Southern Metropolitan Region
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:53): (1064) My constituency question is to the Minister for Education. My constituent Allyssa is a student at Swinburne University of Technology. Earlier this month on 7 August she and fellow students were handing out leaflets and a petition calling for a student general meeting of the student union to discuss Palestine. University management sent security to tell the students not to do so, and after that they actually called Victoria Police onto campus. The decision to call the police onto campus to intervene in peaceful actions by students appears to be in contravention of the university’s own free speech codes. No arrests were made, but students should not be punished or threatened with police action just for peacefully standing up for human rights – in this case, peacefully talking about human rights. Minister, have you written to Swinburne University about their obligations to uphold rights protected by Victoria’s human rights charter, including rights to freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion or belief, alongside the rights to peaceful assembly and association?