Bust the budget march Sydney July 2014

"BUST THE BUDGET "                            
From Little things Big things grow*, the people's anger on the streets of Sydney       

It is the people of the land

SYDNEY 6 JULY 2014

On a beautiful, sunny Sydney Sunday, the police suggest about 6000 people turned up to the "Bust The Budget" rally in George Street. Hmmm...must have been before the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA-here to stay!) arrived...anyhow yon police with pencils and pads counting; keep your day jobs, it may not yet be your time to branch out into mathematics. Belgo Geordie, using fingers on two hands counted 15,323 marchers and fifteen dogs and one man in a grey/silver suit from ASIO.

Town Hall Square was a mass of colour, banners, all ages-representing that cross section of Australian society still driven by decency.

It is about what we leave her generation

Good on the combined unions sounding the battle charge. As ever, the speakers were mixed but mostly inspiring. The indigenous woman brought some fire and brimstone-rightly acknowledged because our indigenous communities will wear the brunt of all of these changes. A matter of fact analysis from the NSW Nurses and Midwives Union on the state of the health sector and the Coalition's impending slash and burn. It was good to hear the students were being activated. The plight of welfare and carers was a moving call to stand for the rights who cannot speak for themselves but will be marginalised by the impending changes. The last speaker fired up and reminded us of the combined power of the unions.

However, "Bust the Budget" must seem like a good rallying cry for some in the union hierarchy but there is a much darker heart to this matter; as was picked up by a number of speakers and expressed in banners, placards and the conversations of those attending.

   

This is a return to class war. A cruel and relentless attack on core values. It has touched a nerve in people about what makes a fair and just society. The budget is a symptom, but it is not the sum total of the disease currently attacking our society. This march was on a day when Morrison is still keeping stum about boats being "stopped" or worse handed back to Sri Lanka. Manus Island is still a prison. Refugees and migrants are still being demonised.

  
When a government tells working people they have to make sacrifices they do so by employing spin doctors to sell the message that "we" are living beyond our means. As mining companies, banks and businesses use creative accounting and offshore transfers to avoid paying tax; while shedding more jobs because the cost of labor in Australia is too expensive. Then they wring their poor rich hands and say they can't afford to pay tax, wages, carbon (or pollution) tax and if we the people don't like it-then they will take their business away! Greed is good, is it not?

I cannot begin to imagine life without Gina and Clive, can you? Then you have old men in suits in Canberra, who benefited and continue to benefit from a welfare state, tell our youth their future is one of excessive debt, limited access to quality education, health, housing, and more importantly; meaningful work. Abbott, so wedded to Mother England he wants a return to the class system of privilege and divine rule and divide and rule.

Come on kids know your place

In other words, the children of wealth will be all right because they (their parents) will be able to afford private education, university and have the old boys network to get them into jobs at the big end of town. All others can be thrown to compete on the scrap heap of casual labour. Practice tugging your forelock and if you are female, not being seen let alone heard.

And for those currently disadvantaged such as our indigenous people, those with disability, old, sick, homeless, heading towards us in a leaky boat dreaming of a better future; they have no place in Tony Abbott's vision for Australia. For the record Tone, what will you do with us. Reservations? Detention Centres?...

The message is clear. It is not just this budget. It is the ideology driving it. It is a small minority dictating terms under the pretence they achieved a mandate in the last election. Rather than the reality, they cashed in on the electorates disillusion with Labor and took advantage of Murdoch's  24/7 media hatchet job; presenting his poisoned view of the world as news!

People have woken up and in marches such as these will not be taken for the fools politicians think the electorate is. I am proud of the people who marched today, who spoke, who stood up for something more than just what they could get for themselves. They are the people Mr Abbott and you would do well to take note!

Justice now...

* With thanks to Mr Kev Carmody, you are the man...and if you have not heard Mr Carmody's music-check it out, he is one our great poet troubadours and speaks from the heart.