While Australia’s sporting achievements in the Paris Olympics were undoubtedly impressive, we failed to top the leaderboard at the games. Thankfully there is one thing that we are officially the best in the world at: arresting climate protestors!

Congratulations Australia. Not only are we continuously being criticised on the world stage for our weak policies for preventing climate change, but we are also at the top of the world’s leaderboard when it comes to arresting climate protestors.

A recent global study called the Criminalisation and Repression of Climate and Environmental Protests, found that Australia had the highest rate of arresting climate and environment protestors, at a rate more than three times the global average.

Turns out that in Australia, more than 20 per cent of all climate-related protests involve an arrest. This was by far the highest of the 14 countries surveyed.

Following Australia on the leaderboard was the United Kingdom with an arrest rate of 17.2 per cent. In third place was Norway, scoring 14.5 per cent, meanwhile the United States failed to land a spot on the podium with only 10 per cent of protests involving arrests.

The report also highlighted that one reason countries like Norway, the UK, and Australia have such high arrest rates now could be due to how climate protest groups like Extinction Rebellion are using, such as gluing themselves to art.

“Organisations like Extinction Rebellion intentionally employ tactics that may result in arrests, to the point that being arrested becomes part of their strategy for change,” read the study.

While this data may be alarming and upsetting, the research did highlight one silver lining to the result.

Though Australia may have ranked highly on the arrest rate, the study pointed out that instances of people Down Under being killed for protesting in support of the environment are incredibly rare.

With more than 2,000 climate protestors reportedly killed around the globe between 2012 and 2023, these executions did not occur in countries that have high arrest rates. Instead, they occurred in countries like Brazil, the Philippines, and India.

According to the study, countries with the lowest rates of arrests had the highest rates of police violence.

Now you might be reading this and thinking: “Wait, the positive news is that at least we don’t kill our protestors? Who on earth is going to call that good news?”

And if that’s the case, let us remember the words of our beloved former prime minister Scott Morrison, who once celebrated the fact that women in Australia could protest without being “met with bullets“.

So in summary: Preach it Scott, amen.

See ya at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics where Australia can finally win gold in the 100m Climate Protestor Arrest event.

Lead Image: Getty