IR Rally

[bushwalker]

Of course I went to the IR rally too! No one with a shred of humanity left in them could dare miss it… unless of course their boss wouldn’t allow it and were threatened with the sack!.. hmmm… Here are some pics posted by someone else

Comments

[flemmarde]

that is such a great post bush! inspiring, painting a great picture, rendering a little hope in that bleakness...

biggest in history... wow. i've been in some big ones anti uranium and such... i would have loved to have been in the biggest in history.

[bushwalker]

Lucky for you I'm not in Sydney. They only had about 30,000 which is pretty piddly for such a big city. We even had a huge thunderstorm the night before and it was looking bleak in the morning (after a 27C the day before). It didn't rain on us though, we just had to pull out the winter coats. The sun even broke through towards the end of the rally. How symbolic!

I'm just sad I missed the party afterwards in the Carlton gardens. Paul Kelly sang!!!! Bloody 2 hour parking!!!

I'm sure the anti uranium rallies were pissant in comparison... unless you went to Nurragar or some such splendid desert location where nude protests, etc.. were made possible. I think all the contemporary rallies have been bigger and better cos you know that other people around the nation/globe are marching for the same reasons and it's not just about the numbers in your locale.

[flemmarde]

oh they were pretty impressive in their day... some up around 80-100,000 until the energy started to die off. i was in the front row of the biggest one. then we had the big rides to canberra with thousands from all over the country camped on parliament house lawn getting kinda smelly and lovin' for 5 days.

i don't think i would ever have been attracted to a nude protest! lol

[bushwalker]

They had a nude protest at Nurrangar. I didn't participate but observed one woman being groped by a fellow protester on the way. He obviously couldn't handle the eye candy (no pun intended). Someone swiped a photo of the incident a couple of years later and used it in an ad campaign - pretty naughty.

[firstashore]

Even bigger than the Iraq demos, huh? I guess nation-wide Iraq was bigger but no single demo was bigger than this one.

It's not often I side with the general left so strongly but this time I really do. Howard's way overstepped the mark.

[bushwalker]

How many people protested Iraq in Australia? 500 000 odd? I think it was a record for Melbourne and Australia too but Iraq beats that globally although I know the Filipino unionists protested outside the Australian embassy in solidarity. I think people care a bit more about penalty rates and sick pay than they do about justice issues involved with illegally invading a sovereign country and spraying the desert with depleted uranium. This is a bit closer to home and will impact on our kids in a pretty nasty way. I really hope this will finally bite Howard on the bum come election time... but its a weak triumph after he's got away with so much and Labour is so Liberal Lite.

[hatter_anon]

Time to vote him out! I have a lot of very left leaning friends who are cross with themselves now for having voted Green or Democrat at the last election in protest to the Labor Party's stand on refugees etc. and now feel we're suffering the consequences. What to do when there are so few alternatives? This one looks like uniting us all though. Have you met anyone who's for the IR laws?

[bushwalker]

No... well actually my brother and father probably think it's pretty good. *rolls eyes* Labour is in such a bad state at the moment that it's gonna be a big call to vote for them. I must say though that at least Latham actually had a lefty platform and was actually offering an alternative and set an agenda. But siding with Family First above the Greens turned us off big time. I noticed that there were a lot of Greenie signs throughout the demo but of course they are being marginalised by everyone else and won't get many seats.