The new laws, based on disinformation to legitimise state violence against protesters, will have no effect on confronting hateful ideologies. Overview In December 2025, the Victorian government passed the Justice Legislation Amendment (Police and Other Matters) Act 2025 which added a range of new provisions to a variety of justice related legislation. Included was the…
In a submission to Australia’s upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR), MALS has assessed the Australian Government’s performance regarding its responsibility to uphold and protect our civil and political rights and the right to protest. A mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UPR is a comprehensive peer review of UN member states’…
This report details areas of concern from observations made by Melbourne Activist Legal Support across the four days of protests at the Disrupt Land Forces expo, including police use of force and weaponry, special powers, arrests, treatment of legal observers, media narratives and strategic misinformation.
Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) welcomes the class action against Victoria Police’s use of capsicum spray and excessive force against protesters at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Melbourne in October 2019.
During COVID, police throughout Australia have rapidly and aggressively expanded their already-considerable surveillance capabilities, spurred on by State and Federal governments pushing technological solutions for social control during the pandemic. Amid this, we’ve witnessed the expansion of Automated Number Plate Recognition technology to profile and record the movements of citizens in vehicles, particularly at State borders which have closed during the pandemic.
