CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Newtown-based social media manager Abigail Minto-Duleft (26) says looking at the images of her kindred-spirits in Melbourne protesting animal rights and wage stagnation has lit a fire inside her this week.
She says it takes her back to her days on the front line – as a member of a radical youth movement – one that was facing much bigger issues.
On the 21st of February, 2016 – Abi joined up to 15,000 people in the streets of Sydney to protest something quite close to her heart. In fact, it’s the only political issue that she has truly cared about in her short adult life.
“I haven’t really attended any protests since, except for like a couple months later I went down to Martin Place to protest the democratic election of Donald Trump for some reason”
Like most USyd-alumni-turned-freelance-creatives-living-in-the-exact-same-suburb-as-her-unversity-seven-years-later, Abi knows a lot needs to change in our society.
But first and foremost, these archaic, dystopian, Orwellian, draconian lock-out laws that hinder her ability to enjoy a similar nightlife to the main characters on Sex & The City, a show she pretends to have never watched.
As she points out, until the youth of Sydney are afforded the basic human right to do pingers indiscriminately into the early hours, then there really isn’t much point fighting for anything else.
“Why bother” she says.
“Like, if we aren’t able to change this, something that I actually care about, what can we change?”
While admitting she didn’t have the conviction to vote for the Keep Sydney Open party over her beloved Greens in the most recent state election, Abi says that if we want change, we need to start from the grassroots.
“I think taking a more apathetic approach is the only option now. I’ll make sure I tell my friends how shit I think Sydney’s nightlife is, and wait until Barangaroo opens up and they change the laws back”
“Sometimes all you can do is wait out these minor inconveniences until someone does something about it for you”
