702am News: The global
Climate strike is today and it is going to be massive. The
Sydney branch of the MUA will be walking off the job to support the strike. Some 2000
businesses are supporting the strike or allowing their workers to attend. Disappointingly,
Hunter workers withdrew support for the Newcastle climate strike after being lobbied by the mining union.
720am
Jacob and Zane speak with Moreland councillor Sue Bolton about the council's decision to implement a policy of "hostile architecture" in Coburg mall. Armrests were installed in the middle of benches commonly used by people sleeping rough under the guise of improved disability access, without a decision from council. However some local traders lobbied Bolton and clearly viewed the purpose of the handrails not as improving disability access but as
repelling people who are sleeping rough.
Councillor Bolton later voted for an amended motion to remove the handrails from three of the five benches where they had been installed, which passed, and told 3CR the way to address homelessness is to provide housing, not implement "hostile architecture".
745am
Jacob and Zane speak with Sophie L'estrange from Melbourne Activist Legal Support about last Saturday's Extinction Rebellion blockade of the Princes bridge, adjacent to Flinders st. Station. The police response to the protest was unusual and regressive in that people were prevented from joining the protest once it began, and the media were also banned from entering the protest area to document it. Mounted Horses were also mobilised in an oppressive display of force.
L'estrange told
Green Left Radio that being able to freely attend peaceful protests is a democratic right in Australia and the police were out of line, from a legal perspective, in blocking access. Moreover, by excluding the media from covering the protest a dangerous dynamic emerges where it is harder to document and expose any violence the police may use against peaceful protestors. MALS are
currently running a fundraiser to get resources that will boost their effectiveness, and are always looking for
volunteers to assist them.
8am activist calendar
-West Papua:
calls for Australia and the USA to cease training Indonesian military who are being deployed to repress West Papua independence protestors.
-Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rightly
criticised for wearing racist blackface makeup, but many of those outraged have had nothing to say about his government's support for pipelines and tar sand oil extraction on first nations land and Canadian arms exports to the despotic Saudi regime.
-
Yamatji woman shot dead by police officer in Geraldton, WA. Yamatji community is outraged by this latest in a long line of killings of Aboriginal people by police.
-Jock Palfreeman may be coming home to Australia
after a Bulgarian court granted him parole. Palfreeman was imprisoned in 2007 after a man was killed when Palfreeman jumped in to assist a Roma person being attacked by racist goons.
-Australian Liberty Alliance announces piss poor "counter protest" against climate strike which involves students staying in school rather than attending.
