Rally.

[sharplittleteeth]

Up to 175,000 people rallied against Howard's IR changes in Melbourne this morning. I was one of them.

It was freezing cold, standing in the middle of Swanston Street at 9am, with the wind coming up over the bridge. The socialists should have been selling Fair Trade coffee instead of newspapers - they would have financed the revolution then and there. The crowd flooded Federation Square, and filled Swanston Street up past Collins.

And there was a little contingent of anarchist punks, flying the black flag.

We stood around for hours, listening to indescernable speeches on the video link-up around the country. Someone told us that the rally was held today because the video link up was provided by Sky, and today was the only time they didn't have country racing on.

The sun eventually came out. The crowd shuffled forward. Stopped. Shuffled a bit more. Stopped. Finally started marching about an hour after the scheduled time. Down Swanston Street and up to the Carlton Gardens, where I excused myself and went home.

Of course, the Federal Workplace Relations minister has promptly dismissed the whole rally.

Comments

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

In email from a friend who attended:

When we left at about 12:30 they had just announced the head count was 245,000.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Kevin Andrews is a DICK.

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

Good for you. Wish that I could have joined you all - although in my new role as employer, the laws will benefit me.

[sootysmudge.livejournal.com]

I was there too.

[murphus.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you went. I was late to work this morning and I was glad of the reason for it. How could it have been 'predictable' that 200,000 + people would turn out and protest? And how could 95% of workers have been at work when 100+ schools were shut?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Lesson from the East Timor protests (affirmed) and the Aboriginal Reconciliation protests (negated).

Unless it is backed up with industrial action it will count for nothing.