The news organisations need to take this to court - It's not up to the police to decide what news outlets can or cannot cover :mad:.

As said above, spotters through the city would have made media choppers redundant.

Maybe the Vic Police could carry the COVID Vaccine with them and get a few shots away during the next protest. :E

Hey CON, plod restricts access to their areas of “operation” every other day of the week, no difference here. What could be achieved by taking them to court, other than making lawyers some more money ??
As for coverage, put a reporter on every street corner and do live crosses as the rampaging mobs go by, that would be better than the crap they serve up even with the helicopter. Plod never stopped them from covering it, they just stopped their helicopters getting in the way of doing what we pay plod to do.
BTW, p#@s poor response from a p#@s poor guvmint.

That's a brilliant idea, force vaxx any anti force vaxx protester that gets arrested. "Sorry, you have been arrested, but a mandatory requirement for entry to the lockup is being at least 1 shot vaccinated, so bend over Brutus"

BTW another form of passport these people will be getting is a criminal record passport, good luck getting access to certain worksites esp those that require an ASIC if you get caught attending. Remember that both ASIC and MSIC holder requirements changed recently to exclude a lot of activities happening in that protest, including the protest in itself.

I also witnessed some weird trump supporters in the midst of this fray, good luck getting a Visa to the US if you get a record from this.

I suppose the final point being, they are arguing about freedoms, when they are severely limiting their freedom options for the rest of their lives, not just the next few months of lockdown, I hope they considered this before the angry street based tirade.

A police heli has been up each day flying around the Melbourne CBD for fairly lengthy hours over the last couple of days.

The last thing I would want is numerous other helis in that airspace when operational decisions need to be made at short notice. As ASA is responsible for that airspace the police have every right to request it be restricted if it's in the interests of operations.

Last weekend the VicPol King Air 350 was also flying for hours conducting surveillance of potential protest movements into the CBD which I thought interesting.

It's an odd mix of people involved in the latest Melbourne protests/riots for sure.

I've witnessed several groups on their way home from this week's actions - a strange mix of right wing extremists, religious nut jobs, garden variety anti-vaxxers and a few genuine tradies scattered among them.

The majority of Melbournians - including most tradies I know (now out of work) - are appalled at the actions of this minority.

The restriction was put in place so that the TV news couldn't do live feeds which the protesters could use to coordinate their responses. Nothing sinister or Big Brother about it just common sense when dealing with a rabble. I believe the SAS had a similar requirement at Princess Gate which itself came as a lesson from the 1972 Munich massacre.

One of my tradie mates is on forced leave anyway because another tradie at worksite had covid during that day, so two weeks of home iso. He just stayed home and got drunk, and some new tatts, thinks the city protesters are fools.

A PM who doesn't care, with numerous mess ups along the way. No early vaccines or quarantine. Now he has his 'look over here!' submarines. States with handballed responsibilities and now essentially holding cases low until a reasonable amount of protection in the communities is reached. Rampant misinformation from outlets like Sky News and high profile politicians.

That being said it's pretty rich for countries to be critical of us in some ways, especially in regards to COVID.

What???? Getting Tatts instead of home iso????
Quick, someone call the ze Covid Commandant!!!!

Who's to say they didn't get drunk at home then give themselves the tatts? :E

Also known as the Obergruppenfuehrer, or so I'm told.

No..hang on...that's Mrs Pinky..:O

The Restricted Airspace was lifted today following a Federal Court ruling in favor of the three TV outlets, allowing them to fly over the CBD and broadcast footage live until a court trial can be set down, maybe as early as next week.

CASA were compliant but this was a nonsense from the start: a simple co-ordination with the TV stations not to broadcast anything live has been done before, and has a precedent. Now the VicPol Command have ensured they won't be trusted for some time to come.

"look after your own back yard and don't worry about your neighbour"

That would sort of make sense ... if your actions didn't negatively impact anyone else .. which they do. We're all in this together - unfortunately.

The people in the building industry do network and do share stories on what politicians, rich business people, famous people, and senior public servants are building in their back yards. I wouldn't be surprised if many senior Victorian public servants, who have not suffered any financial stress in the last 18 months, have been renovating their homes during the downtime.

To add to the hypocrisy, I also find it odd that with barbers and hairdressers closed, the very same people who mandated this have been looking well groomed throughout all the lockdowns when I'm currently looking like the wild man from Borneo.

So why punish the whole building industry with a two week shutdown? It doesn't make any sense when the majority of them have been playing straight. It's seem very dictatorial and ill-advised, just like the very stupid decisions early on by the Victorian government with hotel quarantine. It seems you can't change stupid, and these senior Victorian public servants seem to be the worst of the lot and we can't get rid of them.

Best post.

Funny how the ABC now describe trade union members who are demonstrating (tradies) as right wing extremists. No Aunty, they are lefties like you.

Except the fact that us that actually live in Melbourne and have witnessed the protests have seen them infiltrated by Neo Nazis and Trump Supporters, and whatever else is going on here. The wearing of high vis does not mean they are all union. I'm against mandatory vaccination, but now we've had normal vaccination hubs closed due to protesters spitting on nurses, so if you want to ask 'what have we become' ask more 'what have they become' as 99% of Melbournians do not agree with the protests and what they are doing. And since the shrine event the group has given itself hate status. The CFMEU distanced itself from the protests on day one as they said the vast majority of their members were in favor of vaccination, so this is NOT a union action.

The fact known agitator (and convicted wife basher) Avi Yemeni was involved in the protests is confirmation these were far right extremists, not organised trade unionists.

I don't think there is one workers union in Melbourne that is against Vaccination (mandatory vaccination is the sticking point). Numerous unions have actually spoken out against these protests, one of the best notices was from the Victorian Ambulance union who are disgusted by what is happening both in the protests and actions against their members when approaching these 'anti-vaxx' types.

It’s funny how you bash the ABC for that yet ignore the fact that other news sources like the SMH and Murdoch’s own news.com.au have labelled the protesters as “far right”, in addition to the presence of Trump flags, Nazi salutes and QAnon paraphernalia at the protests, means the ABC (and all other media) are correct, these were mostly protesters of the right.

Left leaning protesters would’ve been more female, more “feral”, more “hippy”, at the Shrine I saw mostly angry young men.