World Congress of Families conference in chaos as venues decline to host

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/world-congress-families-venues-cancel-over-protests

Version 0 of 1.

The controversial World Congress of Families conservative Christian conference is in chaos only days before its scheduled start, after four Melbourne venues backed out of hosting the event.

High profile speakers have agreed to speak at the congress on Saturday, including the anti-abortion campaigner and Victorian upper house Liberal member Bernie Finn, and the federal government social services minister, Kevin Andrews.

The line-up of anti-euthanasia, anti-divorce and anti-gay speakers from around the world has drawn condemnation from civil rights groups.

“It’s a mess,” Margaret Butts, one of the organisers told Guardian Australia. “We have no venue at the moment – the police are telling us it’s a safety risk because of planned protests and demonstrations.

“We are frantic at the moment trying to organise something else, we’ve had four venue cancellations. I can’t talk to you because we are just too busy right now.”

Guardian Australia understands that despite the prominent speakers and hundreds of people expected to attend on Saturday, organisers had not planned event security or liability insurance.

The event was initially to be held at St Patrick’s parish hall in Mentone, about 20km south-east of the city. It was then moved to St Cecilia’s Catholic church in Glen Iris, but that venue also withdrew.

St Cecilia’s did not answer calls from Guardian Australia, but senior constable Andrew McDowell, from Cheltenham police command, said St Patrick’s was advised not to host the event because of security concerns.

“The police had a good working relationship with all involved in the event, including the organisers and demonstrators, and we are all for free speech,” McDowell said.

“But the priority is to ensure community safety and after we conducted the appropriate risk assessment, given the church proximity to the primary school, issues about road congestion and people being unable to come and go easily from their homes, with so many people expected to attend, we advised the church that the infrastructure was simply not conducive to a large scale event.”

Police were not worried about demonstrators, he said, but were concerned about the number of people expected to flood into the small community.

The most recent venue put forward was Aurora Receptions in East Brunswick, which usually hosts weddings.

But management told Guardian Australia discussions with congress organisers never got past the negotiation stage, and the venue would definitely not be hosting the event. A fourth unnamed venue had also pulled out, organisers confirmed.

A spokeswoman for Finn said the MP would still be speaking at the conference about March for the Families, an anti-abortion movement.

“He has spoken about this topic extensively before, as you would know, and will be speaking about March for the Families at the conference,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Andrews confirmed he still intended to deliver the congress opening address.

“The minister is officially opening this event as it is a conference about families, which relates to his portfolio,” she said. “The choice of conference speakers and the venue is a matter for the congress.”

The Victorian attorney general, Robert Clark, and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi will also attend.

Debbie Brennan, head of the socialist feminist organisation Radical Women, said several protest groups planned to demonstrate at the conference, wherever it was to be held.

“This event is the convening of an extreme-right movement,” she said. “We see this event for what it is – that is a very sinister consolidating of the political far-right and that’s why we’ve been organising a demonstration.”

She said the demonstration would be peaceful but would aim to disrupt the 8am “welcome” to congress. “We will exercise our free speech right to make it as hard as we can for people to get into the congress. Certainly, we will be out there in force and having loud things to say.

“We want to make it very hard for the congress to recruit new people.”

She said while the congress organisers might exercise their right to free speech, protesters had the right to share their views as well.

“We exercise our free rights to protest and speak about what the majority of the community thinks about them and to say their views will not be tolerated,” Brennan said.

“Some people are hurting very, very badly from the far right assaults on them including people with disabilities, refugees, the gay and lesbian community, unionists and women.”

Do you know more? Email melissa.davey@theguardian.com