Police have been accused of overreacting and attacking protesters as young as 10 outside a Liberal Party fundraiser in Melbourne.

An estimated crowd of up to 200 gathered outside the venue at Docklands on Friday night to protest against the Federal Government's proposed cuts to higher education and the deregulation of course fees.

Protesters carrying signs and placards pushed and shoved with police, and horses were brought in to help control the melee.

A number of protesters, along with an ABC News cameraman, were hit with pepper spray.

Dozens of people were treated by paramedics after the scuffle.

Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull and former prime minister John Howard were at the function.

Monash Student Association president Abby Stapleton said the protesters posed no threat and police were unnecessarily heavy-handed.

"People were thrown to the ground and punched," she said.

"I saw a man who was pulled by his hair and thrown to the ground and then kicked in the stomach by a policeman. Absolutely horrendous.

"We were all manhandled quite a bit, we were shoved and pushed and pulled to the ground and kicked and beaten essentially."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-09/police-accused-of-'overreacting'-at-liberal-fundraiser-protest/7313356

Teresa Mullan has lived in Australia for more than half a century. During that time, she has raised children here, worked for three governments, voted at 10 federal elections and travelled the world on an Australian passport.

But when she tried to renew that passport ahead of an overseas holiday next month, she was refused a replacement because she could not prove she was an Australian citizen.

Fairfax Media has found that, on the instruction of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), adoptees born overseas can no longer present their Australian birth certificate, issued as part of the adoption process, as lawful evidence of citizenship.

Neither the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade nor the DIBP would provide reasons for the changes when asked by Fairfax Media last week.

But those amendments, now being applied by the Australian Passport Office, mean there are potentially thousands of inter-country adoptees who assume they are bona-fide citizens but are now not regarded as one, even though they have held passports.

Ms Mullan likened the situation to a bad comedy sketch that has left her feeling humiliated and demoralised.

"This is yet another example of our ill-conceived and inhumane immigration and border protection laws," Ms Mullan said. "After 52 years, am I somehow now a threat to national security? I feel as though my country has stripped me of my nationality and identity. This experience just highlights the government's disregard for the sanctity of citizenship."

ANU College of Law professor Kim Rubenstein, who has published a book exposing the flaws of citizenship laws, confirms a range of scenarios have emerged involving people who are Australian in "all but law".

"That is, their lives have been fully lived in Australia yet they have fallen foul of technical distinctions and have not been recognised as Australian citizens," she said.

Ms Mullan was born in New Zealand in December 1963 and adopted in Australia several months later, in March 1964. As an adult, she has always struggled with the heartbreaking narrative surrounding those events.

She was part of the "white stolen generation", so-called to distinguish it from the Indigenous stolen generations, although the associated suffering was shared. In the five decades before 1982, the newborn babies of young, unmarried women were forcibly removed for adoption.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/unintended-consequence-how-australia-stripped-an-australian-of-citizenship-20160624-gpqv7y.html#ixzz4Cf3fCdhT 
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May be Teresa Mullan should contact Mr Ciobo... He is the expert on slitting throats and removal of passport rights...