Women's Rights Rally in Melbourne: Police Presence Was Never Optional

Written By WRNA

In early September, Victoria Police advised the organisers of the Restore Women's Rights rally that there would be no police presence and no exclusion zone at their event, to be held on the steps of Victorian Parliament. Organisers were told to call triple zero if trouble arose.

Rally organisers made clear that the gathering would go ahead regardless; women would exercise their right to peacefully assemble and to voice their concerns about women's sex-based rights. Women's Rights Network Australia wrote to Victoria Police on 11 September, to raise our serious concerns and ask that the decision be reconsidered.

We drew on our own recent experience at our Sydney rally on 23 August 2026, before which two of our scheduled speakers received death threats. We also pointed to what is now a well-documented pattern when women gather to speak publicly about sex-based rights:

"Women assemble peacefully to speak; the assembly attracts organised counter-protest, and with it a number of unaffiliated people who come looking for a confrontation; the situation then escalates. That escalation is not something the women attending have sought. It is imposed on them."

Melbourne knows this pattern well. The 2023 Let Women Speak rally on the steps of Parliament House was attended by aggressive counter-protestors and gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. Our letter also set out the more recent record:

“Rally in 2024: Roughly 20 women's rally participants were outnumbered by around 150 counterprotesters, some of whom threw projectiles. A person was taken into custody over an alleged assault on police. See: The Guardian

Rally in April 2025: As reported by The Age, "trans-rights activists and police clashed as protesters roamed the city after gathering to disrupt a women’s rights rally.”

Rally in August 2025: Around 80 masked counterprotesters, dressed in black, sought to disrupt a rally of about 120 women. Four people were arrested. See: AAP News”

WRNA was not alone. Others, including Family First Victorian Leader and Western Metropolitan MP Moira Deeming, also contacted Victoria Police to raise safety concerns.

Two days before the rally, Victoria Police changed its position, confirming that "extra police resources are being deployed to manage the rally and counter protest". The Australian also reported the backflip.

The Melbourne gathering went ahead on Saturday 19 September. Counter-protesters were once again present, and WRNA understands that a cameraman working for Family First sustained minor injuries during an incident at the rally.

WRNA thanks everyone who wrote, spoke up, and turned out. It is hard to understand how the rally was ever judged not to need a police presence. As we said in our letter to Victoria Police:

"A decision to provide no police presence and no exclusion zone at the 19 September rally is not a neutral one. It is a decision that places a foreseeable and documented risk onto a group of women who are gathering peacefully to exercise their right to free expression."

"The right to assemble peacefully and to speak publicly is not conditional. It is precisely where such activity attracts hostility that policing is required."

WRNA
Next

Media Release: Sall Grover Withdraws from Sydney Rally Following Threats; Rally to Proceed