George Bush landed in Australia last night, and was whisked through guarded, closed streets to his harbour-side room in a mere 17 minutes.
By contrast, the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Singapore, the President of Peru and the Chief Executive of Hong Kong all arrived on commercial scheduled flights.
While our government has given up our streets to a foreign power, allowed them ignore our strong quarantine laws with their 15 sniffer dog teams, allowed the US (and the US alone over objections of Russia) to bring their own weapons and given the entire security detachment immunity from prosecution, and today they used the NSW Supreme court case to ban the planned Saturday March.
The Stop Bush coalition one month ago announced that they would march through the city on this Saturday, the 8th of September. The route would start at Town Hall Station, down the the ANZAC Cenotaph at Martin Place, up past the US Embassy to the New South Wales Parliament, and then to Hyde Park. The march route was announced publicly and submitted to the New South Wales police in accordance with standard policy.
This route was chosen because although it enters the 'restricted' zone, it does not enter the areas that have been closed off with concrete and steel barriers like these :
This route was rejected. A new barrier at George Street and King Street is in place. An alternative plan was then presented to march to that spot, and sit down to highlight the police blocking us from our own city. This way we do not even enter the restricted zone, yet the Police submitted that the protest would then be at risk to unspecified safety risks
Yesterday court action was taken to forbid this march and to remove the right of Freedom of Assembly from the Coalition to Stop Bush. It was held over to today, because lawyers for the protesters were given 20 minutes notice of some of the details.
Police tended hearsay evidence from unnamed sources that the violence was planned, and based on that they could remove the right of assembly due to it being an action likely to cause a breach of the peace.
Other Police witnesses made terror-filled statements such as
Never in my career have I held such serious concerns for public safety as I do during the conduct of APEC or, more specifically, this particular march
and
"Police lines will come under attack and a full-scale riot is probable"
They also issue a non-publication order so that the evidence they tended could not be viewed or distributed to the public.
Lawyers for the Protesters tried to explain the original path to the Judge.
"It's making the point that `Well, we don't get to demonstrate outside the US Consulate and we don't get to demonstrate about war in Martin Place where there's a memorial to people who were killed in wars which we want to stop','' Mr Bozic said.
"These two things for example, would have symbolic significance which is self-evident."
Justice Michael Adams found in favour of the Police, saying this
During his judgment, Justice Michael Adams agreed freedom of speech was paramount in a democratic society. He said ending the rally at that police barrier would make it a target.
"In my view, the attitude of the Commissioner to this application is a reasonable one and accordingly I grant the orders sought,'' he said.
He agreed with police that ending the rally at King Street would cause problems because of the narrowness of the area, and the lack of exit points.
The protesters had floated an alternative "sit-down protest'' in front of the police line at George and King streets, after which the crowd would disperse.
But the barrister for the police, Michael Spartalis, told the court that the Commissioner would also oppose this plan.
The march will now take part, but heading due east rather then past the APEC security zone. More details will be finalised in the pre-protest meeting at St Joseph's Church, Newtown on Friday Evening.