As far as I am concerned, everyone has a right to free air to breath.

After that, everyone should have to pay their own way, & only be able to do anything, if it doesn't interfere with others. Once they step outside these requirements, anyone, criminal or protester, should be fair game for those whose lives they interfere with.

I was hoping that this subject could be discussed
without it turning into a Right/Left divide. That it
could proceed without the usual personal attacks.
I was hoping
that we could deal with facts and reasoned argument.

I along with quite a few here
firmly believe in the right of protest - what does
concern me is when the protests or demonstrations
infringe upon the rights of others. I'm all for
peaceful assembly, orderly protest and the free exchange
of ideas. I recognise that protest is a necessary and
accepted means of expression - it becomes unacceptable
(at least to me), when it obstructs the basic exchange of
ideas and or - turns violent. The use of violence,
seems self defeating - in that with the use of violence
a great deal of sympathy and support is often lost even though
it becomes a "news event."

I'm not sure about giving extra powers to the police though.
That is a concern. And I would like to see the justification
made for that not with emotions but with facts.

Nhoj, the 'Usual Suspects' have finally shown their true colors when it come to the "right to protests". They are all in favor, providing its done at end of a coppers gun! These guys were born in the wrong place at the time.

Folks, READ THE LATEST NEWS FROM JAY OF MELBOURNE.

Old Jay has just informed us in his last post that Tony Abbott, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Joe Hockey and Christopher Pyne are .... wait for it ....... believe it or not ..... it must be true (Jay says so).........

.....They are all "INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS" (Jay's words).

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Nhoj,

It must be sad to be so functionally illiterate! You misinterpreted what Jay wrote and then laughed at your own incompetence.

Howard did more for the working class's living wage than any Labor PM, he just did it a different way. Socialists produce ideals, conservatives produce results.

For example Labor's carbon tax cost $11bn and reduced emissions by 0.1%.

Labor racked up spending of $2.5bn p.a. against the mining tax which raised almost nothing,

Labor's NBN by the end of 2013 had spent about 25% of the budget and was about 5% complete.

Labor scrapped the pacific solution against the advice of all the experts and cost the country more than $10bn and over 1200 dead.

etc, etc, etc.

A conservative is a practical socialist, and a socialist is an incompetent conservative.

OH MY GAWD ... it get funnier by the minute. Even Shadow Minister now claims to be a socialist lover. Ha ha ha.

The radical righties here are soooooooooo ashamed of their hero ToneLIAR, that they are now claiming that their rightie heroes like Andrew Bolt, John Howard, ToneLIAR, Alan Jones are *SOCIALISTS*.

I haven't laughed so much in years. This is funnier than watching John Cleese.