Victoria Police displayed left-wing bias and worried about scrutiny from the “LGBTIQA+ community” while dealing with violent far-left counter-protesters during a series of women’s rights rallies in Melbourne, damning internal documents show.
The police files, released under Freedom of Information to a far-left blogger, also exposed the violent tactics used by left-wing extremists to try to shut down the feminist rallies, and revealed charges for supplying alcohol to minors and carrying weapons.
The documents relate to three protests: a Let Women Speak rally in March 2023 attended by Liberal MP Moira Deeming that led to her successfully suing now-dumped party leader John Pesutto for defamation, and similar Women Will Speak events in March and August last year.
In a post-event report for the 2023 rally, Victoria Police described British host Kellie-Jay Keen as “anti-transgender”, and used biased left-wing terminology while claiming that the violent far-left “Fight the Right” counter-protest group “intend to expose KEEN’s links with the ‘right’, her transphobia and show solidarity with transgender people”.
The police report then falsely claimed that a group of 16 right-wing National Socialist Network (NSN) activists who turned up with a banner saying “destroy paedo freaks” attended in order to “antagonise” the 300-400 left-wing counter-protesters.
The report also used the phrase “the crowds retaliated” to describe how the violent left-wing mob threw objects at the NSN after they performed Roman salutes.
In the post-event report for the March 2024 rally, counter-protesters were described as “left-wing motivated groups”, while right-wing activists were labelled “agitators”.
This characterisation was made despite Victoria Police’s own public statement made after the event that stated they were “disappointed at the behaviour of many” of the protesters, two of whom were arrested.
“Our members were confronted by hostile members of the crowd who acted out violently towards police,” the statement said.
“We have a long history of supporting peaceful protest but will not tolerate disgraceful and unlawful behaviour.”
Videos from the rally showed far-left activists clashing with police while others draped in rainbow flags tormenting a police horse.
Police were pretty calm in the face of provocation pic.twitter.com/OXyuOOdP8e
— Nicole 🚺☮️⚛️ #pardonassange 💜 (@Nic3218) March 23, 2024
The report for the August rally noted that the 150 left-wing counter-protesters were “aggressive, antagonistic, challenged police lines to get to steps of Parliament, used music, air horns, silly string, egg throwing, water bombs”.
At the same event police handed out infringements for supplying alcohol to minors, weapons possession, abusive behaviour and riotous behaviour.
No violence from right-wing groups was mentioned in the reports, and the NSN was not present at the second two rallies, yet Victoria Police still used more favourable language to describe the far-left protesters.
A Human Rights Impact Assessment completed after the August rally showed that police were concerned with how their handling of the event would be viewed by the left-wing counter-protesters, even after they acted violently at all three events.
“Any police action or inaction will be heavily scrutinised by community overall and the LGBTIQA+ community specifically,” the assessment stated.
The assessment did not note equivalent concerns for any other community group.
The assessment also revealed that Victoria Police search procedures were guided by biologically inaccurate far-left radical gender ideology.
“Included in Command Briefing is that searches of a transgender or gender diverse person should be conducted by a member of the same gender as that with which the person identifies or has requested,” the assessment stated.
Header image: Left, a far-left protester torments a police horse (X). Right, the NSN protest at the March 2023 Let Women Speak rally (YouTube).
