March Australia 30/31 August Budget Protest
On Saturday and Sunday 30/31 August there will be marches and rallies all over Australia to protest the inequitable budget. The March Australia movement is a peaceful civil non party aligned movement which is for any Australian who is against the Budget and the Abbott government.
For further details please go to www.marchaustralia.com and click on Menu and then Locations.
It was reported in the local paper Viv.
The local MP , George Christensen, admitted he had misread community sentiment. Greg Hunt also told local businessmen of the decision.
It was also a backdown by the developers.
Nth Qld Bulk Ports (the company in charge of the expansion) is expected to soon release an updated plan.
More in the Townsville Bulletin "FEDERAL member for Dawson George Christensen has admitted he was wrong about dredge spoil dumping on the Great Barrier Reef.
The Whitsundays-area MP has released a statement following backlash from residents over the dumping of dredge spoil from the Abbot Point coal port.
“I didn’t foresee the angst the dumping of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef marine park would cause tourism operators and the residents of the Whitsundays,” he said in his statement."
In the Mackay Daily Mercury "Mr Christensen ran an advertisement in yesterday's edition of the Whitsunday Coast Guardian saying, "I got it wrong"."
Police estimated up to 5000 people had flocked to the State Library of Victoria at 1pm for “March Australia” before marching down Swanston and Bourke Sts to Parliament where they heard several speakers, including human rights lawyer Julian Burnside.
The issues being protested — among them the Abbott Government’s stance on asylum seekers, the environment, welfare, education, foreign aid, women’s issues and the tax system — were as diverse as the marchers themselves, with primary-school aged children through to pensioners walking side-by-side.
Groups of serial protesters — including the anti-East West Link demonstrators — dotted the crowd.
A looming puppet of the Prime Minister also stood among
The comic figure had smoke shooting from his behind to signal him being a “liar liar, pants on fire” and used his giant hands to “break promises” written on cardboard signs.
Trams and traffic were disrupted by the horde of demonstrators, who clasped signs reading “Abbott is un-Australian”, “#teamaustralia is worse than Collingwood” and “burn the detention centres, deport the government, welcome refugees”.
The speakers at Parliament slammed the government’s treatment of a raft of issues, led by MC, writer and social commentator Van Badham.
“We are the political force that Aboott has shafted at his peril,” Ms Badham said.
“It’s the people gathered here today that will bring this ... government down.”
Mr Burnside — a human rights advocate and prominent QC — condemned Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s treatment of asylum seekers as “deliberately harming young men, women and children” and “a crime”.
Lock the Gate Victoria co-ordinator Ursula Alquier and Greenpeace chief executive David Ritter criticised the government’s environmental policies, while Destroy the Joint director Jennie Hill said Hockey’s budget had “hit women the hardest”.
Friends of the ABC campaign manager Glenys Stradijot said funding cuts could threaten the national broadcaster, while Doctors’ Reform Society vice president Tim Woodruff canned the government’s health care policies.
MC Van Baham speaks to the crowd on the steps of Parliament during the anti-Abbott rally in Melbourne. Picture: Mark Dadswell
It was the second anti-government rally held in Melbourne this year, with another in March drawing as many as 30,000 people.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/police-estimate-5000-protesters-rally-against-federal-coalition-policies-in-cbd-march/story-fni0fit3-1227042936486
samantha.landy@news.com.au