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On August 31st, a rally named “March for Australia” occurred nationwide. Organisers and attendees of this rally claimed it was a protest to stop mass immigration, with some of their slogans including “No Foreign Flags” and “End Mass Migration”. Many attendees, including Hugo Lennon (aka Auspill), blamed mass migration on housing and cost-of-living crises.
Lennon is the grandson of Tony Lennon, a former chairman of Peet Limited, one of Australia’s biggest real estate development companies (Keoghan). Peet Limited has a land bank of more than 49,000 vacant lots. Despite claims from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that “good people” attended, neo-Nazis and members of the National Socialist Network (NSN), a prominent neo-Nazi group, had a strong presence. NSN members led chants and speeches and violently attacked Camp Sovereignty in Naarm (Melbourne).
I attended the counter-protest against one of these rallies in Magandjin (Brisbane), which was organised by a collective of local groups and grassroots organisations, including Solidarity and Resistance Collective, Magandjin People’s Pride, Community Union Defence League (C.U.D.L.), Treaty Before Sports, Brisbane Sharps, and Socialist Alliance.
Action Ready were the legal observers for the counter-protest. They recently came out with a report, which included a diagram of how the police kettled counter-protestors on Wickham Terrace. Kettling is a tactic where police form a large cordon and then move to contain a group of protestors into a limited area. This means that protestors must leave through a police-controlled exit, but in some cases, this is used to prevent protestors from leaving and being arrested. Action Ready’s diagram shows how counter-protestors were boxed in, with March for Australia protestors surrounding us. Action Ready stated in their report:
‘The tight space, which also required Counter-protestors to climb over a garden bed to escape, caused the group to become disjointed, and meant that those with lower mobility (including a Counter-protestor in a wheelchair) were left almost entirely surrounded by Protestors’
I highly recommend reading Action Ready’s report, as it goes into full detail about the events of this day. You can find it on their website: actionreadyqld.com.
During this kettling, counter-protestors and the March for Australia protestors clashed, with many counter-protestors reporting being threatened, observing Nazi salutes, and slurs targeting the LGBTQIA+ community being thrown. According to Action Ready, one counter-protester reported being told, ‘I want to cut off your head and put it on a stick.’ Police presence was markedly smaller than seen at protests of similar sizes, such as the Palestine rally on the 24th of August.
At the time, I was towards the back, amongst a sea of Anti-fascist (antifa) flags and flags from a variety of countries and communities. I was wielding a transgender flag, which I had painted the anarchist symbol ‘Circled A’ onto.
I didn’t have many one-on-one run-ins with the main protesters; staying at the back will do that. My main confrontation occurred as I was leaving. Counter-protesters ended back at King George Square where the counter-protest wrapped up after some speeches. Soon, it became apparent that many March for Australia protestors were going to be passing through King George Square on their way back to Roma Street Parklands. Police took a while to respond, and eventually created a line between us and them, which made it difficult for counter-protesters to leave. According to Action Ready, Legal Observers ‘overheard one officer remarking that Counter-protesters were staying to be “antagonistic”. At this time, our side had dispersed into small groups, as many were preparing to leave or had left before things escalated. Fights broke out, and many March for Australia protesters threatened violence. Police arrested an Aboriginal man and respected Elder. He was released without charge, and the police expressed that they did not intend to charge him. Action Ready states that this man was deliberately targeted by police out of broader frustration toward the counter-protest group and in a bid to fragment the counter-protest…In our view, his detainment was a clear overreach of powers and typified the biased policing on the day.’
I had come to the event on public transport, with my bus home being at King George Square station, just across the road. By that point, many March for Australia protesters filled the area. Seeing the violence that was threatened and, in some cases, carried out, I decided it was no longer safe, and so I called a friend to pick me up a couple of streets over, where it would be safer. I tried to leave with one of the event organisers and some other counter-protesters I’d met. As we were trying to leave, we were surrounded by men adorned in Australian flags and memorabilia. Two were standing next to us, while the rest shouted at us from across the street. This one man in particular shouted homophobic slurs at us, called us “mutants” and “jobless”. The “jobless” comment I found funnier than anything, because sir, I have two jobs, it’s a Sunday, and you’re also here. We were verbally threatened, and the police did not intervene until these men had left.
Albanese said “good people” attended the March for Australia rally. Well, I didn’t see any of them. Not one March for Australia protester helped me and my friends when we were surrounded and shouted abuse at, and there were at least one hundred other people there at the time it happened. Even when we had left the immediate area to wait to be picked up, protesters with Australian flags across the street would shout things at us. Is that something “good people” do? Do “good people” stand with neo-Nazis? I don’t think so.
This country wouldn’t be what it is without migrants. These people want to blame migrants for this country’s problems, but don’t call out those who are causing them: the government and the elite classes. They don’t call out the politicians who own 6 plus properties (fun fact: ALP’s Michelle Ananda-Rajah and LNP’s Karen Andrews own 7 each!). If you are not a First Nations person, then you are either a migrant or related to one in some form. Immigrants are welcomed here, racists are not.
Sources:
Keoghan, Sarah. Anti-migration co-ordinator’s wealthy property family. News.com.au
Written by El Bancroft
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