LIBERAL bluebloods had palpitations when Kelly O’Dywer won pre-selection for Peter Costello’s Higgins seat, and now bring out the defibrillator. The Australian Sex Party (cough, splutter) candidate is Fiona Patten, the anti-censorship convener who wants a national sex-education curriculum in schools. And Anarchist Media Institute warrior Joseph Toscano is a ”Radical Independent” campaigning for a ”New People’s Bank”. Toscano will launch his Higgins tilt by doing what he does best – holding a rally – outside the King Street office of Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. The placards will wave tomorrow [November 11], Remembrance Day, on the anniversary of Ned Kelly’s hanging and Gough’s dismissal. A historic date for uprising.
November 11 is also the date upon which the Haymarket Martyrs – George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons & August Spies, all anarchists – were executed in Chicago. 250,000 people lined Chicago’s streets during Parson’s funeral procession. “There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are strangling to-day” Albert Spies famously remarked. Rather than be executed by the state, Louis Lingg, another anarchist condemned to death, committed suicide.
Obviously, the idea of a “People’s Bank” is not new. In fact, one of its major proponents in the nineteenth century was the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In 1922, David Tucker wrote (The Evolution of People’s Banks [PDF]):
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) was one of the founders of anarchism. In a history of nineteenth century France, his figure would be a more conspicuous one than that of Buchez. But within the narrower field of cooperation, Proudhon is important for only one reason. In 1848 he launched a grandiloquent scheme for a “People’s Bank” with a structure that was by no means cooperative. His bank collapsed within a few months and by its collapse did much to prevent the development within France of any genuine cooperative banking movement.
In Sydney, the NSW Humanist Society owns and administers a property in the suburb of Chippendale (an area first occupied by the Gadigal people of the Dharug nation). Since at least 2003, the Humanists have been making available their Happy House to local neo-Nazis, members of the KKK and the (now-defunct) ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (among others). In recent years (2005–), neo-Nazis have been holding meetings among the humanists in the name of ‘Klub Naziya’, the two principal organisers of which have been local Sydney neo-Nazis David Palmer and Jason Rafty (occasionally by use of the title “Public Information Forum”).
Last month, the neo-Nazi meeting was interrupted by a public protest. So too, last Friday (November 6). An account of the protest is available on the Cotton Ward blog: Stomping out Nazis in Chippendale. Jim Perren @ Whitelaw Towers also provides some pretty pictures — http://whitelawtowers.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-are-we-implying.html.
Phoenix
In Phoenix, Arizona, the ‘National Socialist Movement’ held a rally on November 8. According to another bastard: ‘The Anarchists Own the Nazis, and the Nazis Cause a Car Wreck as They Amscray’ (Stephen Lemons, Phoenix New Times, November 8, 2009). The sole NSM representative in Australia is the batshit crazy Carl D. Thompson.
Bonus!
Noam Chomsky: on humanism, the vulnerability of secular nationalism, and the mother of all book plugs The Humanist
January/February, 2007
[Interview by David Niose, attorney and treasurer of the American Humanist Association.]
Noam Chomsky is one of America’s great dissenters. Skeptical of concentrated power in any form, for over forty years the MIT professor and world-renowned linguist has been a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy and militarism. On September 20, 2006, Chomsky’s already considerable fame went up a few notches when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, held up Chomsky’s 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project), and recommended it to the world, especially to Americans. The book, which had already sold about 200,000 copies, immediately shot to the top spot on bestseller lists. On September 22, as his book was hitting number one, Chomsky sat down with the Humanist to discuss his humanism, the religious right, the American social and political landscape, and a host of other issues.
========================
The Humanist: You recently got the mother of all book plugs when Hegemony or Survival was recommended by Hugo Chavez addressing the United Nations General Assembly.
Chomsky: I got a funny letter from a friend of mine. He looked the book up on Amazon.com and it was somewhere up there, and his book was about 1,253,428. He wrote: ‘Could I get Chavez to write a review for me?’
Besieged by angry nerds, Media Watch‘s Jonathan Holmes has made the following comment on Jeremy Ray’s sacking by the ABC:
Author Jonathan Holmes (Presenter)
Date/Time 06 Nov 2009 8:21:00pm
Subject Re: Junglist demoted from ABC’s Good Game
Ok gamers. Think about this.
If the ABC had decided it wanted to change the host of The Good Game [sic] to appeal to a different audience, or because it wanted a woman instead of a man (though both of those things MAY be true) would it really have done so a few weeks before the end of [T]he Good Game’s run? Wouldn’t it have waited until the end of the season? Would it have courted the reaction it’s got from its hard core fans by just dumping Junglist without even a chance to say goodbye, without explanation etc?
We have looked into this. If we thought there had been a gross and high-handed management intervention we’d happily have said so. But we don’t. And like the team at The Good Game, we can’t say why without making matters worse.
Frustrating, I know. But there it is. Calling me a coward won’t change anything, or make Junglist feel better either.
Noel Coward Jonathan Holmes has a point: in retrospect, it doesn’t make very good sense for the ABC to change the host of Good Game before the end of the current series — if this situation could be avoided. Sadly — or fortunately — as the ABC PR department put it (apparently — I can’t seem to find the original press release): “The reason for replacing Jeremy Ray was ongoing behind the scenes performance based issues”.
In which case, the issue becomes just how bad an employee was Junglist?
Given his sudden dismissal — not only as host but also from The Good Game [sic] and the ABC as a whole — he must have been a very bad employee indeed. Legal agreements apparently prevent the ABC from embarking upon any further disclosure, so consumers/clients/citizens will have to take ABC management at its word — or not (as the case may be).
So: from Media Watch‘s perspective, dumping Junglist had nothing to do with any desire on the part of Good Game / the ABC to re-position Good Game in the market, and everything to do with some unspecified failure on the part of Junglist-The-Employee. For legal reasons, these reasons cannot be discussed, but in any event they do not involve any “gross and high-handed management intervention” (in which context, Johnathan implies, Media Watch would be more interested).
The situation is slightly complicated, however, by Amanda Duthie, the ABC’s ‘Head of Arts and Entertainment’, who on October 26 released the following statement to the blog ‘TV Tonight’:
After three years, we felt Good Game needed a refresh to take the program into 2010 and beyond, and the decision was made to change the hosting team.
Jeremy had travel plans which meant he was not going to be available to tape the final show of the season, the one hour Christmas Special, and we were announcing details of the launch of the Good Game: SP program on our new channel, ABC3. So it made sense to work in with these timings to introduce Stephanie ‘Hex’ Bendixsen as our new host.
Understandably, Jeremy has many fans who are disappointed to see him leave the program. However, we are absolutely confident that Bajo and Hex will bring a new dimension to the show and, along with the dedicated behind the scenes team of gamers, continue to bring Australian audiences independent reviews and information about video gaming in Australia.
Obviously, one could read this as spin; even as an attempt by Amanda — concerned over Junglist-The-Bad-Employee’s future job prospects — to distract attention away from the supposed fact that Junglist was indeed a very bad employee. Thus, in this version, Junglist’s replacement as host of Good Game was simply a question of timing, prompted, on the one hand, by a need to “refresh” the format and, on the other hand, Junglist’s unavailability — through his own choice — for a super special one hour Crassmas special.
However, the situation is further complicated by the fact that one of Good Game‘s producers (production manager Gannon Conroy or ‘TheGog’) stated on the Good Game forum — on the same day (October 23) that Junglist’s sacking was announced — that:
You’re all smart enough and have heard enough to know that it wasn’t Jung’s choice and I can tell you it wasn’t anything I personally had a say in, so it is a decision made from above which certainly had a lot of us behind the scenes worried BUT having personally seen Hex in action I can see why such a decision was made…
In relation to which, there are two points.
The first is the fact that here TheGog explicitly contradicts a later statement released by the Good Game team to the effect that the decision to dump Junglist had its unanimous support; the other is the fact that, after having made this statement, the ABC moderator has edited TheGog’s statement to remove the offending passage.
A “gross and high-handed” example of “management intervention”? Apparently not.
Of course, the Good Game statement can not only be held up against TheGog’s statement of October 23, but also the statement Junglist made in reply to Good Game; one which, if correct, lends further weight to the possibility that the Good Game statement of October 29 is, in fact, untruthful. That is, “the decision to take Junglist off air” was, in fact, “forced upon [Good Game] by ABC Management”.
Author Junglist (Reviewer)
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 4:48:18pm
Subject Re: Statement from the team…
I can tell you that this is a lie. There was no vote taken, no consensus reached. In fact, the GG team was completely unaware of the change until the same day I found out. The same confidentiality clause that prevented me from saying anything publicly, prevented management from telling them anything.
I have spoken to members of the GG team who clearly DON’T support this, but can’t say anything publicly. Of course they’ll tow the party line. They have to.
Up until now the situation has just been poorly handled. But to now LIE to your own audience, in an effort to save face for replacing an experienced reviewer/presenter with an inexperienced one, is quite simply the lowest thing I’ve ever seen ABC management do.
I feel now as if I’m being professionally attacked, so here’s a truth bomb. In the meeting where I was told I would be replaced, the reason given was they wanted a girl on the show. “Mass appeal” was a direct quote from that meeting. After a half-hour of explaining how they’ll lose their hardcore following, they responded that yes, they knew this, but expected to make up the numbers with a new following. “A show can grow beyond its hardcore base”, is another direct quote.
The decision was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction, and will naturally be dumbed down for the loss of experience. Case in point: Monday night’s show. Both Forza 3 and Kingdom Hearts clearly written by people with no idea about those franchises. Hell, no one on the team even thought to correct the presenters on how to pronounce “Forza” correctly? Expect a lot more of that…
A “gross and high-handed” example of “management intervention”? Apparently not.
One might also consider the fact that during the course of the first, Junglist-free Good Game (October 26), Bajo announced that Junglist, while no longer host, would continue to work ‘behind-the-scenes’ at Good Game.
OK gamers. Think about this.
If the decision of October 23 to sack Junglist was not forced upon the Good Game team/work unit by ABC Management, and was one that was “fully supported” by all the Good Game team, would Bajo really have stated — wrongly — in the episode of October 26 that Junglist “has just taken a behind-the-scenes role on the show”? After all, according to ‘Team Good Game’ (October 29), “things … have happened over many months inside Team Good Game which have impacted on the production”; and if you substitute ‘things’ for ‘Junglist’, ‘Team Good Game’ had been preparing itself for this decision for months. It therefore makes more sense to assume that Junglist is in fact correct; the decision to sack him was taken by ABC Management — for whatever reason — not ‘Team Good Game’. Subsequently, ABC Management requested/ordered ‘Team Good Game’ to issue a statement condoning its decision, and the one piece of evidence belying that claim was removed from the Good Game forum.
A “gross and high-handed” example of “management intervention”? Apparently not.
[Junglist] says he was told in a meeting almost three weeks ago that he was going to be replaced by a woman because the ABC wanted the video gaming show to garner “mass appeal”.
Ray, who was born in Australia but lived in the United States for most of his childhood, says there was “a lot of internal politicking” going on behind the scenes, but that was not the reason for his dismissal.
“In the meeting, the only reason they gave was that they wanted a female presenter,” he told ABC News Online.
“There were comments made in that meeting that it would be great if the audience assumed, seeing as there is only four or five weeks left in the season, that I was sick or on holiday and that this whole thing was my idea.
“It was even suggested [at a different time], that I say on air that I’m going back to the States, which I found a little offensive because I’m an Australian citizen.
“Those sorts of comments made me worried that I was going to be misrepresented.”
In the past in Britain (and still today in most other European countries) opposing fascism was considered a duty by almost all anarchists and socialists. Today, many (particularly within the British anarchist movement) have abdicated responsibility for taking on the fascists, and either ignore the issue completely, or at best seed responsibility to specialist antifascist groups such as Antifa. Opposing fascism is something ALL of us have to play a part in, particularly with the growing influence of fascist groups like the British National Party (BNP).
Organizations like ‘Unite Against Fascism’ (UAF) and ‘Hope Not Hate’ would probably agree with the above premise. However, while many of their rank and file supporters may be genuine in their intent, the organizations themselves have no real interest in defeating organized fascism. The UAF is a front-group dominated and controlled by the Trotskyite ‘Socialist Workers Party’ (SWP) who are far more interested in selling papers and recruiting members than in effectively confronting the BNP. ‘Hope Not Hate’ were set up by the State-affiliated entity ‘Searchlight’, who tell us we can stop the BNP by voting Labour and helping to strengthen the tools of the State itself (i.e. new laws). Both groups merely seek to manipulate and exploit antifascists, and arguably their stupid politics must take some of the share of responsibility for the rise of the BNP in the first place. At best they are a waste of time.
Antifa is a network of ordinary men and women opposed to the rise of the Far-Right. We work autonomously, but are united by a shared set of principles enshrined in our Founding Statement. If you support our position, you can get involved with one of our groups, or you could even set up your own. Ultimately however, we are not asking for people to join us; we are not asking for your contact details or for your money; we are simply asking for you to ACT.
While their true aims have not changed in the slightest, the BNP are trying to make the move from the shadows of neo-Nazism to mainstream politics. They are hiding their old swastika armbands under suit jackets and going out leafleting instead of petrol-bombing the homes of Asian families (leaving that kind of terror to their fascist allies and their ‘off-duty’ members). They stand candidates in elections and regularly hold stalls in town centres around the country. Going public in this way however, makes them vulnerable.
Besides the BNP, there are other fascist groups who must also be opposed when they come out onto the streets. They are in many ways even easier to combat. In fighting organized fascism the only limits are our imagination and courage, even small numbers of people can make a difference.
Antifa however, also believe in organizing within our own communities against the spread of racism stirred up by everyone from the mainstream media to New Labour, and against the fascism of the BNP. Only by organizing in our own communities and workplaces can we hope to defeat fascism once and for all. In the white working-class areas where the BNP have already gained a toe-hold (primarily former Labour strongholds where people rightly feel betrayed by the mainstream parties and have been conned into seeing the BNP as some form of ‘radical’ alternative), as well as confronting the BNP physically, we should aim to challenge the BNP’s fascist politics and replace them with our own anti-racist, anti-state, and pro working-class politics.
These are desperate times for antifascists and all of us must play our part in taking on organized fascism. Antifa believe we have already shown on numerous occasions that a relatively small number of dedicated antifascists can score decisive victories. Most of our actions and activities go unreported, but the fascists know and fear us. Imagine what a difference it would make if there were thousands of us.
Pride & Prejudice
Mark White madison
December 2009
It’s a cool September morning on the day of the AFL Grand Final, and in a function room of an inner-city Sydney RSL Club, a small crowd of men and women have gathered from around the country. [1] A middle-aged man in a red T-shirt is addressing them. A sign behind him reads: “Is today’s economic system serving the people of a nation?” but that’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about Hitler and facing some hostile questioning.
I’m at day one of the Sydney Forum, an annual weekend gathering of Australia’s Neo-Fascist and nationalist groups. Look closely and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single skinhead here. Instead, the crowd is mostly male, middle-aged and conservatively dressed — trousers, shirts and sensible haircuts. All, that is, except for a man in front of me wearing paint-spattered camouflage trousers and a T-shirt bearing the Eureka flag and the words “Aussie patriot”.
The event’s MC suddenly takes the microphone. [2] “They [RSL club members] tried to remove us from [this] club … if you behave and don’t shout ‘Heil Hitler!’ this forum will go ahead. This forum is not for Hitlerites!”
There is a whole roster of speakers planned for the forum, including talks on 9/11, al-Qaeda and, later on, a speech by inky-haired former radio presenter Terrie-Anne Verney, who was sacked from a NSW community radio station after it was revealed she was the administrator on the racist Facebook group “Fuck Off We’re Full”. [3]
The RSL club officials wanted to cancel after finding out who precisely had booked the room, but were advised by police to let the event go ahead. [4] Outside, a small group of protesters have gathered, holding banners that read “Neo-Nazis” and are shouting at people as they enter the club. Despite the venue being kept a secret until 7am this morning, one of the protesters bought a ticket to find out where it would be.
I ask Jim Saleam, the event’s organiser and NSW director of the white-nationalist Australia First Party, why he is holding the event on the day of the final of the Aussie Rules football match. “It’s a free-speech weekend”, he says. “You’ve got to hold it some time.” [5]
========================
We all remember the riots on December 11, 2005, in Cronulla. [6] For a brief moment in Australian history, the southern Sydney beach suburb became a cauldron of bubbling racial tension as a crowd of mostly white Australians demonstrated against what was believed to be a racially motivated attack by Middle Eastern youth against two Caucasian lifeguards. Crude slogans filled the streets: “Wog-free zone”, “Lebs go home” and “We grew here, you flew here”. It wasn’t long before violence descended and Australia found itself in the middle of an international media firestorm.
Fast-forward to June 2009 and Australia was back in the international firing line, this time after a spate of alleged racist attacks against Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney. [7] And then, of course, there was Hey Hey It’s Saturday, and the now infamous Red Faces incident in October, in which a Jackson 5 tribute band performed in front of singer Harry Connick Jnr with their faces painted black. It hit an already overly exposed nerve and Australia was propelled to the middle of a world racism debate. Yet again. [8]
Interestingly, a decade-long survey, named Challenging Racism and released last year, found that levels of racism were actually falling in Australia, with one person in 10 thinking some races were superior to others (figures in Europe run to three in 10). Get a little closer to the action, however, and leaders of some of Australia’s notorious far-right groups will tell you that membership is on the rise. [9]
There are worrying signs. In May last year, a group of Aborigines claimed they were threatened by a man with a tomahawk wearing full-length Ku Klux Klan gear in Griffith, NSW, and days before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation in February last year, a video was posted on YouTube featuring an Australian man in a white hood with a burning cross. The subject line? Australia says sorry. The body copy: no way go and screw your [sic] self monkeys. [10]
More worrying still were boasts in September by Alice Springs local Denis Donohue, who was investigated for selling T-shirts emblazoned with a Nazi swastika and the words “White Power”. He told a journalist: “That was just a novelty thing because I was sick of them all breaking into my home”, adding that he had sold some T-shirts to local police officers. [11]
In May this year, US Klan leader Thomas Robb admitted Ku Klux Klan members were indeed across Australia, a claim backed by leading anti-Klan crusader Johnny Lee Clary, himself a former Klan leader who, having discovered God, now campaigns against the group. Far-right political party Australia First has registered as a national party and will contest federal elections, while One Nation is back from the grave with an outspoken redhead as its new poster girl. [12] Could Australia be heading back into its dark past? “I do think there’s certainly an anxiety within all minority communities that multiculturalism and tolerance can decline when people are feeling threatened, jobs are in short supply and money is tight”, says Deborah Stone of the Anti-Defamation Commission.
Word on the street is that approximately 100 people attended a demonstration outside Humanist House in the Sydney suburb of Chippendale yesterday evening, to protest the NSW Humanist Society’s decision to hire out its meeting rooms to members of ‘Klub Naziya’, a loosely-organised monthly fellowship of angry Aryans. The Society is ostensibly committed to what it terms ‘humanist’ values; values which, in practice, embrace providing a forum for neo-Nazis.
Unlike last month, the members of KN apparently failed to appear yesterday, which suggests one of two things. Either the Society has withdrawn its invitation to this particular group of fascists to make use of Humanist property, or other arrangements have been made to ensure that the Master Race is able to meet in peace and quiet, well away from the filthy Jews intent on disturbing their contribution to the promotion of humanism in Sydney. Note that no official communication has been forthcoming from the NSW Humanist Society vis-a-vis its provision of facilities to neo-Nazis, so it’s impossible to state with any certainty the future of Klub Naziya at Humanist House. What does seem certain is that the NSW Humanist Society is happy to allow its reputation to be dragged through the mud by a handful of people too ‘extreme’ even for Dr James Saleam.
British-Israel Case To End In Final Defeat Of The Palmer Clique: What Will The Usual Suspects Do Now? Klub Naziya? Klub Nation?
May 18, 2005
…What now for [Daevid] Palmer? The game goes on. In January this year, the neo-nazis organised a piss-up club under alternate names: Klub Naziya or Klub Nation. It had been meeting on a fortnightly basis and now about monthly. The first meeting on January 7 saw a major split. The people best known as ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ walked out. They have since denounced the heavy alcohol consumption at the meetings and foreshadowed the idea that this might lead to criminal offences. They were undoubtedly right. Given that Palmer has been talking of killing and terror for years, it seems certain someone is to be revved up to do a crime. We are still witnessing the usual pattern of neo-nazi provocation in action.
It is the opinion of the nationalists that neo-nazism must be harried out of existence. It provides the potential for provocative-violence, the entrapment of some sincere youth, a conduit to collect intelligence on the wider patriotic movement, a pool for the harassment of nationalists and other patriots and a yardstick for media anti-patriotic propaganda.
Palmer’s clique is wounded and bleeding badly but it is still in play and has reformed around a new front-man, Mr. J. Rafty. Meetings are taking place between private dwellings in Ultimo and Glebe, but membership (sic) is now a handful. Yet, there is also the strange case of the fake ‘British Israel World Federation Australia Limited’ (BIWFAL), a body set up thanks to the neo-nazis’ lawyer, Mr. John Boyle, such that a claim for monies from the Nicholls Estate could be made[.] Mr. Boyle has in recent times actually claimed to have ‘converted’ to the British Israel faith; however, his loyalty is focused on the fake entity and not the legitimate body. The connection between Mr. Boyle and the so-called ‘conservative’ faction of the New South Wales Liberal Party is well known. Will the Liberals st[i]ll have use for the neo-nazi shadow operation?
Nothing about the neo-nazis is ever certain. Vigilance must be sustained as the ultimate round is soon to begin.
I’ll only ask you once more
You only want to believe
This man is looking for someone to hold him down
He doesn’t quite fully understand the meaning
Never heard about can’t think about
Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan
Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw
Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’Neill, Edna O’Brien and Lawrence Stern
Shut it: you don’t understand it
Shut it: that’s not the way I planned it
Shut your mouth ’til you know the truth
I’ll only ask you once more
It must be so hard to see
This man is waiting for someone to hold him down
He doesn’t quite ever understand the meaning
Shut it: you don’t understand it
Shut it: that’s not the way I planned it
Shut your fucking mouth ’til you know the truth
Never heard about won’t think about
Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan
Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw
Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’Neill, Edna O’Brien and Lawrence Stern
Sean Kavanaugh and Sean McCann
Benedict Keilly, Jimmy Hiney
Frank O’Connor and Catherine Rhine…
Pride & Prejudice
Mark White madison
December 2009
It’s a cool September morning on the day of the AFL Grand Final, and in a function room of an inner-city Sydney [Petersham] RSL Club, a small crowd of men and women have gathered from around the country. A middle-aged man in a red T-shirt is addressing them. A sign behind him reads: “Is today’s economic system serving the people of a nation?” but that’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about Hitler and facing some hostile questioning.
I’m at day one of the Sydney Forum, an annual weekend gathering of Australia’s Neo-Fascist and nationalist groups. Look closely and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single skinhead here. Instead, the crowd is mostly male, middle-aged and conservatively dressed — trousers, shirts and sensible haircuts. All, that is, except for a man in front of me wearing paint-spattered camouflage trousers and a T-shirt bearing the Eureka flag and the words “Aussie patriot”.
The event’s MC [Welf Herfurth] suddenly takes the microphone. “They [RSL club members] tried to remove us from [this] club … if you behave and don’t shout ‘Heil Hitler!’ this forum will go ahead. This forum is not for Hitlerites!”
There is a whole roster of speakers planned for the forum, including talks on 9/11, al-Qaeda and, later on, a speech by inky-haired former radio presenter Terrie-Anne Verney, who was sacked from a NSW community radio station after it was revealed she was the administrator on the racist Facebook group “Fuck Off We’re Full”.
The RSL club officials wanted to cancel after finding out who precisely had booked the room, but were advised by police to let the event go ahead. Outside, a small group of protesters have gathered, holding banners that read “Neo-Nazis” and are shouting at people as they enter the club. Despite the venue being kept a secret until 7am this morning, one of the protesters bought a ticket to find out where it would be.
I ask Jim Saleam, the event’s organiser and NSW director of the white-nationalist Australia First Party, why he is holding the event on the day of the final of the Aussie Rules football match. “It’s a free-speech weekend”, he says. “You’ve got to hold it some time.”
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
