On Wednesday (11/3) two activists were arrested and charged under the state’s new draconian hate speech laws which criminalise the phrases “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” - if doing so would cause “menace, harassment, or offence”. The Guardian reported:

“Liam Parry from the Students for Palestine group had led the protest, where there was a large police presence that included officers [from] the public safety response team.

“I’m not sure if everybody here [knows] the history of the different slogans that the government is trying to ban us from saying, so [in] the interests of education, I want to explain [it] to you,” he said at the protest.

He went on to deny that the phrase was terroristic or antisemitic, saying it was instead a call for freedom and dignity of the people between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

“So when we say, from the river to the sea, we are calling for the freedom of the people of Palestine,” he said.'

He discouraged others from chanting the slogan.

Moments later, as protesters started to march, he was arrested.”

A second activist was arrested and charged, likely because they were wearing a shirt that said “from the river to the sea”. 

From the river to the sea is not the first phrase to be criminalised in this country. 

In 2015, the MUA was fined $80,000 and a union official fined $15,000 for putting up posters naming and shaming scabs during a 2011 dispute. In 2024, 5 union officials were fined between $5,000 and $85,000 for “verbally abusing” scabs during the Oaky Creek North Dispute in 2017. Officials called scabs “scabs”; “maggots” and “rats”. The Mining & Energy Union was ordered to pay $10,000 in compensation to a worker who had been identified as a scab on signs and on social media. There are also instances of workers being sacked for calling scabs “scabs”.

I think it is important to draw these parallels, not to equate workers’ struggles here in Australia with the struggles of the Palestinian people, but to remind us all of one of our unions’ core tenets - touch one, touch all. 

It is the same governments, bosses and systems that oppress, demean and legislate against workers, that are actively repressing those fighting for justice for Palestinians. 

We will all be stronger if we fight together.