Waking up a police officer and singing a song about how you didn’t like them getting a search warrant against you is officially not disorderly.

So, based on what we *know* ….I don’t see any justification for arresting them. I’m personally disgusted in their actions, but then I don’t particularily like fat chicks either. But you don’t see me calling for the widespread arrest of fat chicks.

…. actually… now that you think of it..

While I’m disgusted at what they did. Arresting them is the wrong response. Public contempt for what they did is a more suitable response.

If you arrest people for protesting causes you don’t agree with, where do you draw the line? Either you agree with free speech, or you agree with regulated speech. There is no middle ground.

On public property, as you say, the state can regulate activity - but the state should never regulate opinion. The sticky question is what to do about behaviour that is part action and part opinion, like flag burning.

Either all burning should be banned or none. If burning things is permitted in general but illegal when the item is symbolic, like a flag or a bra, then the state is not regulating the action of burning but the opinion being symbolised.

More subtlely, a law that bans all burning but is only enforced against flag burners is also wrong. (Hypothetically, just the sort of thing a catch-all charge like “disorderly behaviour” could be used for.)

Of course there is a middle ground. I’m inclined to think that the state can regulate activity on its own land, as long as the rules are not applied in a politically motivated way. After all, we would expect the same of a private landowner. And I suspect that protesters who did the same at an Anzac service, but representing any other political view, would receive the same treatment. Did their political views make any difference?