Officeworks stopped printing collateral for anti-G20 protestors after it was warned off by police ahead of this weekend’s financial summit in Cairns.

The office supplies giant, which also provides digital printing to the public, says police ‘recommended’ to staff at the Cairns store that they stop printing the material – which included posters, flyers, banners, and stickers – and the store manager chose to comply.

Officeworks public relations manager Carla Carafa says the request was isolated to that store and to her knowledge no other shop in Australia has been asked to print the material or told not to.

“The police said the material was being posted up everywhere and defacing property and that’s why they asked the store to stop,” she says.

Carafa says the decision was made at store level to keep the police happy and that it was a recommendation not a legal order.

No other Cairns printers contacted by ProPrint say they were told not to print protestor material, or that they actually printed any themselves.

It is thought to have been a very long time since a printer in Australia was told by authorities to stop printing a job where the content was not illegal.

Some 800 extra police, with special powers, descended on Cairns for the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s top 20 economic powers, which ended yesterday.

Leaders were greeted by about 100 peaceful protestors from the People's Climate March calling for Australia to have 100 per cent clean energy by 2050 and for world leaders to crack down on corporate tax evasion.

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