house at least
or throw away state govt..and only have council police

the current system is broke
we are over governed and over taxed
govt serves corperate 'persons''..exploiting the living persons

ie the trust..we enjoined into
when we became commonwealth citisenry
under the protections of the serrvants of her royal majesty

but that too was stopped back in 2002
when i deliverd to her[via the police]
[and via her gg in canbera..a letter of demand

advising us we leave her..and her 1%
who lord us into endebiture[slavery]
via ursury..[odious debt..]

colluded treasonous debt..put on us via bad governance

with our own wikiseed/wikigeld
our own share of god given inheritance..[fair share of all creation]

ie cashflow
[see rev 22]

based on seed..[by weight'../*pound]
to the tree of life

via a promise to deliver

I doubt whether to many Lawyers would understand that in order for a coffee shop to survive its customers must have access without ferals getting in the way. Many of them make their money from the Government purse.

I am always amazed by the number of people who will express outrage at this or that offence against rights. People seem to ignore the fact that unless we first recognise a birthright to life and therefore to the basics provided for life by nature, ALL other rights are rendered baseless.

Since land, one of the essentials for life, has now been completely commodified, there is no basis for asserting that any other rights exist, even if they are written down. Just ask the homeless ... and the Occupy protesters. Freedom of speech etc is a nonsense without a right to the essentials for life.

The challenge is to reinstate land rights for all, subject to the responsibility to use that right in a sustainable way. That would be a requirement could meet without giving up consumerism, so there is no threat to our "property" investment ... but there is a wonderful opportunity for the poor to develop a sustainable model which others could benefit and learn from. The poor are already living a non consumer lifestyle. (see www.ntw.110mb.com)

Why might it be that the right to land for housing and growing food is ignored? Could it be that such a recognition could be seen as a threat to our "property" interests?

Most of us are heavily invested, either by way of a mortgage or other investment in the great Australian dream of ownership, or are very fond of the consumer life which depends on the exploitation which this system embodies. We therefore might not want to look at the idea that people have a birthright to land, as to air water and sunlight... but any understanding of is required for environmental, social and economic harmony will show that the wheel is turning.

Just on the Bill of Rights issue, which is using the occupiers for justification ..

If we didn't have the Racial Vilification clauses within the act we wouldn't have had various people dragged through the courts, and silenced by people who were "offended".

Was it reasonable to our society? It came down to one person's interpretation of law, and indeed another person in the same position may have made a different ruling. Others who saw the tool and used it for personal gain, not for an ideal but a cause. The left now reveal themselves as immoral, and only support free speech if it suits their cause.

We are passing from a "reasonable" system in a changing society, to having ideals (rights) cast in stone and out of the people's hands into the hands of unelected lawyers and judges,giving them tools that cannot easily be rescinded.

There are many examples, it is interesting that it is the legal world who most urgently pursue a Bill of Rights. It would seem idiotic not to assume they would bring their personal agenda and ideology to the fore when dealing with a Bill of Rights.

The US System works well for the legal profession, but for the people it is a mess and they would much prefer a system that can adapt to changing times.

The right to bear arms is a case in point, it was for the people to forcibly dismiss a government who they felt no longer represented them. Something many people here would enjoy right now.

The ferals who inhabit our public spaces deprive others of the public space, harass everyone who passes, what gives them that right over other people's rights?

Copying the Americans for "occuppy" and "Bill of Rights" just smacks of opportunism and self obsessed entitlement, from people who deride them at every other opportunity.

Our system may not be perfect, but I don't want theirs (or yours).

By not ratifying its international treaty obligations, it seems the government in Australia - from both sides - wants to be seen to be fair but just in case it is ever challenged to prove it respects those freedoms ('violent anti-property' demonstrations)it wants to reserve the right to respond with overwhelming force to shock and awe and cow its adversaries into compliant obedience.
Maybe this is what you'd expect from a nation which started off half slave and half free and thinks it's free now, but is deluding itself. A free people doesn't need an armed militia to quell disturbances - reasonable mature people don't all of a sudden just morph into a violent mob. The Americans at least enshrine their Bill of Rights, it's about time we had one of our very own.

I'm sure we are all eagerly awaiting Ms Tranter's vigorous defence of Andrew Bolt for expressing his very valid opinions and for her attack on the Gillard government's media inquiry in the form of a witch hunt against the opinions expressed by journalists in News Limited newspapers.

But I'm not holding my breath.

The only thing the cops did wrong was wait too long before they started, & perhaps use batons that were a bit too light.

I wonder how our right to expect that students receiving Austudy, & unemployed receiving New start benefits, were full filling their obligations, are being applied.

I remember when, during a long running hippy protest on Fraser Island, misguided centrelink people set up a dole office on the island. This saved the poor dears having to travel to the mainland to attend the office as required.

I gather that when it was made known that questions were to be asked about the search for work obligations, the practice stopped.

Who is checking if these ratbags were obtaining benefits under false pretensions? Maybe Kellie is doing it for us.

Ferals? As opposed to the ferals at the top of the corporate food chain. Just because they don't dress down doesn't mean they aren't feral (as in out of control and pest-like).

However, I tend to agree with rational-debate, there is a limit when violence comes into it. There are always two sides. And yes it is annoying when a few people reduce the validity of protest by aggressive behaviour. All that does is encourage the predictable comments from the loony right who generally refuse to look behind the facade to the real issues being raised by the Occupy movement.

There should be no limit to protest in a public place where there is no inconvenience to public in the long term. The tent embassy stood in front of the old parliament house for years with only the odd media piece springing up from time to time.

Kellie Tranter

How can anyone say “civil and political rights” and not explain what these words symbolize?

Are rights palpable, visible objects? No. They are only presumptions; the presumption of dishonored credits.

Imagine going to a bank and asking a credit to buy a house, would the manager oblige if you said that you are a good girl and will repay the loan?

Wouldn’t the manager be so insane as to hand you the money on just such pledge?

Yet, you loaned your vote to someone who gave you no other assurance than an empty pledge.

That vote might just be money to the one who gets it but, to you, it could be a ‘make-up rearranged by a baton’.

Incredible is the numbers that the clamor “civil and political rights” blinds to the reality that the Apostles of this credo side with the baton-swingers never face them.

Nobody's right to freedom of expression or assembly is under threat. All that's under threat is their supposed 'right' to squat on public land - which isn't actually a right at all. The Occupiers didn't attract the response they did because they were protesting, but because of the way they went about it - so they really have no reason to be whingeing.

I don't think it's too much to ask that demonstrators pack up and go home at the end of the day - if they feel they've had insufficient time to get their point across, they can always come back the next day and protest some more. But you can't just go pitching a tent and setting up camp wherever you feel like it - that's not reasonable behaviour by most people's standards.

There is a question that this article has raised that nobody has caught onto: if we live in a country where the right to free speech and the right to peaceful assembly is not guaranteed by the Commonwealth then the question begs what action should we as the population take to guarantee that that such rights are guaranteed to citizens going forward into the future?

There are some rights such as these which are very basic in nature and should be insisted upon. Without these rights enshrined in law we don't have a functioning democracy. We have the institutions in which a democracy needs in order to function but without the empowerment of the individuals that make it function as such.

Instead we have an "easter egg democracy". All the appearances of a democracy with all the sweet rhetoric that that entails but when you penetrate that surface there is nothing there.

theoriginalmatty - you have these rights now, right up until someone deems you have offended them or someone else, then the law, defending their written rights .. not what's reasonable, a written act defines this now steps in to determine how you should be dealt with for offending someone - they don't have to prove offense, you have to prove you did not.

This is now guaranteed .. it has happened to people recently, some christian church folks, quoted from the koran, and promptly got put in their place, because it was deemed offensive to other people.

These are the kind of Laws that the author wants for everything so that everything ends up in court being weighed by self important pompous blow hards, much as she apparently aspires to.

Peaceful assembly is one thing,but to gather with the express purpose to disrupt public places and deny their use to others, is not peaceful assembly. It was clear that a lot of the occupiers were there to provoke attention any way they could.

like Oakland where the occupiers went ona rampage, why should we wait for it to happen, like the G20 event and others .. when we have crowds who look like they are looking for trouble .. give it to them in spades.

I would prefer the sanctity of public places be guaranteed for all, not just a bunch of spoilt brats looking for attention and trouble.

Call it any way you like, but the perception is they wanted trouble .. when they got it,t hey squealed .. unlike in Christine Nixon's day, when the police stood by and took it, now they do what we, the public want and stop these people from disrupting OUR peace!

Amicus thank you for your comment. However on the point of the Occupy Oakland protesters I have to correct you.

They were not the ones that went on the rampage. It was in fact the Oakland Police Department under the instructions of Oakland's major Jean Quan.

I watched this live on webcam from two locations; one within the Occupy protest itself and one outside looking in towards the protest. I saw the police there fire tear gas and rubber bullets at those protesters.

I also saw the body of Scott Olsen being dragged away from the scene after he was hit in the head with a rubber bullet. He is still in critical condition in hospital as I write this and may not fully recover. You may wonder why the Police fired the rubber bullets. It was because they inadvertently gassed themselves and feared that the gas was coming from the protesters.

The follow up to that incident was a general strike in Oakland; the first in the United States in over 65 years. The overwhelming majority of businesses in the city shut down for the day in support of the protesters. There is no way that a general strike could have been pulled off it were indeed the protesters responsible for the trouble in Oakland.

They shut down Oakland because of this kind of behavior .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZqYM_fNsndA

No one needs their city trashed by thugs and idiots .. the police went in because of this sort of attack on peaceful business and people.

Have a look at all the videos posted of these violent "protestors", and looters ..

I'd DEMAND the police take them out, clearly asking nicely is not going to work is it?

Wanting to change the world does not mean you can get away with wanton senseless violence and destruction, I hope they lock them all up, like they did in London, and we should do here.

At some stage, someone has to talk about the place and nature of human rights in a democratic society. The original thinking about human rights by Locke, David Hume, Mill and others was that human rights were about protecting individuals from arbitrary oppression by the state. That's what the rule of law is about. The notions of freedom of assembly and speech are about allowing people to meet, form parties, organise for elections etc free from the sort of oppression currently happening in Syria. Of course, people may protest against laws or 'the system' but in a democratic society they have a responsibility to do so in a way that respects the rights of their fellow citizens to go about their business without undue disruption. This last point is what Kellie and the Occupy groups forget. Their rights to protest do not override my right to go about my daily business without disruption. The police are expected to balance these competing claims but in the end, they will and should come down on the side of the majority's right to live their lives peacefully and without harassment by others, no matter what cause they might be prosecuting.

Protesters aren't real people, they're just physically fit morons.

Morons! That is a bit harsh individual. What about those thugs you supported out there protesting the Carbon Tax or Climate Change. Or doesn't it count if you agree with the sentiments.

Let's try for some bi-partisanship here. Afterall, one day you might think strongly enough about something to protest in the streets.

pelican,
trust you to come up with this pointless rhetoric. I DO NOT support any kind of demonstration that is a mere thrashing fest for morons. Yes pelican, morons. Anyone standing up for these morons is a moron also.
As other posters have already made quite clear, there's demonstrating & there's demonstrating. Morons don't demonstrate, they demolish.

Gee I love the grand hypocracy of the conservative lot who are being shafted by the very system they adore.Prof William K Black was a regulator back in the 1990's.He said there is absolute evidence of mortagage fraud in Fannie and Freddie in 90% of cases.Pension funds and super funds here lost 50% of their value,yet the regulators refuse to act and Occupy protestors get called criminals?

The real criminals continue to screw us and we the lemmings continue to praise those who are robbing us blind! I'm surrounded by blithering idiots who think that sucking up to their masters will make it all better.The really big shafting is about to happen.Italy cannot be bailed out and the Gillard Govt wants to borrow more in our name and give it to the IMF,for bailouts, who created the problem in the first place.

I'm now convinced that humans are terminally stupid in the realm of economics.

Pelican

Comments as puerile as Individual's latest are why I no longer actively participate at OLO. I can only conclude that Individual and his ilk are gazing into mirrors when they post their pointless rubbish. Nothing more telling than projection.

I am sure that Individual includes the wealthy mining executives who protest taxing their super-profits such as Gina Rinehart as "morons" as well. "Morons don't demonstrate, they demolish."

Yeah.

I find intelligent debate (and articles) now on http://theconversation.edu.au/.

Where exactly did Kellie Tranter get her "law degree" from?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JihQw39hyG0 don't believe me, check it out for yourself.

Better yet obtain an "ANOTATED" constitution, it is NOT a stand alone document, it includes several others, including Magna Carta AND a bill of rights, among others.

The only reason why we "have no rights" is because we have been trained to think we have none & rarely "take it to the high court".

Almost every citizen who has, wins against bureaucrooks & politicians.

As it happens, in QLD anyway, the right to peaceful assembly is enshrined in law:

http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/CURRENT/P/PeacefulAssA92.pdf

I think one of the problems with the 'Occupy' crew was that they could not provide an acceptable notice of assembly, as they could not guarantee an end date. I have no problem with the law the way it is - assemble all you want, but do so in an orderly way (and in accordance with the laws designed to protect the general public from danger and general nuisance).