The nostalgia for 1970s street protests in Queensland is a mental trap. Every time a police officer taps a protester on the shoulder for a slogan, the commentariat immediately reaches for the Joh Bjelke-Petersen playbook. They scream about "police states" and "civil liberties under siege," particularly when the person in handcuffs doesn’t fit the expected profile. But this comparison isn't just lazy; it’s an intellectual failure that ignores how the legal and social framework of public order has fundamentally shifted.
We are seeing a Jewish man charged under modern hate speech and public order legislation for slogans that—depending on who you ask—are either a call for liberation or a coded threat of annihilation. The media wants to frame this as a "crackdown" reminiscent of the old-school suppression of the right to assemble. They are wrong. This isn’t a repeat of 1977. This is the predictable, messy collision of the "safety-first" legislative era we spent the last decade building.
The Consensus Is Wrong About "Political" Policing
The lazy take is that the state has suddenly become allergic to dissent. The reality is that the state has become hypersensitive to "offense" and "harm," a shift that the very people now complaining about the "crackdown" largely supported when the targets were different.
In the 1970s, the battle was over the right to physically stand in the street. Today, the battle is over the psychological impact of the words spoken while standing there. When you expand the definition of "harm" to include the subjective discomfort of a listener, you don’t get a more tolerant society. You get a police force required by law to act as an arbiter of linguistics.
I’ve watched legal frameworks around the world slowly tighten the noose on public expression under the guise of "social cohesion." We traded the messy, often ugly reality of absolute free speech for the sterilized promise of "safe spaces" in the public square. You cannot demand laws that protect you from "hate speech" and then act shocked when those same laws are applied to slogans you happen to like. That’s not a police state; that’s the law of unintended consequences.
The Tokenization of the Dissident
The headlines love the "Jewish man" angle because it complicates the narrative. It’s a classic "man bites dog" story. But using his identity to shield the slogan from scrutiny is a logical fallacy. An individual's heritage does not change the statutory definition of a phrase in a courtroom.
If the law says Phrase X constitutes a public order offense because of its history or perceived threat, the DNA of the person saying it is irrelevant to the technical application of the law. To argue otherwise is to suggest that certain groups should have a license to use language that others are banned from using—a "rules for thee but not for me" approach that destroys the principle of equality before the law.
The "insider" truth that nobody wants to admit is that the police are often as frustrated by these laws as the protesters. I have spoken to senior officers who loathe being the "speech police." They are caught between a political class that demands "action" against rising tensions and a legal code that is intentionally vague. Vague laws are a gift to the state, but they are a nightmare for the beat cop who just wants to clear the road.
The Fallacy of the Queensland Parallel
Let’s dismantle the 1970s Queensland comparison once and for all. Under Bjelke-Petersen, the suppression was about power and the prevention of any organized opposition to the government's economic and social agenda. It was a blunt instrument used to stop unions and anti-apartheid activists from existing in public view.
Today’s "crackdown" is different in three distinct ways:
- The Source of the Law: Modern public order amendments are often bipartisan and driven by a public desire for "civility."
- The Enforcement Trigger: In the 70s, you were arrested for marching. Today, you are arrested for what is written on your cardboard sign.
- The Digital Echo: A slogan shouted in 1977 died in the air. A slogan shouted today is recorded, amplified, and used to pressure police to make an arrest after the fact.
We aren't living through a return to authoritarianism; we are living through the peak of "performative governance." Politicians pass laws that are impossible to enforce consistently, wait for a viral video to cause an outcry, and then pressure the police to make an example of someone to prove the law "works."
The Myth of Neutral Slogans
"From the river to the sea" is the epicenter of this specific legal tremor. Activists claim it’s a peaceful call for a secular state. Opponents claim it’s a call for ethnic cleansing. The court’s job isn't to decide which historical interpretation is "correct." The court’s job is to decide if the use of the phrase, in a specific context, was "likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress."
Here is the inconvenient truth: Every slogan is a weapon. If it weren't, people wouldn't use it. The power of a protest slogan lies in its ability to provoke. When you strip away the provocation, you strip away the protest. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim your words are powerful enough to change the world but too "innocent" to possibly offend or threaten a bystander.
Why Protesters Are Asking the Wrong Questions
Most people ask: "Is this arrest a violation of my human rights?"
The better question is: "Why did we give the government the power to define 'offense' in the first place?"
We have spent twenty years building a massive legislative apparatus designed to scrub the public square of anything "hateful." We did it with the best of intentions. We did it to protect marginalized groups. We did it to ensure everyone felt "included."
But "hate" is not a fixed point on a map. It is a shifting shadow. By handing the state the bucket and brush, we shouldn't be surprised when they start scrubbing things we think are beautiful. The Jewish man charged in this "crackdown" is not a victim of a new tyranny; he is a victim of the very "safety" culture that modern activism helped bake into the legal system.
Stop Looking for a "Consistent" State
People complain that the police don't arrest everyone who says the slogan. They point to "inconsistency" as proof of bias.
Welcome to the real world.
Law enforcement is, and has always been, a series of discretionary choices. There is no such thing as consistent policing of speech because there is no such thing as a consistent human reaction to speech. If 10,000 people shout a slogan, the police cannot arrest 10,000 people. They pick the one they think they can make a case against, or the one that is most likely to satisfy the political pressure of the moment.
This isn't a bug in the system; it’s the system. If you want a system where every single "offense" is prosecuted, you are asking for a level of surveillance and state power that would make 1970s Queensland look like a hippie commune.
The Harsh Reality of the New Public Square
If you are going to protest in 2026, you need to understand the ground you are standing on. You are not standing in a zone of absolute liberty. You are standing in a highly regulated, monitored, and legally "sanitized" environment.
The battle for free speech was lost not when this man was arrested, but when we collectively decided that the "right not to be offended" was a valid legal concept. Once you accept that premise, you have already handed over the keys. The state doesn't care about your specific cause; it cares about maintaining order and minimizing friction. If your words create friction, the state will use the tools you gave it to smooth you over.
The fix isn't to complain about "biased" policing or to make bad-faith comparisons to the 70s. The fix is to dismantle the legislative obsession with "offense" and return to a standard where only direct, credible threats of physical violence are a matter for the police.
Until then, stop acting surprised. You’re being arrested by the very laws you thought would protect you.
Pick up your sign. Know the risks. But don't you dare call it 1977. We did this to ourselves.
Go back to the drawing board and decide if you actually want free speech, or if you just want your side to have the megaphone.
