on the ground report : Melbourne Indymedia

walked down swanston st leading with large photo / video contingent.

led by police, then media, then cheerleaders/socialists - about little bourke, the tranny cops joined the radcheerleaders at the front.

At Bourke and Swanston they stoped for a performance, then the arterial block charged from nowhere and the crowd I was with went up bourke towards Spring.

There was some argy bargy with the cop horses then another charge - people were running up bourke chanting 'whose streets our streets' - it was an amazing site -my camera went away for 2 minutes while I joined the run/chant. lots and lots of media everywhere

We turn the corner into Russel and went to the barricades at Collins (maybe little Collins??) at a pace. There seemed to be a large group behind us - very quickly the space seemed to fill with people. Lots of requests for water from the rad cheer were fulfiled happily - they were amazing.

Initially there seemed to be a little argy bargy at the front (right on the barricade) but it seemed minor - no injuries, arrests or screams :)

a lot of people milled around in a very very hot sun with a lot of pedestrian onlookers. I saw a couple of things tossed over and above the cops heads - then I saw a pretty red cloud of smoke drift over the street behind the cops.

about five minutes later an even larger contingent of the rally arrived and with them was a conga band that had people jumping and made the heat and otherwise lack of things to do tolerable.

More milling. After about ten minuites an "oil free" bus (carried by peeps) turned up and a large truck with a sound system

I was sweltering and it looked like the rally was a lot smaller than it had been = having been at the front of the rally, I wondered if there had been a split in the rally?

I was about to go find when indy van called, and I was hot and tired - I came back to report.