Who's to blame for global warming?
A couple of weeks ago a series of protest convoys came to Canberra from all over Australia to air their grievances with the current government, and to demand that a ‘double dissolution’ election be held immediately. (This happens to be currently quite impossible under the Australian Constitution, but they were too angry to be deterred by this annoying little fact!) They dubbed it the “Convoy of No Confidence”
According to their advance publicity there was said to be around 9,000 people coming in trucks, campervans, 4WDs, buses and assorted other conveyances. The National Capital would be brought to a standstill by a massive blockade. In the end there was (by my estimate) about 300 or so. They made up for their small contingent by their passion, their sincerity – and their hysteria. Alan Jones and Tony Abbott were there to spur them on, with Jones even telling the crowd that a 2-kilometre long convoy of protest trucks had been prevented from entering Canberra by the Federal Police (which was simply untrue).
And what a rag-tag collection of anti-this and anti-that causes they espoused! The proposed tax on carbon pollution, asylum seekers, changes to quarantine laws, the cost of living, government godlessness, treatment of fathers in the family law system, communism, we even had the Citizens’ Electoral Council still warning us that Prince Phillip and the WWF are plotting for global domination. One guy held his placard aloft to say “People with blood in their eyes, and all she wants to do is dance… dance… dance… and make romance! (not sure what that one was about, actually).
Over all, I found it to be quite a sad assembly of the disgruntled, the disillusioned, the disturbed, the disenfranchised – and a few of the discombobulated as well. But it was a marvellous photo opportunity.
The full set of photos from the ‘Convoy of No Consequence’ can be seen on the main Jokar Web site in this folder.