{"id":145143,"date":"2025-09-15T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/145143\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T14:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T14:38:07","slug":"australian-pm-blames-aggressive-protesters-for-closure-of-local-electorate-office-anthony-albanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/145143\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian PM blames \u2018aggressive protesters\u2019 for closure of local electorate office | Anthony Albanese"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese<\/a>, has closed his inner-Sydney electorate office after almost 30 years, saying his hand had been forced by repeated protests outside the office.<\/p>\n

Albanese\u2019s office in Marrickville, in his electorate of Grayndler, has long been a target of demonstrations, particularly over the war in Gaza, including a months-long sit-in<\/a> outside the office in 2024.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSadly, over the past two years, aggressive protesters have repeatedly blocked access to the electorate office for people seeking assistance,\u201d Albanese said in a statement announcing the decision on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has also significantly affected churchgoers attending the neighbouring St Clements Church, including disruption to funerals and other church services.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site, which closed on Friday, was owned by a neighbouring Anglican church, which Albanese claimed ended the lease because of the ongoing protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were people being abused going to funerals,\u201d he told ABC Radio on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt basically became untenable for people \u2026 it just does my head in that people think that a cause is advanced by that sort of behaviour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ross Ciano, the senior minister at the neighbouring church, told the ABC<\/a> the decision to discontinue the lease was made by the Sydney diocese, which owns the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir lease was up and yeah, it was time for a change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also growing as a church so we\u2019ve also got other ideas as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciano said of Albanese\u2019s comment about protesters abusing churchgoers that \u201cthe majority [of protests] has been fine but there\u2019s been times, it got a little bit intense\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had phone calls, at times, where people haven\u2019t felt safe walking down this part of Marrickville Road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciano also said only one funeral service had been affected \u201cbut it\u2019s just been noise\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also got people in our church who support the message [of the protesters],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a multicultural congregation who have different views and that\u2019s what we think is a healthy congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Where he goes, we follow\u2019<\/p>\n

Families for Palestine, a New South Wales<\/a> advocacy group, denied protesters had blocked locals from accessing the office and said in a statement it was aware of only one funeral during its months-long picket of the office.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOn that day, only a small handful of people remained at the picket [and] out of respect for the grieving family and community we sat in silence,\u201d the group wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a group of mothers, many with newborns and young children. Our actions were always safe, yet our demands were clear: that \u2018Australia\u2019 end its complicity in genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group added: \u201cJust so Albo is clear, where he goes, we follow!\u201d<\/p>\n

A new site will be chosen for the office, which allows constituents to seek help from his staff on a range of matters.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, described the protests as \u201cpolitical intimidation\u201d, issuing a statement accusing demonstrators of stopping the public from accessing their elected representative.<\/p>\n

The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the closure was \u201cvery sad\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the kind of protests we\u2019ve seen outside the prime minister\u2019s electoral office over the last couple of years have been a complete disgrace,\u201d he told ABC Radio.<\/p>\n

Marles accused the Greens of stoking the pro-Palestinian protests, saying the minor party \u201chas a lot to answer for\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, defended her party\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

She said she was proud that Australians had taken to the streets, including those outside the prime minister\u2019s office, to protest against the war in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit rich of the prime minister to reduce that chorus of sentiment down to what it means for him in his own electorate office,\u201d she told reporters in Canberra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has closed his inner-Sydney electorate office after almost 30 years, saying his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-145143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}