From Sydney Criminal Lawyers

UNSW SRC education officer Cherish Kuehlmann had four NSW police officers bash on the front door of her Eastlakes apartment at midnight last Saturday and arrest her in relation to a housing crisis protest directed at major banks in Sydney’s Martin Place the day prior.

Kuehlmann considers the arrest was staged in such a dramatic manner as to cause the most impact in sending a message to those contemplating similar actions, which, taken on the back of the oppressive crackdown on protest in this state over the last 12 months, sounds about right.

This is especially so, the uni student advises, because police officers present at the nonviolent demonstration calling out soaring rents and mortgages triggered by interest rate rises, were speaking with her after the protest, so any transgression made could have been dealt with then.

Last Friday’s housing rally saw university students occupying the foyer of the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place and the curtilage of the Reserve Bank of Australia on Macquarie Street. And Kuehlmann was arrested about 9 hours later out the front of her suburban home.

The war on protest

For the crime of standing on the Reserve Bank curtilage and calling for social justice, Kuehlmann has been charged with aggravated trespass, contrary to section 4B of the Inclosed Lands Protection Act 1901 (NSW), which carries a maximum fine of $5,500 when non-agricultural land is involved.

This offence was enacted by the Baird government in 2016. Designed to counter activists protesting against fossil fuel facilities, it saw the penalty applying increased tenfold, and it was then beefed up in 2019, so as to target animal rights activists staging actions against agribusiness with prison time.

As is the habit of police these days, Kuehlmann had to agree to extreme bail conditions, including that she not enter within a 2 kilometre radius of Sydney Town Hall, in exchange for being released from the Day Street Police Station lockup after spending four early hours of Saturday morning in a cell.

Indeed, the Perrottet government has been waging a campaign against climate protests, which commenced last March, when it passed severe laws to stamp out unauthorised disruptive actions and established a police unit targeting them, which Kuehlmann’s arrest shares all the hallmarks of.

Kuehlmann considers the arrest was staged in such a dramatic manner as to cause the most impact in sending a message to those contemplating similar actions, which, taken on the back of the oppressive crackdown on protest in this state over the last 12 months, sounds about right.

This is especially so, the uni student advises, because police officers present at the nonviolent demonstration calling out soaring rents and mortgages triggered by interest rate rises, were speaking with her after the protest, so any transgression made could have been dealt with then.

Last Friday’s housing rally saw university students occupying the foyer of the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place and the curtilage of the Reserve Bank of Australia on Macquarie Street. And Kuehlmann was arrested about 9 hours later out the front of her suburban home.

Editor:

The Reserve Bank is a foreign ADI. A “foreign ADI” means a body corporate that:

(a) is a foreign corporation within the meaning of paragraph 51(xx) of the Constitution; and

(b) is authorised to carry on banking business in a foreign country; and

(c) has been granted an authority under section 9 to carry on banking business in Australia.

http://www.apra.gov.au/adi/Publications/Pages/Letter-to-ADIs-Operation-of-foreign-bank