Victorian and Tasmanian governments under fire for laws that target environmental protesters

Governments in two Australian states have been accused of undermining democracy by introducing legislation designed to criminalise environmental protests.

Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer with the Human Rights Law Centre (and an occasional Guardian contributor), said the laws were part of an alarming national trend of undemocratic infringements on protest rights.

The introduction of the legislation follows the government announcing in 2019 that it would phase out native forest logging by 2030, and several legal cases being brought against the state-owned logging agency VicForests over alleged logging breaches.

The Victorian Greens environment spokeswoman, Ellen Sandell, said the government had not provided examples and accused Labor of doing everything it could to remove barriers to native timber logging.

A Labor spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. The bill will come before the upper house later this year.