The Opposition arts spokesman, Peter Garrett, said the proposals would presumably include civil disobedience of the kind practised by Gandhi, by many Australians during the Vietnam War, or in protests against the Jabiluka uranium mine. Mr Garrett sought legal advice from senior counsel Peter Gray which said "Australians involved in the artistic and creative fields are particularly vulnerable to the risk of prosecution".
Mr Garrett said promises that art would "almost certainly not" be prosecuted were not good enough. "There should not even be a possibility of prosecution," he said. "If these clauses will never be used, why have them?
"It is in the hands of the attorney-general to decide if an artist should be prosecuted, which will be cold comfort to those who've witnessed the failure of Mr Ruddock to protect core principles of our legal system."
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