More erosion of liberty (2)

Yesterday I was concerned about a federal bill to limit the right to protest freely. Today I discover that the New South Wales Parliament has just issued a regulation that provides public officials with broad power to “direct a person” to stop “taking part in any gathering, meeting or assembly” that takes place on public land, e,g. roads, squares, parks. The only exception is “in the case of a cemetery, for the purpose of a religious or other ceremony of burial or commemoration”.

The intention is to disperse or ban protests, rallies, and almost any public gathering on about half of all land across the state unless it has been authorised by the state government or public officials.

As far as I can tell, issues such as this get scant attention from the mainstream media. Yet again we are allowing our democratic freedoms to be taken away by governments that cannot tolerate dissent of any kind.