Hobart, Darwin and Adelaide protest on M1

100 protest for M1 in Adelaide

ADELAIDE — Darcie Gannon reports that 100 people attended M1 protests in Adelaide outside the “department of racism” — the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. Protesters demanded an end to the federal government’s racist immigration policy and its support for Israel’s colonisation of Palestine.

Hassan, an ex-Woomera detainee was cheered when he proclaimed: “We deserve to live here as humans, like you do.”

Leaving DIMIA covered in chalk demands, protesters marched to foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer’s office to present him with a banner covered in bloody handprints and bearing the words “our government has blood on its hands.”

At the closed offices, the protesters chanted until a office member retrieved the banner from us for delivery to Downer.

Protesters oppose logging

HOBART — Julianne Green reports that May 1 was a day of loud protest against the clear-felling of old-growth forests, the government’s racist refugee policies and the war on the Third World.

At 5am activists began meditating outside Forestry Tasmania offices. Around 20 activists blockaded the offices from 7.30am, decorating the building with banners and placards. The main signs to the building, which had been covered by Forestry Tasmania, became 2-metre sign-boards for the protest.

Seventy people attended a noon rally at the building, hearing from Peter Cahill, whose house will be destroyed against his will so that the environmentally destructive Southwood mill can go ahead. After speakers from the Greens and the Socialist Alliance, protesters marched to Hobart’s immigration offices, chanting pro-refuge slogans and rapping “We know Howard loves the poor, his policies create more and more; unemployment, prices hit the sky, it’s time to say: Johnny, goodbye!”

Afternoon of M1 protests

DARWIN — M1 was kicked off, Kate Stockdale and Ryk Molon report, by the early morning appearance of banners emblazoned “Free the refugees” outside the empty Coonawarra detention centre.

At noon, 60 activists gathered in Raintree Park for an afternoon of speeches, banner painting and street theatre. Highlights included speeches by former East Timorese refugee Jose Evaristo and Resistance’s Chris Atkinson and performances of the Bob Marley song “Get up, stand up” and an R&B version of Madonna’s “Material girl”.

At 4pm, protesters marched to the Northern Territory Trades Hall, where Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Jamey Robertson, and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union’s Allan Patton addressed the crowd.

The march proceeded to Darwin’s immigration department offices and the Darwin defence forces recruitment offices before finishing at the Department of Justice, where Network Against Prohibition spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff condemned the NT’s proposed “drug house” legislation. NAP set up a “tent embassy” in front of Parliament House, vowing to stay until it is clear the drug laws have been abandoned.

From Green Left Weekly, May 8, 2002.
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