Arizona state senators have said the Phoenix Police Department stopped an insurrection with their actions during a protest outside the state Capitol complex on Friday night.
Riot police deployed tear gas as protesters banged on doors and windows during the demonstration. Despite the apparent seriousness of the protest, no arrests were made.
According to a statement from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, there were around 8,000 people present at the protest in the hours after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, stripping abortion rights from millions in the process.
Arizona is one of eight states where abortion clinics stopped performing procedures after the decision was released Friday.
The police accused the protesters of defacing state memorials on the capitol grounds, known as Wesley Bolin Plaza.
It came as millions of people across the country took to the streets to protest the decision with most of the rallies remaining peaceful.
In a press release, the Arizona Senate Republicans said ‘violent pro-abortion protesters attempts of an insurrection’ were thwarted ‘thanks to the swift action from local and state law enforcement.
The Arizona GOP said local law enforcement called for backup and dispersed the crowd before they could breach the capitol building.
The statement refers to the whole situation as ‘terrifying’ and said that senators and staff had to evacuate to a secure location. The lawmakers were working to complete their 2022 session when the protest occurred.
Despite the crowd being dispersed, senators were still unable to complete their work as some of the tear gas was sucked into the senate chambers’ making the air quality unhealthy.
Senate President Karen Fann said in a statement: ‘We are incredibly thankful for our local law enforcement who quickly intervened during that could have been a destructive and dangerous situation for our members, staff and public inside the senate.’
Fann continued: ‘Violence is never the answer, and we will not camouflage what was a blatant attempt at an insurrection as a ‘rally’ or ‘peaceful protest.’ We are calling on lawmakers to condemn these acts. There is a way to make your voice heard and violence is never the answer.’
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The Labor government won a national election in May after nine years in opposition, and Chalmers said he will deliver a statement on the economy when parliament sits in July, before an October budget.
Chalmers said in a television interview on Sunday a review of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), whose terms of reference are yet to be released, would also look at the composition and size of its board.
“Whether it is broad enough in geographic terms and gender, all the other important considerations, but to also make sure that the right voices are represented around the table,” he said on ABC’s Insiders program.
Representing all parts of the economy would include “making sure workers are represented”, he added, when asked if former union officials should be considered for upcoming vacancies to the board.
RBA Governor Philip Lowe warned in a speech on Tuesday that price pressures continued to build both globally and domestically and inflation was now seen reaching 7% by the end of the year, the highest pace in decades and far above the RBA’s long-term target band of 2-3%.
“This inflation problem will get more difficult before it starts to ease,” Chalmers said on Sunday.
“I will update that forecast towards the end of July and will take into consideration the most recent information that we have about the economy, but the Reserve Bank has said something around 7% – that doesn’t seem to me to be wildly off the mark.”
He added he hoped inflation would moderate next year, and declined to nominate a preferred figure for wages growth, saying only that the government wanted “sustainable wages growth”.
The budget, in structural deficit, would be impacted by the pressure of rising interest rates and volatility in commodity prices, he said.
A 12% drop in iron ore prices last week – Australia’s biggest export earner – “has implications for the budget”, he said. (Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Michael Perry)