"No ifs. No buts. No Medicare cuts......"

I really enjoy a good protest rally. Not only do I usually find I support the cause and happily add my presence to boost the numbers, but the colour and carnival atmosphere make it a good day out anyway! In fact, today's was so colourful that I'm going to relax my editing standards, and post far more pictures than usual. (I'm never that good at editing things out anyway.)

There were politicians from the Greens and the Labour Party. ("You might have heard of him, the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten", was the introduction.) There were groups from several socialist left organisations, unions, including especially the Health Services Union I think. There were odd and not so odd individuals. There was even a researcher from Sydney University, handing out surveys to assist his research into democracy and protests! ("I love niche academic research", I told him.)
 
When I filled out my survey, I answered the question about how well democracy was working in Australia, with a 2 out of 10. My initial reaction was to go with a zero, but on reflection, we do get to have our protest rallies at least, and more important, we wouldn't go to them if we thought they achieved nothing at all.

There was an attempt by a very vocal group of asylum seeker supporters to hijack the event, by chanting "Let them stay, let them stay" very loudly at crucial moments, like when Opposition Leader Bill took to the stage. He was actually in a spirited and feisty mood, and refused to go off message. Handled it all rather well. One lady near me got very stroppy with one of the hijackers, and I thought they were about to deck each other.



Eventually the colourful assembly disassembled, and marched down to Belmore Park.