The Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment Bill 2023 was passed shortly before 7am with Labor and Liberal support.

SA-Best MPs Frank Pangallo and Connie Bonaros and Greens MPs Robert Simms and Tammy Franks moved a series of unsuccessful amendments to the legislation – which passed the Lower House in just 22 minutes last Thursday – including sending it to a committee for examination, give it an expiry date, introduce a reasonableness clause and remove wording which included “indirectly” obstructing as well as directly.

Labor and the Opposition voted the proposed changes down. But SA-Best succeeded in an amendment to change wording of the new bill to remove “reckless” intent.

The legislation was introduced after an Extinction Rebellion protest last Wednesday, in which a protester abseiled from the Morphett St bridge above North Terrace and caused widespread peak-hour traffic disruption near where an oil and gas conference was being held at the Convention Centre.

An Extinction Rebellion protester abseils from Morphett Street bridge. Photo: Twitter

Besides increasing the maximum fine for public obstruction 66-fold, the legislation will make defendants potentially liable for emergency services costs responding to a public obstruction, and broaden the offence’s scope to include indirect obstruction of a public place.

SA-Best’s Frank Pangallo and Connie Bonaros with Greens MP Robert Simms at a protest before the bill was debated in the Upper House. Photo: Brett Hartwig/InDaily

The Bill outraged legal and human rights groups as well as the union movement, which argued it was an attack on the right to protest and democracy. More than 15 unions yesterday rallied at Festival Plaza behind Parliament House against the legislation.

The state government has repeatedly said the legislation does not make any changes to the Public Assemblies Act 1972 which governs the right to protest in South Australia, and is intended only to lift penalties for protests which deliberately obstruct public movement.

Premier Peter Malinauskas this morning defended the legislation saying it did not stop the right to protest.

“One of the things that I have found rather disconcerting around some of the commentary on this piece of legislation is that somehow, it curtails or diminishes people’s right to protest, which is simply not true,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.

“The majority of people who protest do so passionately, vigorously, obstruct traffic, close streets, march and so forth – none of that will change.

“But we have got a very deliberate action here to affect those people who take to an extreme (protesting) that has an adverse effect on others in our community, who also have rights that need to be protected.”

-with AAP