Street Marches 1977-1979

Please note that this is a work in progress and if anyone has contributions to make to add to this history of the street marches please email Ian Curr at iancurr@bigpond.com

Chronology of democratic rights campaign in Queensland compiled by the Civil Liberties Co-ordinating Committee (CLCC). It turned out to be one of the longest periods of mass defiance against a government in Australian history (with the exception of Aboriginal resistance). From 4 Sept 1977 till July 1979, Queensland police made over 3,000 arrests of 2,000 people who participated in these marches over a period of nearly 2 years. Some people were targeted and arrested on multiple occasions.

[This chronology was compiled mainly from CLCC records. All mistakes are mine. – Ian Curr, ]

4/9/1977 – ‘the day of the political street march is over’  – Joh Bjelke Petersen.

5/ 9/77 – Meeting in the University of Queensland Union building in response to Petersen’s ban on political street marches. Attended by 30 people. The meeting issues a press release and forms an interim committee. They call for a forum on the next day at the University and produce a leaflet that night.

6/9/77 – 250 people attend forum at University of Queensland. The meeting plans to march to Roma street  Forum on the next day (where a union rally about the Ted Zaphir case will be in progress) and decides to hold its first public meeting on 15 September 1977 at the University of Queensland Union complex.

7/9/77 
Brisbane – more than 400 students attempt to march from the University of Queensland to the Roma Street forum but are stopped at Checkpoint Charlie on the edge of the grounds by 200 police. Most continue to the Trade Union rally on the footpath. 200 Waterside workers marched on the footpath in the city to the rally where 5000 people are massed to protest the erosion of trade union and democratic rights. The issue of concern was the government’s attempt to limit the right to organise. Ted Zaphir was a union organiser with the Storemen and Packer’s Union and was prosecuted by the government with criminal charges for simply doing his job, organising members of his trade union.

Sydney 120 people demonstrate outside the Queensland government tourist bureau and then occupy the building. Five people are arrested.

9/9/ 77 – Campaign Against Nuclear Power (CANP) applies for a permit to march after a demonstration in King George Square against uranium mining. Date set for Raleigh and March on October 22, 1977.

12/9/77 – Attempt to march from the University of Qld is blocked by 200 police.

15/9/77 – Forum held at University of Queensland forum area during the day to discuss democratic rights. An evening meeting in the Relaxation Block of 700 people Civil Liberties coordinating committee is formed and a march planned for 22 September 1977.

20/9/77 – CLCC meeting at UQ votes in favour of marching on 22/9/77. A meeting of students Griffith University votes against a march on 22 September 1977.

21/9/77–Forum at Griffith Uni.

22/9/77–500 protestors march from University of Queensland forum area at 2 pm and are stopped at the edge of university by 300 police but continue to the King George Square on the footpath. 2000 people rally in King George Square. 700 uniform and 100 plainclothes police present, having been brought in to the city from the radius of 150 miles. 32 people are arrested (20 on the steps of King George square and 12 at Parliament house.) Two women are forced to strip and squat on the floor in the view of passing male police.

The first man arrested in Qld for demonstrating against the street march ban in 1977 was P B (a cleaner) who was arrested at 5.15pm on 22 Sept 1977 for disobeying a lawful direction. He was arrested by Constable Gary Hannigan, then from Sandgate CIB and the youngest ever detective and member of the Qld Special Branch. Hannigan’s dad was an Inspector of police.

I R (student at QUT) was arrested at 5.49pm, then L B (unemployed) at 5.55pm, L M (graduate from Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education) at 6.00pm, P A (Australian Union of Students representative at University of Queensland) at 6.58, N N (Student at Griffith University) at 7.03pm. The last person arrested in King George Square that night was J M ( student) who was arrested at 7.07pm.

All these people except for P B had been attending meetings at the University of Queensland of the newly formed group to fight the ban. It had been named the Civil Liberties Co-ordinating Committee or ‘CLCC’. By that last arrest, 20 people had been arrested on the King George Square steps. Another 12 were arrested later at parliament house.

The women arrested were stripped-searched in the watchouse that night in the presence of male police. Maris, a young student and member of the CLCC, organised a defence for all the arrested people in the courts and a few were acquitted. This was the beginning of 3,000 arrests of 2,000 people and court appearances which would continue unabated for 2 years – every time there was a political street march.

28/9/77 – Forum on civil liberties at Griffith Uni. An official complaint is lodged by Qld. Uni students Union Womens’ Committee about the stripping of women arrested on Sept. 22.

12/10/77– Students and staff march from UQ Forum Area to King George Square to join with others  at a rally of 1,000 people at 5pm. A request for permission to march is made to the police and refused. The meeting then decides to sit down on one half of the steps of the square and stays there confronted by 700 police for three hours. A police flying wedge enters the square to confiscate speaking equipment being used to address the crowd. Eight people arrested and three are served with a summons for using speaking equipment which was confiscated and impounded by police for two weeks at considerable cost for the hire of the equipment.

22/10/77 – National anti-uranium mobilisation

Brisbane. 5000 people attend a protest rally and King George Square, 700 police present. A March into some threes on the footpath is blocked and people are arrested. A second march is attempted as an act of civil disobedience, with participants holding their hands in the air to make it clear that they not resisting arrest. Protestors are treated violently by police. A total of 418 people are arrested in the largest mass arrest in one day in Australian history.

Sydney. 20,000 protesters assemble and marched down George Street to Hyde Park in the presence of 20 police. No arrests.

Melbourne. 10,000 protesters assemble in City Square and march to trades hall. No arrests.

Toowoomba. 250 people attending rally at East Creek Park.

London. Protests is hold an anti-uranium demonstration outside the Australian high commission.

9/11/77 – Right-to-March demonstrators gatecrash Queensland press club lunch attended by the premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

11/11/77 – Forum at Queensland University. March from uni stop by police and the marches walk on the footpath to King George Square. 2500 people attended rally on the eve of the 1977 election. Marge proceeded to the steps at 5:30 pm. Three resolutions to March, one to the steps, one to the corner of Queen and Albert Street, one right up to police lines. 198 people were arrested. First linked arms march into the streets, also the first debate on resistance in the watchhouse decision was to be bailed out and to organise for election day, the following day.

12/11/77 – Brisbane. Queensland state elections. Demonstration in Fred Patterson Square. Speaking equipment confiscated by police. Five arrests. 10% swing against the government in the metropolitan area.

Sydney – 50 people demonstrate at Martin Place and March to Queensland government tourist bureau where a large poster of Bjelke-Petersen is burnt.

22/11/77 – Six people arrested on 22 October are prepared to go to jail in protest and present themselves at the courthouse. They lady go to police headquarters. About 150 people gather in support outside. Placards are confiscated and 9 people are arrested.

60 people picket Boggo Road jail. Placards are confiscated. People are given support by trade union activists who live in a house opposite the jail.

23/11/77 – 60 people picket Bogle Road jail. Placards are confiscated.

24/11/77 – Vigil at City Square in support of protesters in Boggo Road jail.

3/12/77 – Trade Union Rally and March. Chaired by Harry Hauneschild (President of the Queensland Trades and Labour council) 9 am – a silver jubilee parade, build as the biggest military spectacular in Brisbane since the war, passes through Brisbane streets. 10:30 am – rally for the right to march is held in King George Square. Unanimous vote to march by 5000 workers and students. At the end of the rally the protesters march down the steps of the Square and into Albert Street where they are confronted by approximately 700 police. 210 people are violently arrested. After the return of those not arrested to the square, a second March is held, with several further arrests. During the afternoon, the house of a CANP activist, a civil liberties lawyer and a student who records demonstrations on still photos and video are broken into and searched.

2/03/78 – Pickets at Makerston Street police headquarters in support of 5 people going to jail for not paying fine for street marching. 30 people attend, five people arrested.

4/03/78 – March on March 4th.
Rally & March call by the civil liberties coordinating committee. Attempt to fool the police and to march out of King George Square on the the Adelaide Street side. 50 people were arrested but about the same number made it to the Roma Street Forum. March on March 4th read the CLCC leaflets. This was exactly 6 months after the Queensland government banned street matches. The Sunday Mail reported: ‘Police make 50 arrests when they swiftly cleared 300 right to march demonstrators from Albert Street (sic) It was the smallest of seven marches since the street march ban was introduced.” On 26th February 1978 Bjelke-Petersen was reported as saying: “Make no mistake, any teacher who wants to try a challenge (the government ban on social studies courses – MACOS, Man: A Course of Study and Social Education Materials Project (SEMP), need have no doubt the government means what it says. They have been warned and already 700 of their colleagues are unemployed in Queensland.” (Sunday Mail, February 26th). Political interference in education was endemic in Queensland. The Nationals/Country party governments always made sure they controlled education and police ministries in the long years of government from 1957 till 1989. During part of that time they were in coalition with the Liberal Party.

These media reports are not how I remember how the struggle against the government was waged. The extra-parliamentary opposition was stronger than the opposition inside the parliament. There were about 1000 people who attended to march after the rally in the picture.

The march was preceded by speeches, comedy, song and street theatre.

There was a motion put to the rally that, in order to confuse the police, the exit march from the square be determined at the last moment by ten elected marshalls. The idea was that the right to march and organise could only be won back by direct action. The Bjelke-Petersen government had suffered a 10% swing against it since imposing the ban of street marches in order to prevent the anti-uranium movement from mobilising.

Many people voted to march but were prevented from doing so by police surrounding the square.

The CLCC flyer contrasted with pessimistic reports in the corporate media: “The CLCC has built the right to march campaign through a series of demonstrations centered on the tactic of actually marching in defiance of the ban. The success of the campaign has been its ability to go beyond a declaration of protest into actual united mass con­frontation with the state government in a disciplined way that has given no opportunities to the state government to attack us for building violence in the street.”

6/03/78 – ‘Churches cancel Palm Sunday Peace rally in protest against ban on marches‘ – Brisbane Telegraph.

11/03/1978 – International Women’s Day came up with a novel tactic – marching away from a police blockade. Police Commissioner Lewis claimed that professional agitators  took over the rally. The rally, held in Roma Street Forum with 600 people in attendance, debated whether to defy the street march ban. The rally supported of a list of women’s demands. To march was contentious because some felt it may shift the issue from women’s rights to democratic rights. This was a common theme of issue based campaigns. Similar arguments were put forward by the Campaign Against Nuclear Power (CANP) claiming that to march was playing into the hands of the Queensland government.

Others argued that women’s rights and democratic rights were inseparable. Marching was the only forum left for ordinary people to build their movement and make their demands a reality.

On this occasion, a vote to march was carried and 300 people marched with linked arms for several hundred metres up Roma St towards Roma Street Station. Queensland police arrested 49 people (30 of them women) when they finally caught up with the marchers.

31/03/1978. March from Griffith University, eight people arrested on Cassells Road near the entrance to the university. Newsagent driving a Ute tries to run down street marchers. A large contingent of special branch police direct the proceedings. Marchers elude police by going right instead of left into police lines.

11/4/78 – 60 members of Concern Christians stage a footpath march in Brisbane and begin a 24 hour vigil outside Parliament house (CM). Three clergyman arrested. They had been ordered to stop singing hymns. State opposition leader, Tom Burns, joins 20 concerned Christians in Queens Park to protest against the arrests. Another 10 people were arrested as part of a protest against the denial of democratic rights in Queensland.

14/04/1978 – Anti uranium rally in King George Square, no march but 4 people arrested.

Here is a table of arrests in Brisbane from 4 Sept 1977 till July 1979. It was first published in the Social Alternatives magazine Some of the numbers are incomplete and underestimated, the statistics were put together by the Labor Opposition shadow Minister for Police, Terry Macenroth (possibly with the help of Senator George Georges office). The ALP took no part in the organisation of these rallies and the state secretary threaten to dis-endorse Senator Georges Georges if he participated in the rally on the eve of the state election, 11 November 1977.

We provide two lists of rallies, meeting and marches that occurred in Queensland in opposition to the Bjelke-Peterson government’s ban on political marches from 1977 to 1979. Neither list is complete because street marches went contiued on till July 1979 when the government gave up on stopping anti-nuclear marches.

The first list is from the pamphlet Live to Fight, Fight to Live by the The Media Action Campaign that came out of the Democratic Rights struggle in Queensland in 1977 and 1978. This came out of the Civil Liberties Coordinating Committee (CLCC)’s Media collective. It was written and compiled hastily at the UQU Student Union and then taken south for distribution.

The second list was compiled for the pamphlet not guilty after thousands of people had been arrested.

Demonstrations 4 Sept 1977 – 3 Dec 1977