HOMELAND SECURITY
Another day, another roadblock: how should NZ law deal with disruptive climate protests?
According to Waikato University’s Professor Alexander Gillespie, activists are resorting to increasingly disruptive forms of protest, and governments are hitting them with increasingly harsher penalties. What’s the answer?
Alexander Gillespie is Professor in the law faculty at the University of Waikato.
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The most recent protest by the Restore Passenger Rail climate protest group, in which a Wellington car dealership was defaced with red paint, is not just the latest in a local movement – it’s part of a global trend. Airline bosses have been hit with cream pies, Just Stop Oil protesters have glued themselves to iconic pieces of art in famous galleries, school students are skipping school to march for climate justice, and airport runways have been invaded. Everywhere, including in New Zealand, roads and highways have been blocked. It’s entirely likely such protests will continue and escalate in their impact as the climate emergency worsens, and frustration grows with a perceived lack of meaningful government action. Groups such Extinction Rebellion view “non-violent direct action and civil disobedience” as not only justifiable but crucial in the face of what they see as an urgent existential threat. But for every climate action there has been a political and legal reaction. From Europe to Australia there have been crackdowns. New laws have been drafted in Britain to create specific offences such as
obstructing major transport works, interfering with key national infrastructure, and causing serious disruption by tunnelling. Earlier this year, a New Zealander living in Britain was given a “draconian” three-year prison sentence for his role in a protest that shut down a busy road in London. With the stakes rising, it’s important that governments and legal systems find ways to adapt, without risking a climate protest arms race that may only encourage increasingly unreasonable impacts on the general public. Rights and freedoms In New Zealand, a trend towards authorities reaching for harsher penalties is also evident. The traditional sentence for obstructing a public road without consent is a fine of up to NZ$1,000. Such penalties are now being augmented with potential charges of criminal nuisance, and police have warned that protesters could face up to 14 years in jail for endangering transport. That is longer than many serious crimes, including the maximum ten years under proposed law changes for ram-raiding. Line of Defence
