"‘Incredibly worrying’: legal fight looms around Australia over clampdown on protest", 05 Oct 2019

Since [Extinction Rebellion] conducted its first action in Australia in April, there have been more than 170 arrests, with penalties ranging from a warning to a $1,500 fine. When new laws designed to target the tactics used by Extinction Rebellion pass parliament, those penalties will escalate. The use of a purpose-designed “dangerous attachment device to disrupt lawful activities”, referring to the Extinction Rebellion tactic of locking on to railways and roads, will attract a $6,500 fine or two years’ imprisonment...  Peaceful protest, the Queensland government says, is only acceptable if it does not disrupt people going about their ordinary business. But disruption is the point. “We are using civil disobedience to cause economic disruption and a disruption to business as usual,” Extinction Rebellion south-east Queensland member Emma Dorge says. “Without disruption, our voices are not being heard.”... Queensland has proposed two new amendments this year designed to clamp down on protests: increased trespass penalties... and the lock-on laws. It has also introduced biosecurity regulations with on-the-spot fines for entering an agricultural premises. New South Wales has also introduced new $1,000 on-the-spot penalties through biosecurity regulations and is considering draft laws with broad new trespass penalties... These are... “breathtakingly broad"... and would capture protests on environmental grounds, including anti-mining protests.