Protest rally to highlight threats to photographic freedom

Landscape photographer Ken Duncan is organising a rally in Sydney in August to raise awareness about the eroding rights of photographers in Australia. 

“We must be the only country in the world where you could get a criminal record for taking a picture of a rock,” said Duncan, who is chairman of Arts Freedom Australia.

“And because of this shameful situation, I am asking photographers and other concerned citizens to protest against the undemocratic regulations which now restrict film-making and photography in many of our public places,” he said.

Duncan claims Australian photographers are losing their rights to freedom of expression – “it doesn’t matter whether they are full-time professional, part-time or strictly amateur, as every person who has a camera can be threatened with unjust laws and regulations.”

Arts Freedom Australia will hold a rally near Campbell's Cove on Sydney Harbour on Sunday, August 29 between 10am and 12 noon to reinforce its message.

“We need to make the Australian public aware of this threat to our freedoms,” Duncan said.

Founded in 2004, Arts Freedom Australia is an umbrella body representing Australia’s major photographic associations as well as many individual photographers.

AFA was formed because of an industry-wide concern about government policies that were turning Australia into a land of “forbidden horizons”.

AFA has recently completed a comparative study of legislation and policies imposed on photographers and film-makers within Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US.

“The result of this study demonstrates that the rights of Australian photographers and film-makers are being seriously affected by a myriad of rules and regulations that impose prohibitive restrictions, high fees, and bureaucratic application protocols,” Duncan said.

“What we should have in this country are simple rules – like they have in America’s national parks – which allow photography to be carried out in all places where the public can go.” 

Duncan cited the photographic restrictions at Uluru, the “photographic licences? required in the national parks of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority Regulation 2006 and the onerous Use of Public Open Space regulations of Sydney’s Waverley Council as attacks on freedom of expression.