[quicklime]

Another Melburnian here, agree with what you’re saying.

I’m surprised that so many people on HN have such a warped perspective on what’s going on here, and even when multiple people from Melbourne post in this thread about their own experience living here, they’re told that they’re misinformed.

Yes there are problems in Australia, but it’s not about to become a facist state.

[throwawaythekey]

I think it's obvious we're on the road to becoming a facist state. As you and your parent point out, the only difference between sitting peacefully in a park and having the police move you on (or at worst assault you) is the act of protesting.

See this protest by healthcare workers earlier today https://twitter.com/7NewsMelbourne/status/144237090600158003...

[ACow_Adonis]

interesting that the health care protest is in the same park my picture further up the thread was in :)

but I wouldn't say that's the only difference. indeed if anyone is still reading this, I'd say go look at the report linked above. the small healthcare protest this morning peacefully dispersed, but the end of the report contains footage of the group/protests that have been running organised skirmishes with police most of this week. that this group is out there organising mobile/running protests on telegram and the like (the groups were public and they were livestreaming as they did so if you want to know how I know) is a pretty important context for police actions right now.

additional context is that protests (and subsequent police presence) has historically been a relatively common thing in Melbourne, and obviously the current context additionally involves movement restrictions and gathering in group restrictions that have been put in place until the vaccine has been rolled out. current evidence suggests we are primarily supply constrained ATM in Australia/Victoria relative to absolute demand, and the government has announced targets and timelines for removing these restrictions once the people who want vaccines have recieved them.

Australia lacks an explicit freedom/liberal philosophy, and it's certainly been the case that authoritarian aspects have increased recently, but it seems like a stretch to say that we're currently on a march to fascism. especially given the additional subtlety that what little fascist movements there have been in Australia are paradoxically aligned with the current protesters.

to paraphrase a quote from one of the protesting live streamer: "look at the police trying to stop peaceful protests. all we want to do is overthrow this government!"

in that sense there's a lot of commonality/overlap between the current protesters and the Trump movement. And another additional context of interest is the number of members on the twittersphere commenting on all this who are clearly Americans or aligned with American politics/media rather than locals. It's bizarre in that there's even been Trump flag wavers at some of the protests :/

[throwawaythekey]

> especially given the additional subtlety that what little fascist movements there have been in Australia are paradoxically aligned with the current protesters.

I think the paradoxical nature is a clue that there might be a little more to the story.... My take is most protesters are pretty normal people and the media/politicians overblow the extremist element out of self interest.

> footage of the group/protests that have been running organised skirmishes with police most of this week

I'm generally sympathetic as it seems like the police action is what causes the degradation from protest to skirmish. It sounds like you are aware of the livestreams but for anyone who isn't check out this facebook streamer for full unedited footage (commentary can be biased though). This video at one of the larger protests pretty clearly shows that arc.

https://www.facebook.com/therealrukshan/videos/2149636972096...

[ACow_Adonis]

Once again this needs context that I'm assuming most international viewers/commentators lack,or can't be bothered with, or are deliberately omitting.

Firstly, the livestreams are good for seeing what's going on on the ground and for tracking where things are operating during the day (like when a small group of protesters invaded a shopping centre carpark/playground/picnic area a day or two after that protest... in an area that borderline openly hostile to them). This is important for people like me living this at the moment who are literally just trying to head out with their toddlers and don't want to be caught up with the radical/violent protesters. Just looking up in the sky is often a good hint for us as the police helicopters generally follow that days main groups. But one has to be careful viewing the footage afterwards, as it's often deliberately edited and taken out of context for propaganda purposes.

therealrukshan (the linked streamer) for instance is far from independent or objective media. he's far-right/trump aligned (yes, it's Australia, no it doesn't make sense) and has been known to give running commentary bordering on "reality denial" imo. in the background we also have telegram and messaging groups going on at the same time, so watching one view after the fact still often departs from the context of what was happening or being said at the time.

It happens that I was watching the particular stream linked in the video (and others) in real time, so I'm pretty familiar with the events and context of that protest.

For those wondering, this was day 3 of a series of events. If I've got my timelines right, the violent protests in the previous article happened the weekend before and have another additional layer of context on top (they happened after police shut-down the public transport into the city, and my neighbourhood, for the morning to try to hinder an organised protest that would be taking part during our latest delta-ourbreak: keeping in mind we don't yet have widespread vaccine coverage due to supply failures/AZ hesitancy AND practically no recieved immunity due to elimination of the earlier coronavirus transmissions here locally).

Following that, a series of unfortunate events took place. Restrictions (and compulsory vaccines) were announced on the construction industry, which compared to other industries during our lockdowns had been allowed to operate with relative freedom.

Subsequently a borderline riot took place outside a union office in the city that afternoon: comprised of legitimate construction staff, but with the context of the far right groups also messaging people to buy/wear uniforms and get down there to generally cause trouble. long story short: shut-downs of construction for two weeks announced.

the next day what I'll call the tradespeople march happened primarily in the city, which was easily the largest protest so far. predominantly men affected by the previous decisions + a smattering of the far right still "strategising". they basically took over the (comparatively abandoned) cbd and then marched down and blocked a freeway. they promised to continue protesting every day against the shut-downs/ lockdowns/vaccine mandates. This was not a union (who is pro- vaccine anti mandate) mandated protest, which is a whole other layer of context itself. police were present in large numbers after the previous days/weekends violence, but large scale destruction/clashes were more or less avoided.

the next day a smaller protest started in the city again, and after ambling around for a while ended up spontaneously marching to and occupying a war memorial just south of the city. This in itself was a somewhat "controversial" action (and personally, partly responsible for the fizzling of any popular remaining support, as amongst the community it was seen as borderline sacrilege/profanity). this is the edited footage above. it resulted in a multi-hour stand off with riot police while they occupied the space. the police offered safe passage away from the shrine for several hours for protesters, and numbers dwindled into the late afternoon until there were a couple of hundred more radical holdouts remaining at the end of the day refusing to leave. this was when the police cleared the space with the riot-squad.

from this point, popular support seems to have dwindled. the tradespeople have largely stopped taking part in the numbers of the earlier days, and the following protests have numbered in the small hundred (if that) compared to the relative success/numbers of the first tradespeople protest, and seems to largely now be composed of the remaining telegram/facebook brigade of far-right and... with all due respect...relative deluded crazies.

[throwawaythekey]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and apologies if I seem worked up.

> therealrukshan (the linked streamer) for instance is far from independent or objective media.

There's an irony in claiming that a guy walking around with a camera isn't independent. Yes he has a take but he isn't beholden to any large company (murdoch, abc...). The raw footage is also some of the most objective content out there, it's so voluminous that even when he tries to hide the protests doing something ugly it can't help but give a good ground level perspective. His edited down footage is fairly biased, but not any more than majour outlets.

> taken out of context for propaganda purposes.

It's all there in the footage... people are peacefully protesting for a few hours, sitting down, arms raised to show they have no weapons. They even observed a minutes silence to honour the shrine. They are then forcefully removed by the police using rubber bullets, horses and some sort of noxious gas. Taking it out of context is misdirecting to side shows like telegram groups (by the way several have also be arrested for suggesting people attend protests online). Taking it out of context is misdirecting to the failed negotiations with the police.

I live in the area and watched them from afar for about an hour before things got out of hand, I saw first hand that they were being respectful and peaceful.

> Subsequently a borderline riot took place outside a union office in the city that afternoon

This was really the only time in the whole affair the protesters were violent and even then it was only a small minority. (and egged on by the internal union politics - not indiscriminate).

The protests as a whole were largely peaceful and in no means justified the continual escalation and militarization of the police.

Almost every other time the police have just been quelling peaceful protests and subverting democracy.