Australia's crackdown on the right to protest could smother the momentum needed to tackle the climate crisis, a United Nations investigator warns.
Marcos Orellana is an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. He recently toured Australia at the invitation of the federal government.
But the official visit has opened up a can of worms.
The UN Special Rapporteur on toxic threats and human rights has made a series of scathing assessments that Australia must answer to when the council gathers next year.
They include what he calls troubling and draconian restrictions on the right to protest in several states, where new laws sparked by climate protests allow for extended jail time and fines worth tens of thousands of dollars.
"In various meetings that I had in Australia, people were voicing concerns about what they felt were disproportionately overreaching restrictions to the right to protest - as had never been experienced previously," Dr Orellana told AAP.
"This goes to the heart of civil and political rights that underlie the workings of political democracies."
He has no doubt the crackdown could stifle the momentum needed to achieve effective climate action.
"Whatever the original intentions of the laws, their effect is invariably to give priority to the status quo over the changes that are needed in policy in order to confront the climate emergency," he said.
"What matters from an international law point of view is what effect are these laws having ... Are they having a disproportionate, overreaching impact? That seems to be the case.
"Where civil society, where individuals find obstacles and high risks to peaceful protest, its ability to articulate democratic pressure for change is undoubtedly greatly diminished."
If anyone understands what Dr Orellana is talking about it's two loyal members of the Knitting Nannas environment group - 72-year-old psychologist Helen Kvelde and pre-school teacher Dominique Jacobs, 59.
In March last year, they decided to participate in a Blockade Australia climate protest and used two removalist vans to obstruct a road at Port Botany in Sydney.
Helen live streamed the action and used a bike lock to attach herself to the steering wheel, while Dom climbed on top of her truck and unfurled a banner that read "Australia is a climate vandal".
Dom reckons the whole thing lasted roughly 40 minutes and Helen recalls being shocked at the scale of the police response that led up to the only time she's ever been arrested.
She said riot police with guns showed up, with one officer telling her: "If you don't give us the key to the bike lock, we'll have to hurt you."
"So I did. I felt really weak and pathetic for doing that. But I was scared of being hurt."
The next day the NSW government announced it would ramp up its response to disruptive protests like the one that rolled on around the port for several days.
It said there would be a new strike force to deal with activists and harsher penalties including fines of $22,000 and up to two years' jail for protesters who blockade thoroughfares.
The pair weren't charged under the new, harsher laws because they weren't yet in force. Nevertheless they are still living with the fallout from the Port Botany protest, 18 months later.
Both remain under year-long good behaviour bonds imposed when a court dealt with their charges of blocking a road, and disobeying police. No convictions were recorded, and no fines were issued.
Both women had also faced a third more serious charge of inciting others to commit a crime, which could have seen them jailed. Helen says that related to her live stream but Dom copped it too because police deemed it a joint criminal enterprise.
The charge was ultimately dropped for both women, but not until just before they faced court, leaving them to worry for months that they might be locked up.
Both women say they also felt persecuted by onerous bail conditions.
"Initially we had to report to the police every day. Now in my case, that was about a 40-minute round trip," says Helen, who lives in a small town in the mid-north coast region.
Dom, a mother to seven including five foster children, faced a 52km round trip in order to report daily to the Gloucester police station, which was sometimes unstaffed.
If no one was there she had to telephone the Taree police station to say she'd tried to report at Gloucester.
She laughs when she recounts the high farce of being advised to video herself on the verandah of the Gloucester station to prove she was actually there - advice that proved handy when she was challenged a few of times.
When Dom ultimately decided to seek a variation in her reporting conditions, she went to Taree courthouse but says her application didn't even make it into court.
"I was told it had been stopped by Sydney police," she says.
Dom sought the help of the Environmental Defenders Office, who engaged a barrister to argue the matter and a Sydney court ruled she didn't have to report to police at all until her case was heard.
Both women say it's a relief to read Dr Orellana's comments, and see a high authority challenging the rise of anti-protest laws in various states.
They're particularly happy Australia will be invited to answer the investigator's concerns when he presents the final report on his Australian tour to the UN Human Rights Council next year.
By then, it's possible the climate action campaigners might have notched up a serious win.
As members of the environment group Knitting Nannas, and with the help of the Environmental Defenders Office, they have mounted a constitutional challenge against the NSW laws.
Those laws ban protesters from gathering around major facilities and train stations, and protests that block others from using those facilities.
The women have told the NSW Supreme Court the effect of the laws has been intimidation, fear and suppression.
The EDO has argued the laws are unconstitutional because they infringe on protesters' freedom of political expression and it's hoped there might be a decision before the end of the year.
Helen has a quick answer when asked what she says to politicians who believe she has no right to disrupt the functions of a city.
"Well what gives them the right to destroy the planet?" she says.
"The magistrate said we were very good people - we had all these character references - and that our hearts were in the right place, but we stopped people getting home to their dinner.
"How ridiculous! Getting your dinner tonight is not going to save you in five to 10 years when the planet goes up in smoke."
Dom says there's exasperation among protesters who've literally tried everything else to inspire the action needed to secure a safe, liveable planet.
"All the petitions, the letters, all the actions that we've all done. Every day you do things like that. You ring a politician, or you write a letter, or a submission. You do all of those things and it doesn't make a difference.
"The politicians have all the available science at their fingertips.They know what's happening. If they do their job, we won't have to do this."
Police have not responded to AAP's request for comment on climate protests.
Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also not responded.
