Mounting an effective community campaign requires significant planning and consideration of many organisational, political and legal issues.

Legal issues permeate the many and varied aspects of campaigning and are not limited to your rights when attending a demonstration. Nor do they simply affect "the usual suspects" who seem to capture the headlines during high profile protests.

Whether expressing concern over the cessation (or continuation) of cattle grazing in alpine national parks, lobbying for "country of origin labelling" to clearly differentiate imported produce, decrying the international trade in livestock, advocating for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, protesting against war or seeking to protect your local park, legal issues will need to be considered.

This chapter is intended as a basic reference about legal issues confronted by activists engaged in community campaigning.

Parts of the chapter are drawn from the website www.activistrights.org.au, published by the Fitzroy Legal Service. This website is a comprehensive source of information and links with practical and reference material about activist legal information and legal support issues. The site also contains a study of the broader contextual issues for consideration when mounting an effective community campaign.