00:00After months of rallies in the streets of Melbourne, new laws targeting protesters are
00:07in the works.
00:09Victorians have witnessed extreme, dangerous and radical conduct in numerous public demonstrations
00:14over the past year.
00:15The government is moving to ban face masks and balaclavas, locks, glue and chains and
00:21symbols of terrorist groups, building on laws already banning Nazi swastikas and salutes.
00:27If you stand for something, you don't get to hide behind a mask here in Victoria.
00:31Ski masks are for Marlborough in the ski season, they're not for the streets of Melbourne.
00:35But it's not a protest that sparked the proposed laws.
00:38It was the suspected terrorist attack on the Adas Israel Synagogue.
00:42These measures that were announced today directly respond to some calls that the JCCV did make
00:48to the Premier in the wake of this attack on the Adas Israel Synagogue.
00:53The government is also looking at exclusion zones to stop protests outside places of worship.
00:59That's not peaceful protest, it's menacing behaviour.
01:02A lot of marches will take people past places of worship.
01:05There's a real concern that this may lead to effectively a permit system by stealth.
01:11The Premier argues the laws are needed to protect social cohesion, something she's faced
01:16backlash over in recent months.
01:19When you look at Jacinda Ardern and you look at Anthony Albanese sitting on their hands
01:23for the last 14 months, of course it's escalated and it was always going to.
01:28It's a knee-jerk response to appease a section of our community.
01:31What needs to be happening, we need to be talking to everyone.
01:35We are the Australian-Palestinian community just as Australian-Victorian-Melbournian as
01:40anybody else.
01:41The government says peaceful protest will be protected and it will consult on the proposed
01:45laws over the summer before introducing legislation when the parliament returns in February.
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