Not my jam

Protestors should not be allowed to hold NSW to ransom. By Natalie Ward.

It was about 8.30am on Monday, March 14. I was on the Spit Bridge, on the way to a domestic violence funding announcement when suddenly, without warning, everything came to a halt. It quickly became clear: the protesters were back, sitting in the middle of the bridge. And they didn’t care about the havoc they were creating for everyone caught in the traffic standstill.

More was to come. Within a few weeks, they would target the Western Distributor, Port Botany – not once but for an entire week – then the Princes Highway near Sylvania and General Holmes Drive at Brighton-Le-Sands.

I was one of many stuck in that car park on the Spit Bridge, but that wasn’t what made my blood boil most. It was the kids in the car next to me who couldn’t get to school, the workers who couldn’t get to their jobs.

And what about the economic implications for all those truckies unable to access Port Botany? The potentially devastating consequences for someone needing urgent medical care? A mother-to-be about to have a baby?

Quite simply, I wasn’t prepared to have a small group of selfish, disruptive protesters continue to hold our state to ransom. We needed to act. Immediately, through changes to regulation, I was able to increase penalties for protesters who disrupted traffic on bridges and tunnels to up to two years’ jail and/or a $22,000 fine.

Then, after two midnight sittings and an extra day of Parliament, the NSW government passed the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill through both houses of Parliament to add prescribed major roads, public transport and infrastructure facilities, such as Port Botany, across the state.

Critics, including Kieran Pender from the Human Rights Law Centre, who wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald, have described the measures as “draconian, unnecessary and disproportionate”. The new law is none of those things. It is a measured approach to a problem that clearly the public wants us to confront. We are all fed up.

Natalie Ward is NSW Minister for Metropolitan Roads.

This piece first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald and has been republished with the author’s permission.