Mayday Muchness : Melbourne Indymedia

Mayday began in Melbourne at Trades Hall where around 4-5000 mostly construction workers and other unionists turned up for the occassion. Not a bad effort considering 3 or 4 years ago Melbourne was lucky to see twenty people at Mayday.

After the regular speeches people marched in what was aptly termed a "stroll" by one speaker, down to federation square. There more speeches were heard about the attacks on workers from prominent union members as two police helicopters circled the rally in tandem like we were at some bizarre air show.

Previously around 30 people had staged a demo at Federation square in protest of the privatisation of that space. Apparently one has to get a permit to hold a protest there now and it is not infact a public space.

After that some headed off to picket Haliburton (big bad construction corporation linked to the bush/cheney junta) on St Kilda rd, and there were reports of anti-nuke actions in Collins st outside Rio Tinto. (other may want to add reports from these?)

There was a notable absence of the s11ers that gave the impetus for the unions to come out 2 years ago for the first time on 50 years. The question was had Mayday been recuperated by the unions into another boring rally or should the anti-capitalists claim credit for even radicalising them enough to get them out there?

Whatever the answer is was a bit dissapointing to see a lack of any anarcho-autonomous presence on the day. There were many oppostunities to have some fun, make the links between various campaigns and break-away from the mundainity of demo to have our own fun and continue the spirit of mayday as a carnivalesque romp through the streets of melbourne.

I might comment that May Day has always been about celebrating and remembering the struggles of collectivised labor. It's for this reason I've always rejected the "M1" jingoism myself.

Aaaaanyway, Heres these stuff starting to emerge some stuff on perth indys site about the small but nifty autonomous action that happened in perth today : http://www.perthimc.asn.au

Ciao,
Shayne

May 1st in Melbourne this year may have been tame, but it is good to see that a tradition has been re-established of marching on May 1st by a few unions and thousands of their members.

This year I find myself in Brisbane on May Day, where 150 hippies, punks, ferals and assorted anarchists and troublemakers celebrated May Day with a Reclaim the Streets party in Woollongabba. With appropriate overkill to match the Queensland police reputation, the 150 music playing and dancing ferals were at least matched in numbers by the Queensland Police Force, including members of the Special Operations Group and the Police Helicopter.

People stood their ground and partied despite the intimidating police presence. Read my report at Brisbane Indymedia at:
http://brisbane.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5818&group=webcast
also see other reports for more photos and audio.

May Day Solidarity
Takver