Gagged protesters held a silent vigil on March 23 outside Parliament House to protest the which proposed the harshest anti-protest, anti-democracy measures in Australia.
The government bill was tabled in the Legislative Council after the previous Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill was struck down by the High Court, after a strong opposition campaign.
Grassroots Action Network Tasmania organised the protest after a vote on the bill was moved forward from May.
But on March 25, the bill was defeated with Labor and progressive independent MLCs voting against it, 8-6.
The bill had proposed a one-year jail sentence for a first offence of protesting at a 鈥渨orkplace鈥, a four-year jail sentence for second offence and, potentially, 21 year鈥檚 jail for a third offence.
Motivating the bill, Primary Industries Minister Guy Barnett said: 鈥淲e support the right to protest 鈥 but we don鈥檛 support the intrusion into other people鈥檚 workplace鈥.
Labor resources spokesperson Shane Broad, 鈥淭he Liberal government has been sitting on this so called 鈥榚mergency鈥 legislation for 16 months and the only reason [it is] bringing on the bill now is because it wants to invite a fight over forest protests in the lead up to the upper house elections in May.鈥
said: 鈥淭he High Court gave the original聽Workplace (Protection from Protestors) Act 2014聽the short shrift it deserved, so the Liberals cobbled together some amendments in 2019 which they described as 鈥榰rgent鈥 and jammed through the House of Assembly with Madeleine Ogilvie鈥檚 vote, then left gathering dust in the Upper House until closer to election day.聽
鈥淭he Greens have a聽Workplace (Protection from Protesters) Repeal Bill聽already tabled in Parliament. We鈥檒l be moving to purge this unconstitutional law from Tasmania statutes as soon as we can.鈥
The bill had been supported by the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Tasmanian Forest Products Association and the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Civil Liberties Australia, the Human Rights Law Centre and the Bob Brown Foundation were among the organisations that opposed it.