Police in Western Australia are investigating a “device” thrown into the crowd at the city’s Invasion Day rally, sparking a security scare that ended the protest.
Speaking to the media on Monday afternoon, the WA police commissioner, Col Blanch, said a 31-year-old man had been arrested after allegedly throwing the device.
The device allegedly contained “ball bearings, contained screws, and those items were wrapped around an unknown liquid in a glass container”, Blanch said.
WA police issued a warning on Monday afternoon, urging the public to stay away from the area and await further advice, saying they had deployed “significant police resources” and set up an exclusion zone around Forrest Place.
“Members of the public who are situated at the upper level on the eastern side of Forrest Place observed a male throw an object down in front of the stage area,” Blanch alleged.
“Those members of the public immediately spoke to police who were also attending the rally.”
One attendee, Jade Cameron, told Guardian Australia that it was “chaos”.
“They [police] tried to [stop] the elders and everyone from going into Forrest Chase but we didn’t know why, they refused to let us have our usual ceremony,” she said.
“We are deciding to push on and do circles all through the street, [but] we managed to get the elders away safe and proceed.”
The WA premier, Roger Cook, said it was “unacceptable” and that it was now more important than ever to respect each other’s views.
“Australia Day gives us the opportunity to reflect and focus on the best of our nation,” Cook said. “We can’t let hate win.”
It comes as Invasion Day protests wrapped up in the eastern states, with tens of thousands of people marching. Police interrupted clashes between the large crowds and a scattering of anti-immigration protesters in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane.
In Melbourne, about two dozen of the more than 500 people who attended the March for Australia anti-immigration rally, which was scheduled for the same time as the 30,000-strong Invasion Day rally, clashed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander protesters and allies as the larger march was making its way down Bourke Street.
Police in riot gear and mounted police were concentrated on the March for Australia rally but interrupted four altercations between the two groups, involving between two and 10 anti-immigration protesters.
In Sydney, Invasion Day rally organisers began by paying respect to the families of expectant mother Sophie Quinn, her partner John Harris, and her aunt Nerida, who were killed in the far west New South Wales town of Lake Cargelligo on Friday, allegedly by Quinn’s estranged former partner.
Speaking alongside people holding photos of the three victims, Paul Silva, a Dunghutti man, said Quinn was “beautiful young woman with a gentle and kind nature”.
“She was loving, looking forward to becoming a mum for her first time, her baby boy never got a chance to make it by her side,” he said.
Police only confirmed six days ago that participants in the NSW march would not face the risk of arrest. Anti-protest measures, introduced in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, were scaled back to focus on the eastern suburbs and exclude the planned protest route from Hyde park to Victoria park.
Silva, a Dunghutti man, is the nephew of David Dungay Jr, who died in custody in 2015. Earlier, he promised to march even if the anti-protest laws weren’t lifted.
Silva, whose son gave the acknowledgement of country, said Invasion Day marches were about educating “our emerging next generation to ensure that they continue to fight”.
One speaker at the rally criticised the Minns government for “silencing protests” in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, saying: “I send my love and condolences to the families of that terrible attack, but it’s just as important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples get the same respect and recognition”.
“The Minns government has given the New South Wales Police more authority to try and stop our rallies, which creates more opportunities to try and brutalise us.
“Always was, always will be, Long live our resistance along with the Intifada.”
Some participants carried Palestinian flags, while others carried the Aboriginal flag and even Irish flags.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry is investigating whether to ban the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
‘We are here because truth matters’
Organisers of the Melbourne rally won a federal court case against Victoria police on Friday against stop and search laws in the CBD.
At the Melbourne rally, Arrernte woman Celeste Liddle read a statement on behalf of the organising body Warriors for Aboriginal Resistance, saying the crowd walked “in the footsteps of those Aboriginal activists, who, 88 years ago to this day, walked through Sydney on what was the first Day of Mourning protest”.
“We are here because many decades down the track, most of their demands in their revolution on that day, which included full equality, recognition of our cultural rights and the end to the brutalisation of our people remain unanswered,” she said.
Travis Lovett, a former deputy commissioner of the Yoorook Justice Commission, called for a national truth-telling commission – which was promised as one part of the commitment to the Uluru statement for the heart. Support for the proposed body has cooled since the failed voice to Parliament referendum in 2023.
“We are here because truth matters, we are here because listening matters, we are here because this country cannot heal unless it faces its history honestly,” Lovett said.
In Canberra, the Invasion Day march went past a group of 40 March for Australia protesters dressed in Australian flags on the lawns of Old Parliament House.
Organisers urged people attending the rally not to engage with those protesters.
A line of federal police separated the two groups, with some of the anti-immigration attendees appearing to confront those in the rally as they walked past, including shouting at a mother with two young children.
Speaking at the Canberra rally, Butchulla woman Wendy Brookman says that education is key to ensuring Australia’s violent past is acknowledged.
“You cannot heal a wound, you refuse to look at,” she said. “I don’t accept the nation that celebrates while First Nations people grieve. I don’t accept being told to get over it while the consequences are still being lived.”
There was also a minor confrontation between Invasion day protests and a man draped in an Australian flag in Brisbane, where speakers addressed a crowd of several thousand people and called for a royal commission into racism against Indigenous people – likening it to the royal commission on antisemitism after the Bondi terror attack.
Speaker Dale Ruska said racism had been normalised against First Nations people.
“Australia is an historical crime scene. It is an historical crime scene, and it is worth the same sort of effort that the people that suffered Bondi are given,” he said.
