CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australia’s neoliberal inner-city lefties have been today left in a state of shock, after witnessing an actual left-wing protest that managed to stay completely on message – without giving room to clout-chasing university radicals who are trying to boost their social media followings.
The media is reporting that tens of thousands of trade unionists have gathered in unauthorised rallies across the country in support of the embattled construction arm of the CFMEU, after it was forced into administration by the Labor government.
When taking into account the relentless union-bashing agenda of the Australian media, these attendance numbers could easily be downplayed from hundreds of thousands trade unionsts.
Across the country, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been labelled a “dirty rotten bastard” and ‘traitor’ by the very movement that founded his political party.
His government’s decision to place the CFMEU into administration follows a relentless smear-campaign by 60 Minutes and the Murdoch newspapers, who in partnership with Australia’s leading property developers, are attempting to discredit all 120,000 members of the union as ‘criminal bikies’ – based on the actions of a handful of officials within the Victorian branch.
This political rally has potentially major repercussions for the Labor Government, with members from every other trade union in the country joining the protests in solidarity.
However, it’s not just Labor who giving the protests a miss – because it seems that almost every single person that appeared on stage looked like they were card-carrying members of the trade union.
Even the ‘Welcome To Country’ was exclusively delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of the CFMEU, all of whom rallied in the nation’s CBDs for the exact same reason. To protect the Australian workers.
This kind of disciplined protest, which was able to stay on-message for the entire length of the protests without getting tangled up in every other social justice cause in the world, has shown a side to left-wing politics that has completely rattled the Twitter crowd.
Not one politician in a suit, not one folk singer, not one author, not one social media influencer. Not one white uni student wearing a keffiyeh while screeching slam poetry and referring to the Indigenous elders as his auntys and uncles.
In fact, the only non-affiliated speaker at any of these rallies was QLD Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, who took the stage in Brisbane to declare his unconditional support for the trade union movement. Even this appearance from the Member for Griffith was starkly different to what could be expected from his contemporaries in the Victorian Greens, who appear too busy torching the shopfronts of Jewish MPs in Melbourne to show up to a rally that addresses the class war currently being waged on Australian workers.
