Protest

As murky details continue to emerge about the Australia Day ‘riot’, so do the murky conspiracy theories. In reaction to that shocking photo of a ruffled Prime Minister, people are positing grassy knolls on the lawns of Parliament House, eager to think that the whole debacle was a plot.

The startling picture of Julia Gillard being dragged along with furrowed brow was disturbing enough that people immediately wanted to find someone to blame, to find a greater lesson in the chaos. To convince themselves that it was ALL SOMEONE’S FAULT. Maybe a set up. The Opposition wants an investigation and to debate a no-confidence motion. People have called for the embassy to go, for Australia Day to be moved, for arrests to be made.  Somebody must be made to pay!

It’s time to take the ranty pants off, fold them neatly and leave them on a chair in the corner for when they’re really needed.

Continue reading "Blame no one – and everyone – for the Oz Day debacle" »

In the iconic Kimberley region of West Australia one of Australia’s biggest recent environmental battlegrounds has emerged in the red cliffs and turquoise waters of James Price Point, about 20 km north of Broome. This is a battle that might ultimately be won in the investor board rooms rather than on the front lines of blockades.

The Browse Basin gas hub development has stoked up so much opposition on so many fronts that many investors are now asking if the project is still economically viable, or if in fact Woodside’s ‘social licence’ to proceed has disappeared in the red dust that graces the Kimberley coastline.

Australian business is all too familiar with the impact strident community opposition can have on controversial major projects, yet some large corporations and investors continue to discount the importance of maintaining their social licence and protecting the environment.

Continue reading "Has Woodside hit its price point on the environment?" »

Let’s not make any excuses for the morons associated with the Aboriginal tent embassy who sparked Thursday’s ugly events in the national capital. When they interrupted a medal ceremony for courageous emergency services personnel involved in the Queensland floods and Victorian bushfires, their behaviour was vile.

“Who f***ing cares? They’re not our heroes,” yelled one of the first protesters to arrive. Then, spotting the opposition leader, she screamed: “Tony Abbott, you f***ing big-eared Dumbo c***.”

This was followed by more obscenities directed at Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Things went downhill from there.

Continue reading "We need smarter security, not beefed up security" »

Across her neck, the contradiction of a permanent tattoo shackle that reads: “Freedom.” Across one forearm, a tattoo that reads, “Liberate All Beings.” On the other arm, “Inside Job,” a reference to her belief that 9/11 was carried out by the US Government.

Kanaska Carter is 26. She is a former hairdresser from Canada who came to the US to protest on the 10th anniversary of September 11 but got caught up in Occupy Wall Street, six days later. And now there’s the Google wars, another natural fit for a conditioned young protestor.

Kanaska has lived homeless on the streets of New York for five months. She makes some money busking and inking tattoos and knows various places about the city where she and her friends can get free dinners each night.

Continue reading "The futility and hypocrisy of the Occupy stragglers" »

Nothing makes me yearn for a whale steak like the sight of Aussie extremists acting all macho on the high seas.

Japanese whaling is roundly condemned by Australians (including me, for the record) but we don’t have much truck with feral activists either.

So when three Forest Rescue campaigners were detained after boarding a Japanese whaling vessel off the WA coast last weekend (with nary a tree or a whale in sight) you could well imagine the collective roll of the eyes in households across middle Australia.

Continue reading "Mmmm whale steak. Sweet, sweet whale steak" »

Australia’s biggest proposed industrial development is looking on increasingly shaky and unsecured ground, with Woodside this week announcing it was asking the Federal Government for a year-long extension on making a final investment decision on its contentious Kimberley gas plant.

That comes less than two weeks after Western Australian Supreme Court Chief Justice Wayne Martin handed the James Price Point gas project its biggest setback by ruling that the WA Government had acquired the land illegally.

The Chief Justice found that the government had botched its rushed attempt to compulsorily acquire the land 60 kilometres north of tourist gateway Broome after negotiations between the government, Woodside and the Kimberley Land Council stalled last year.

Continue reading "The gas project born in a cross-fire hurricane" »

What happened
Activists formed a movement whose broad, and loosely defined aim, was to protest against the inequality caused by both the global and American financial systems. The protests occurred against a backdrop of failed regulation of rogue bankers in the USA, financial turmoil in Europe, and persistent high unemployment in much of the western world.

The movement first set up camp in Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district and soon adopted the slogan “we are the 99 per cent” - a slogan which refers to the fact that one per cent of Americans possess the vast bulk of the nation’s wealth.

What happened next
As the financial turmoil skipped from European nation to nation, the Occupy Movement likewise spread to at least 70 countries, including Australia, where tents proved the garment of choice for some protestors.

Continue reading "Biggest Moments of 2011 #10 Wall St is a campground" »

What happened
On March 23 some 2000 to 3000 people gathered in Federation Mall in front of Parliament House in Canberra to protest against the Government’s carbon pricing policy. This No Carbon Tax rally was the first demonstration in the national capital of a grassroots opposition to the policy, a protest movement Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had been attempting to marshall.

The event’s aim was overwhelmed by the starkly hostile and sexist signs and placards wielded by the demonstrators. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was called “JuLIAR,” as pioneered by 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones.

She was called a “bitch’’ and a “witch” and speakers at the rally reflected the tone of the signs held by listeners. Government MPs were furious, particularly women, and the rally was condemned from Labor benches in Parliament during Question Time. Tony Abbott spoke from the protest platform and embarrassingly was photographed in front of a sign reading “JuLIAR Gillard…Bob Browns (sic) Bitch”.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #11 Carbon outrage hits Canberra" »

I’d like to thank the Occupy Melbourne protesters, from the bottom of my heart. They’ve opened my eyes.

It’s not about their message. I’m pretty sure I already knew about the all-too-cosy relationship between banks, corporations and the media. Hell, I was told that money was the root of all evil fairly early on at Sunday School. Nothing new there.

No, they’ve shown me, through their treatment at the hands of Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, the City of Melbourne and Victoria Police, that for all the talk of freedom of political expression and peaceful demonstration in this country, if you antagonize the wrong person in authority you can expect harassment and intimidation. If you show up a puffed-up, red-faced bully, no matter the elevated position of responsibility, they’ll reach down and thump you.

Continue reading "Bullies in suits unleash their uniformed henchmen" »

The noises coming out of Europe are ominous.  Australians should sit up and take notice.

“If there isn’t a solution by Sunday, everything is going to collapse,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy before dashing to Frankfurt for emergency talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“If the Euro fails then Europe fails,” said Merkel. Though she added hopefully: “We will not let that happen.”

Continue reading "The Australian economy is going well. For now." »

This Saturday the self-described “organic” Occupy Wall Street movement will be coming to a capital city near you.

They boldly claim “we are the 99 per cent” - it’s their official catchcry - so unless you consider yourself among the uber rich and powerful, these folks are your new voice.  So they’ll be speaking for you when they wave their glib and nebulous placards declaring “people not profits” and “be the solution”.  (I am not making these up – this is the print-ready poster artwork available on their website.)

Their initial beef was apparently with the financial sector – hence the occupation of Wall Street in protest.  But their list of demands goes beyond the remit of the corporate fat cats and includes free education and a type of Utopian redistribution of wealth.

Continue reading "Protesters occupied with glib, childish, pointless fantasy" »

Most people only get one shot at being the target of a lynch mob. I’ve had two in a week.

Last week, Angry Anderson turned a passionate crowd of thousands against me for accurately reporting the number of people at the rally. Yesterday, it was Alan Jones’s turn.

First, let me clarify that at no point did I feel physically threatened. Even when I saw a dozen burly truck drivers marching towards me (with purpose and an escort of 10 cameras), once a few words were exchanged, I quickly realised they were all calm and reasonable people. Not the same could be said about everyone there.

Continue reading "Revved up by Alan Jones, the angry mob turned on me" »

As the trucks thunder into Canberra, or try to, it appears they have been blocked somewhere short of Parliament House.

It’s not yet clear why they were blocked, but Alan Jones has just called it “the most disgraceful thing that has ever been done to democracy” and “a total corruption of the democratic process”. Meanwhile, Bronwyn Bishop said “we have a government that is not legitimate”.

With all due respect to Australia’s most popular broadcaster and one of our most senior politicians, those claims are way over the top. They simply don’t have the right to make them. But there are some people on the streets of Libya this morning who do.

Continue reading "Truckie sooks vs Libyans with real problems" »

If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering with trepidation what will happen when the Gaypocalypse finally strikes.

Are fudge-packers, nancy-boys, and pillow-biters all names for the same thing, or do they signify a hierarchy of types and sizes, like orcs? Which are most dangerous? And where do the Poohole Pirates come in? Are they like the Men of Harad?

What about elephants? Will there be elephants? Will they be pink? Will we be forced to toil in underground sequin mines while Freddy Mercury lashes us with moustachioed falsetto arpeggios? And dear God, why didn’t we listen to Fred Nile?

Continue reading "Logic eats the gay marriage scaremongers for breakfast" »

This week the right to peaceful public assembly got a bit of a battering. And those wielding the sticks were none other than freedom-of-speech-loving journalists.

The derision with which many critiqued the anti carbon tax rally seemed, to use one of their favourite descriptors, extreme.

The determination to find an offensive placard, to photograph someone looking unhinged, to find fault with the tone of the event should be a little concerning for those who champion free speech and peaceful public assembly as tenets of democracy.

Continue reading "You journos are the freaks, not us carbon protestors" »

Let’s get a bunch of things straight, right from the top.

Yes, Julia Gillard lied. Yes, the carbon tax won’t make a bee’s dick worth of difference in reducing global emissions. Yes, people in a robust democracy like ours are entitled to hold a peaceful rally anywhere they like.

Now for one more indisputable fact. Today’s carbon tax rally was a freak show. Worse, it was woefully unrepresentative of the millions of everyday Australians who have genuine concerns about this tax. Here are eight reasons why.

Continue reading "Carbon freak show" »

Sometimes, you wonder who the real animals are, and what kind of condition they keep themselves in.

On the weekend, I dropped my daughter at a friend’s birthday party at Lennon Brothers Circus. Lennon Brothers is one of the few remaining Australian circuses with animals, and a group of protestors had set up shop out the front.

Never in my life have I encountered such an unruly, rude rabble of misfits, thugs and foaming-at-the-mouth ideologues. Not content to peacefully pursue their aims, they actively victimised the poor helpless children attending the circus with some of the most vile slurs imaginable.

Continue reading "When animal activists attack!" »

Why has the western media provided only a biased, incomplete view of what is going in Syria? Why have the steps taken by the Syrian government to answer the concerns raised by its citizens been ignored? 

I am not a Syrian government apologist (more on that later). I just want to read the whole story. If I can find a variety of news sources including the official statements made by government officials and pro-Syrian government supporters why can’t the BBC or ABC or any other well-resourced western media?

And I am not only talking about the bizarre twists in the Syrian conflict such as “Damascus Girl”. If you missed that one, a young Syrian lesbian blogger created an international outcry when she suddenly disappeared. The Syrian government was suspected of abducting and maybe even killing her. One of her great supporters – fellow lesbian blogger Lez Get Real was particularly upset.

Continue reading "Western media ‘disappeared’ half the Syrian story" »

The Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt have gone, the President of Yemen is going. The dictator of Libya has lost control of half of his country and is being bombed out of the other half.

But the revolutionary tidal wave of the Arab Spring has now come up against a tougher opponent – the 40-year-old dictatorship of the Assad family in Syria.

It’s clear that President Bashar al-Assad and his security forces have no intention of giving up power, and are now engaged in a violent and bloody crackdown on dissent.

Continue reading "Syria: the dictator fights back" »

Protest rallies are never occasions for finessed policy expositions, but increasingly they seem to be about kicking the man or woman, rather than kicking along debate.

That was made obvious by a quick scan of the forest of home-made placards raised at the No Carbon Tax rally in Canberra today.

The personal bitterness was summed up neatly by the chap with the large sign reading: “JuLIAR…Bob Browns BITCH.” For some reason the word “bitch” was encased in a drawing of flames.

It was all his own work—although JuLIAR might have been borrowed from broadcaster Alan Jones—including the absence of an apostrophe in “Browns”, and he was somewhat proud of it.

Continue reading "Playing the woman not the carbon tax" »

Welcome to Monday at The Punch.

In 1965, at least 50 people were injured when police broke up a civil rights’ protest in Alabama. About 500 people marched before the state troopers moved in.

What’s on your mind? Share it here.

This poster depicting Barack Obama as the Dark Knight Joker is currently causing a stir in America and the rest of the world.

Debate on the subject has been raging online and in papers on what the poster means, from those claiming it shows a backlash against Barack Obama to arguments that it is a popularised racist attack on the President.

But perhaps what is most interesting about the poster is that we’re even surprised that people are now openly mocking the American President. The debate itself is probably an indication of how incredibly popular Obama still is.

Continue reading "Why are people so fascinated by the Obama Joker poster?" »