Escalation in Tactics, as VicPol Raid Nonviolent Zelda8 Protesters: Interview with WACA

Victoria Police Port (Public Order Response Team) officers conducted eight raids upon properties around Naarm-Melbourne early morning on Friday, 27 March 2026, in order to apprehend eight women, who’d taken part in a nonviolent protest action involving the statue of Victorian feminist activist Zelda D’Apron that sits on Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land at Victorian Trades Hall.

The nonviolent protest took place at 11 am on 6 March 2026. It involved draping the statue in an apron that said, “Difficult Woman”, which alluded to how PM Anthony Albanese recently labelled activist Grace Tame, following her vocally protesting for Palestine, but it was also alluding to the gains that Zelda herself, a significant 1960s feminist icon, brought for women in terms of equal pay.

Seven women aged between 34 and 71 were then taken to various VicPol stations for charging. They’ve been charged with offences such as criminal damage to property, behaving in a riotous manner in public and graffitiing. Six of these women were loaded up with extreme bail conditions, while the eighth woman was not located or arrested last week, as the cops raided the wrong location.

But to say that this is an overreaction in response to a nonviolent feminist protest action is an understatement. VicPol claims these women were armed with umbrellas, to conceal themselves, and spray paint, to deface the statute, despite this only having been used on the ground. And the police allege the women had changed into “Difficult Woman” t-shirts to hide their identities.

The Zelda Appreciation Party

WACA (Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance) spokesperson Marion is speaking on behalf of the eight women known as the Zelda8, because as part of their extreme bail conditions, they are forbidden from speaking to the press. Some of the Zelda8 are WACA members but some of them are not active members of the seasoned Victorian activist group.

The interview was conducted on 31 March 2026, at which point the eighth Zelda8 member had not yet been tracked down by police. She was planning on turning herself in at a local police station at 12 pm on 1 April. However, perhaps spurred by embarrassment about raiding the wrong place last week, VicPol officers conducted a dawn raid on this woman just hours prior to her giving herself up.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to WACA spokesperson Marion about what actually happened to these women when being raided early morning, as well as what sort of bail conditions these hardened nonviolent protesters received for chalking the sidewalk, and the fact that it seems the insistence that their protest was somehow “antisemitic” has led to the “hyperbolic” police response.

Early morning last Friday, 27 March 2026, the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team raided the homes of eight women. Now referred to as the Zelda8, these women were arrested and charged in relation to a protest that was held at Victorian Trades Hall.

You’re speaking on behalf of the Zelda8, as they’ve been loaded up with bail conditions, including a prohibition on speaking to the press about their case, which relates to a protest action it is hard to believe spurred this response.

So, firstly, Marion, can you tell us about what happened last Friday morning?

Victoria Police Divisional Response Unit in a coordinated action with the Joint Counter Terrorism Team raided the homes of seven women. They were looking for an eighth, but they went to the wrong address.

The women were woken from their beds, just before 7 am, with a call that it was the police and if they didn’t open the door immediately, their doors would be knocked down.

So, the women opened their doors to face PORT cops. They were dressed in full combat gear, with battering rams at the ready to break the doors down.

The women were arrested and handcuffed, whilst they were still in their nightclothes. The police had warrants for searches for electronic devices, clothing, shoes, as well as red liquid chalk pens.

The women were then held in their homes and handcuffed, for about an hour. Two women were denied the right to take their medication. And for one woman it is crucial that she take her medication at the same time every day.

One woman has a son who has a medical condition, and stress can bring on an epileptic fit, but when she told officers that, they just dismissed her son’s needs and her concern for that. That young man is a university student, and his electronic devices were taken as well.

These raids all occurred at the same time, and there was on average, about ten cops at every house. This is a huge team they got together to raid people.

So, one might expect that these women are alleged to have committed very serious crimes to have warranted their doors potentially being knocked down early morning.

So, why was VicPol’s notorious PORT unit raiding these women just after dawn? 

Their crime was having draped an apron over the statue of feminist activist Zelda D’Aprano. The apron had the words “Difficult Woman” written on it.

This was in solidarity with Grace Tame, but it was also in solidarity with feminist activists who have continued to fight to close the gender pay gap, and for women’s equal rights as Zelda did.

The Zelda D’Aprano statue at Victorian Trades House is a revered landmark in Naarm-Melbourne. Can you tell us about Zelda and why she is such a heralded figure down south?

The history of Zelda D’Aprano is inspirational. In the 1960s and 70s, she was fighting for equal pay. She chained herself to the front of the Arbitration Court.

The union bosses hated her. They hated her as much as the industry bosses did. She was a woman who kept fighting for women’s rights, despite the union bosses. But now they herald her as a heroine. At the time, they didn’t want to know her.

The statements “difficult woman” and “eight hours for whom” were written on the footpath during the protest. The statue was not damaged in any way.

The “eight hours for whom” goes to the fact that women do most of the labour paid and unpaid and there is still a huge gap.

So, why were the unions against Zelda if she was campaigning for equal rights and equal pay? 

They were focused on the rights of the male-dominated union of workers, and they felt that they should focus on the men first.

They considered men were the ones who needed the secure jobs, and they didn’t support equal pay until much later in the 1970s, long after Zelda and other women had fought for it.

Also, there has been ongoing action around Trades Hall for the last two years, which is due to the Australian union movement not having heeded the call of Palestinian workers unions to mount a boycott, divestment and sanctions embargo of weapons companies and war criminals in the Israeli government.

The unions have not taken any action at all, and the Zelda action was highlighting this fact.

These police raids appear as quite a violent and extreme reaction – or at least, they threatened violence – in regard to what was a nonviolent demonstration involving eight women. So, why is this happening? 

This was a political protest. But in response to the action, the secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Luke Hilakari, called the police.

Hilakari also stalked the woman as they left. He took photos of them as they were leaving. He took photos of them whilst they were in a car changing out of their “Difficult Woman” t-shirts and putting on other clothes.

Hilakari provided the photos and a five-page statement to police. And he suggested that this was an antisemitic attack, because Zelda D’Aprano was Jewish.

But Zelda was certainly not a Zionist. Zelda was a communist. She left the Communist Party because it was male-dominated, and the party didn’t recognise the rights of women in the 1960s.

To call Hilakari’s attack mischievous is wrong because it was a malicious attack to claim that it was an antisemitic action, because that suggestion spread like wildfire in the media, particularly amongst the Zionist press.

This is being labelled antisemitic, I presume also because you were highlighting the label “difficult woman”, of which PM Anthony Albanese labelled Grace Tame, after she’d chanted “Globalise the Intifada” at the 9 February anti-Herzog rally on Gadigal land at Sydney Town Hall?

Exactly.

So, you’ve charged Hilakari with being malicious, but you’ve also hinted at the fact that in twisting the circumstances of this action to label it antisemitic, the secretary has also tried it on a bit.

This must be obvious to law enforcement on some level, so how do we explain VicPol then raiding these women over a nonviolent protest like this? 

Given the current political climate, we know that anyone can be charged with antisemitism if they are holding an anti-Zionist or antigenocide position. So, we understand the seriousness of this situation.

In Queensland, you can now be charged over saying, “From the river to the sea.” You can even be arrested over wearing a singlet or having a banner with those words written on it.

Last week, a woman was raided in Sydney for her participation in a Palestinian protest up there. So, in this climate, if you charge a group of people with being antisemitic, it is highly likely the state is going to act in a hyperbolic way.

I do think what Hilakari did was more than mischievous.

Considering these women have been tracked down and arrested over what appears to be a fairly tame protest action, what sort of bail conditions have they been slapped with? 

This is the issue. The women were held in filthy cells. Some of them didn’t get to speak to a lawyer. They’re unsure whether a lawyer was contacted or not, because there was no confirmation.

The women were told to sign bail conditions before them immediately, because if they didn’t it was the weekend, so they would not be able to appear in court for a bail hearing until the Monday. So, they’d be in the cells all weekend.

One woman said she would stay all weekend, and she would go before the court for a bail hearing. This has now led to two sets of bail conditions.

Six of the seven women, who were arrested last week, were given bail conditions that include non-association orders, so they cannot contact their co-accused and they are further banned from the Melbourne CBD, which effectively prevents them from attending any protests that are held in the city, and their first mention in court is not until October this year.

So, this means these individuals are banned from the city and from speaking to their friends until at least October.

The other conditions read like a family intervention order to protect Luke Hilakari, even though he was never under any threat or attention whatsoever. He has never had any violence committed against him.

So, the women are not able to speak about him, speak about him on social media, approach him, and they can neither go near Trades Hall.

As for the woman who challenged these conditions and went before the court, she doesn’t have a non-association order, and she is neither banned from the CBD. She is banned from the block that Trades Hall sits on, and she does have the conditions that relate to Luke Hilakari.

It is very interesting that he gets these protections, because what is he actually being protected from?

You mentioned the NSW police raids on protesters in Greater Sydney last week. I had heard about these raids prior to the actions taken against the Zelda8 and indeed, these events seem related despite their occurring in different jurisdictions and with different police forces.

Four participants in the recent Herzog rally in Sydney were raided last week, and one of these raids involved police bashing in the front door at a woman’s residence.

These arrests are extreme but do appear to be in accordance with other developments in NSW. How would you say the crackdown on the Zelda8 reflects more broadly what is going on in Victoria?

This is part of a pattern of suppressing protest. The Allan government recently brought in a series of antiprotest laws. So, if you use a lock-on device – or a chain just like Zelda D’Aprano did – you will be prosecuted for using it.

At the time that legislation was brought in, Luke Hilakari gave an interview to The Age, in which he put a clear division between unionists and other protesters.

Hilakari said it was okay for unionists to march on the street and picket. He said that should be fine. But for those activists, who get in the way of mining workers or weapons manufacturers, they should have the full force of the law taken against them.

There was no working-class solidarity expressed. He sought to divide us and then manufacture consent for the Labor Party, of which he is aligned.

This is a pattern. We are seeing more extreme bail conditions. We are also seeing more serious charges being brought against protesters.

In the past, if you obstructed a road or trespassed, the person was usually charged with a summary offence. But now protesters are being charged with serious indictable offences, which include obstruct emergency worker.

So, obstructing a police officer in Victoria is classed as obstructing an emergency worker. This was also a Labor government legislative innovation. Obstruct an emergency worker is a potentially serious charge if you obstruct a road or the gate of a weapons manufacturer.

We are seeing more and more serious charges, which then appear on police records checks, so this can affect people’s employment.

We also see lots of healthcare workers, teachers, university workers and lawyers facing professional investigations or losing their jobs. We are seeing people doxxed by the Zionist lobby.

We also see an organisation from the US, the Canary Mission, which the Zionist lobby here feeds information to and then people are doxxed in their workplaces. So, we have people suspended from employment due to this doxxing.

We are seeing the state working hand-in-hand with the Zionist lobby to repress protest. It is so easy for them to now conflate antigenocide and anti-Zionist sentiment with antisemitism. This is a huge concern.

As you said, you are speaking on behalf of the Zelda8 because they’ve been restricted in speaking and you are also a member of the activist group WACA. However, not all the women involved in the demonstration are affiliated with WACA.

So, Marion, I wanted to ask lastly, as someone from WACA, which is an activist organisation that has been around for a long time and has been keeping an eye on what’s been going on, what sort of impact do you expect this will have on protests in your state and how do you see this situation further developing?

The actions of the state are designed to demobilise any protest movement. We see how policing has changed since COVID. Pre-COVID, protesters were able to negotiate with the authorities, but that is no longer happening.

So, the police have ended this type of community consultation. The police have shifted to a tactic of deliberately trying to demobilise protests.

Basically, this crackdown is designed to scare people away. These feminist activists are being made an example of to discourage others from protesting, because in upping the consequences and taking these matters more seriously, it does impact the ability of the people to protest.

But we cannot stand by and watch on as a livestreamed genocide is happening. And we are now seeing that Australia is about to feel the impact of the oil crisis, via food insecurity, increasing costs in the supermarket and on our energy bills.

We are going to start to see that impact of the inaction towards Israel as it commits genocide.

The current escalation with this is starting to see these overseas events hitting here as well. People need to realise that we can’t just stand by while a genocide is being committed.

Even in Australia, there has been this crackdown on the ability for people to protest and bring about any positive changes.

We have just got to keep working at this. It is important to resist draconian legislation and bail conditions. Bail conditions are designed to make sure that defendants show up in court. Bail conditions should never be used as a punitive measure.

Bail should not be used as a restriction on freedom of assembly.

But that’s how it is being used against the Zelda8. 

Exactly, and we are seeing it used against other activists in this exact same way.