In January 2016, Brown was arrested after refusing to leave the Lapoinya Forest in Tasmania, where preparations for logging were under way. Along with another protester, who had been arrested a few days earlier, he was charged with an offence under Tasmania's Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act 2014. Although the charges were dropped, the two went to the High Court to argue that the provisions under which they had been charged were unconstitutional. In October 2017 the High Court agreed, by a majority although for differing reasons, that the provisions were invalid in that they breached the constitutional freedom of political communication.