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Midnight arrest of Reserve Bank protestor
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
NSW Liberals defund integrity agencies including the Electoral Commission, “You can’t keep tabs on us,” said Gladys
The NSW Liberal Government has delivered a $15 million cut to the State’s key integrity agencies – including the ICAC, the Law Enforcement Commission – compromising their independence and ability to conduct investigations.
NSW Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord was responding to answers given to supplementary questions during Budget Estimates with Special Minister of State, Public Service and Employee Relations, Mr Don Harwin.
NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian does not like anyone looking over her shoulder
The funding cuts will affect five key integrity agencies over the periods – 2020-21; 2021-22; 2022-23; and 2023-24:
The cuts compromise:
- The Independent Commission Against Corruption ($3.418 million) ;
- The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission ($3.316 million);
- The Audit Office of NSW ($373,000)
- The NSW Electoral Commission($4.425 million); and
- The NSW Ombudsman ($3.436 million).
This totals $14.968 million over a four year period.
Shadow Special Minister of State and Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord said: “this is a de facto declaration of war on the State’s integrity bodies.”
The ICAC chief commissioner, Peter Hall QC and the NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford had previously expressed concerns about the need for independent funding.
Currently, the ICAC has been reduced to its smallest size in its 30 year history.
On March 22, the ICAC handed down its report from Operation Dasha, involving the conduct of disgraced former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.
“Sadly, the easiest way to stymie those who root out corruption is to tie their investigative hands behind their backs,” Mr Secord said.
“In the past year, we have heard revelations against the Premier’s office shredding important documents and delivering millions of dollars in grants without proper process.”
Last year, the Government also rejected a bill to protect the funding of the ICAC.
NSW legislates to close all coal fired power in favour of government funded Chinese wind turbines
What is NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian thinking?
It has been revealed that her energy minister Matt Kean, fresh from legislating his green new deal to close all coal-fired power in NSW, is giving $10 million of taxpayer money to a Chinese Communist Party-controlled company to build windmills.
Bayswater power station near Muswellbrook in NSW to be one of the state’s coal fired power stations which will be closed down in favour of CCP wind turbines?
That’s right. As the CCP shores-up its strength by building 100 new coal-fired power stations, Kean is paying the CCP to weaken Australia with expensive and unreliable wind power.
Kean and Berejiklian want to close down the remaining coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley and replace them with CCP-made wind turbines which only serve to hike the price of electricity and make it unreliable.
NSW Upper House MP Mark Latham spills the beans on a treacherous plan by NSW Liberals to shut down coal fired power causing the loss of hundreds of jobs and weakening the state’s power supply.
Goldwind Australia, a subsidiary of a CCP-controlled company is getting the cash, straight from the taxpayer’s pocket.
The NSW Hunter Valley coalfields are adjacent to the world’s biggest coal export port at Newcastle.
The comrades in Beijing must think we are fools for tearing down coal and erecting their windmills. They would not be wrong.
Belling the cat on all this has been NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham. He’s been supported by Nationals Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce and courageous federal Liberal Craig Kelly.
It’s been crickets from virtually everyone else.
That’s why Advance keeps banging on. As more and more mainstream Australians wake-up to the CCP sell-outs in our parliaments and their globalist bedfellows at the World Economic Forum, there will be a reckoning.
Thanks for your part in powering the awakening.
Matthew Sheahan
Executive Director
Advance Australia
Cairns News 