Hi-Viz Vengeance On Melbourne’s Streets

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THE LAST PLACE a young, well-educated, socially-liberal, mask-wearing Melburnian should be found today (22/9/21) is on the streets of downtown Melbourne. All morning, squads of increasingly angry and frustrated riot police have been clashing with groups of even angrier and more frustrated young men – most of them construction workers – protesting furiously against mandatory Covid-19 vaccination, and Labor Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews’ decision to shut down Melbourne’s construction sites for a further two weeks. Anyone looking like a supporter of mandatory vaccination, Andrews, or even the “sell out” CFMEU – the construction workers’ union – who fell into these protesters’ hands, would be in for a very hard time indeed.

It is most unlikely that Andrews and his advisers anticipated the explosion of anger that has followed their decision to make vaccination mandatory for construction workers. Pandemic decision-making is driven by the data – which showed a very low vaccination rate among this group of workers. Superficially, their reasoning was sound. By making the jab mandatory, unvaccinated tradies, desperate to get back to work, would be quick to comply. Where was the advantage in resistance?

Unfortunately, reason had nothing to do with it.

In the minds of an alarming number of the young, fit, Aussie males who dominate the Victorian construction industry, the so-called “Covid-19 Pandemic” is a crock of shit: nothing but a smokescreen laid down by the “elites”, whose unholy intention has always been to crush the spirit of hard-working working-class men by robbing them of their freedom. Why else did these high-viz demonstrators make a bee-line for the CFMEU’s headquarters as the protests kicked-off? Because if there’s one institution guaranteed to stand up for a working man’s freedom, then it’s his union. Right?

Wrong.

The CFMEU bosses, also acting reasonably, wanted to get their guys back to work as soon as possible. The building sites had been far too quiet for far too long. The members were running out of money. If the price of getting the construction industry up-and-running again was not objecting to a compulsory jab for all the lazy bastards who’d failed to get one during the weeks of lockdown, then the CFMEU would keep its mouth firmly shut. After all, which freedom was more important? The freedom to be a bloody idiot? Or, the freedom to get out and get earning again? It shouldn’t have been that hard a choice to make!

But it was.

And by the time the union bosses realised that way more blokes than they ever expected were not only refusing to get jabbed, but also blaming the union for not defending their right to say No, it was too late. There were hundreds of them right outside their front door. In vain did they demand the right to be heard. These anti-vaxx unionists were in no mood for explanations. First they hurled insults, then bottles, then rocks. Pretty soon all the CFMEU officials could hear was the chant every union boss dreads: “You sold us out! You sold us out! You sold us out!”

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Sensibly, they retreated. This was something for the cops to sort out.

Well, yeah, usually. But these guys are very different from the middle-class sons and daughters that Melbourne’s finest are usually called upon to police during protests. Very few of those kids are willing to mix it up with the coppers – even if they were capable of such non-verbal communication. Young construction workers on the other hand: blokes who know how to handle themselves; they are a whole different story. What’s more, they’re Australians. Mixing it up with the coppers is as old as Ned Kelly – and practically an obligation. No red-blooded, working-class Aussie is going to run away from the Police – until the shooting starts.

And that’s the problem – isn’t it? The last thing Premier Andrews needs right now are half-a-dozen young construction workers bleeding-out on Flinders Street. What’s more, the protesters know it. The Riot Squad can squirt all the pepper spray, and fire all the rubber bullets it likes but, so long as their numbers hold-up, these protesters ain’t going anywhere. Hell, they’ve even drawn up a batshit crazy list of demands – just like the miners at the Eureka Stockade. And if the cops actually do start shooting? Well, who’s for an irrational revolution?

So, where the bloody hell does that leave the political leadership of Victoria and Australia? Where has all this batshit craziness come from? Best guess? It’s come from nearly forty years of working-class blokes being looked straight through – as if they weren’t there. It’s been born out of the yawning chasm between the people who get the respectful nods, and the people on the receiving end of the contemptuous sneers. Between the classy types who talk knowledgably about good wine and boutique breweries, and the guys who drink the same brand of beer as their dads’. If you shove a whole class out of sight, and make it crystal clear that nobody who matters gives a rat’s arse what they think about anything, then winning their trust when it really, really matters, is bound to be a struggle.

After all, the bosses have been telling them for forty years that all these bad things that keep happening to them cannot be helped. Yes they may be painful, but they are also necessary. And besides, there are no alternatives. That was shit forty years ago, and it’s still shit. So, when the working-class hears the people in charge spewing out the same old rhetoric about painful but necessary adjustments – for the good of all – is it any wonder that the first response of a fair old chunk of them is scepticism?

Especially when there are YouTube videos and Facebook posts telling them that this whole Covid thing is a hoax – just another trick by billionaire vampires to deprive them of what little freedom they have left.

Especially when the “nice” people get to work from home on full pay, while the gates to the city’s building sites remain firmly padlocked.

Are all these protesting construction workers right, then? No, of course not. Covid-19 is not a figment of Daniel Andrews’ imagination. Neither can one help speculating, just a little that, mixed-in with all this working-class fury, there might also be a pretty large dose of toxic Aussie masculinity. What is absolutely indisputable, however, is that the ignorance and aggression on display on the streets of Melbourne has not materialised overnight, out of thin air.

As W.H. Auden wrote on the eve of the Second World War:

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

77 COMMENTS

  1. I and the public know
    What all schoolchildren learn,
    Those to whom evil is done
    Do evil in return.

    Kiwis locked out of housing market 2021

  2. The main problem here, is that the CFMEU was too slow to act. Instead of being proactive, in consulting their members and putting it to them to decide, left it up to the government and employers to enforce mandatory vaccinations. This disempowered their members, and is the motive for the division amongst union members. This division gave entry to the Far Right, to organise the violent attack on the CFMEU office.

    The lesson, if we don’t want to see a repeat here, our union leaders need get out to their members, worksite by worksite, and get them to collectively debate all the issues and then vote whether to support mandatory vaccination in their workplace or not.

    There is no excuse for inaction.

    • Well the NZCTU excuse–does any worker know who Richard Wagstaff is?–is that they can only act on what CTU affiliated unions want to do, rather than lead action from the front…

    • Sheesh – construction worksite union representation in New Zealand???? Did you miss the 1990s – there’s been no so such thing for decades.

      • There has never been a better time to reorganise and energise the union movement.
        Working people are being screwed everywhere, by employers, by landlords by banks and now fascists are using entryist tactics over vaccine hesitancy, feeding off working people’s alienation and disempowerment to recruit them to their violent anti-union views.

        They say nature abhors a vaccume. The fascists see an opening, and they are keen to push through it.

        If we do our job right, they should find us on the other side with the workers, facing them out and debunking their conspiracies.

        Union organisers need to go onto every job in the city to talk to the workers, both union and non-union and lay out all the facts before them and empower them by letting them debate and decide.

        The Motion to be put:
        This worksite, by a majority democratic vote of the workers, decide that for the health and safety in the workplace, all agree to abide by this collective decision, (barring legitimate health reasons), that we will all be vaccinated as a condition of union membership and support.

        For: …..

        Against: …..

        Abstentions: …..

        Carried/Lost: …..

        • Total fantasy – do you reside in New Zealand? Union membership is minimal and actively suppressed by employers in this country. Google search “Employment Contracts Act”

    • Pat O’Dea: “This division gave entry to the Far Right, to organise the violent attack on the CFMEU office.”

      Claims about far right involvement have been frequently made. However. A household member watched livestream coverage: their comment was that there were a surprising number of men who looked to be Maori/Pacific among the protesters, given that it was supposed to be far right-organised. Moreover, reporters asked protesters about political affiliations: I think only one claimed to be a neo-nazi, and the reporter concluded that he was joking.

      Said household member also received a voice message from a friend in Melbourne. That friend debunked all that far right stuff, saying that the protest resulted from worker fury at the union having failed to consult its members.

      Assertions about the far right appear to be an attempt, on the one hand to minimise the motivations of the protesters, and on the other, to demonise them by characterising them as violent neo-nazis. Because everybody knows that the far right is a priori violent, right?

  3. Another great post Chris! You’re on a roll.

    Adding a point: Melburnians have suffered 9 MONTHS of lockdown. Imagine your mental state after that.
    And not just any lockdown either: 9 months where a granny gets smashed down in the street and pepper sprayed. 9 months where lone women in parks get wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by cops for being unmasked. And the whole thing was caused by bungled state management of a quarantine hotel. I’ve followed this on Sky since it started and listened to the psychotic diktats of Daniel Andrews, and I’m surprised they held their temper this long. I reckon his political career just ended along with a lot of others in the Victorian Labor Party. It’s been a long time coming.

    • Dunno if your being simplistic , but 9 months,… sheesh! That would blow anybody’s patience out of the water! 9 bloody months of lockdowns and all of the restrictions on living a normal life…even during WW2 there was a respite during daylight hours…

    • Andrew: “Melburnians have suffered 9 MONTHS of lockdown.”

      Indeed. Small wonder there’s rebellion: I’m surprised that there isn’t more of it.

      A family member has friends in Sydney. Their suburb has been in lockdown for 13 weeks now. Just lately, there has been a bit of loosening up, but essentially, they’re still under house arrest. That’s a helluva long time to crimp people’s everyday liberties. And is it doing any good? Evidence suggests not.

      And all the while,

    • Andrew: I accidentally posted my last comment too soon.

      And all the while, there’s Queensland, where we have family, and about which the media here never report, as far as I can see. As of today, and since the beginning of the pandemic early last year, cases are 2,021 and deaths are 7. The population there is about the same size as NZ’s, and as people who’ve been there will know, the coastal developments from Sunshine Coast to NSW are stuffed full of old people, many of them NZers, of course. Queensland lockdowns have been far less onerous than ours.

      Whenever a msm luvvie reports breathlessly on the catastrophic numbers of cases and deaths in other parts of the world, I think of Queensland and take that reportage with a grain of salt.

  4. Finally the fascists have found an issue that they can organise a movement around.

    Sep 22, 2021 8:55 AM
    RNZ Live

    Anti vaccination protesters are outside Taita College in the the Hutt Valley where students are getting vaccinated this week.
    The group called Voices for Freedom are standing at the entry to the school with signs saying ‘can we trust the media?’ and “vaccines are bioweapons”.
    RNZ has spoken to some students who were confused and concerned, while others were laughing.
    Police are at the scene, and teachers are helping students get inside.

    The Far Right are seeking entry into our schools, it won’t be long before they start seeking entry into our workplaces. We could witness the same scenes we have seen in Melbourne, here.

    • Honest: “Kiwis locked out of housing market 2021”

      Has this resulted from deliberate actions on the part of a particular sector of society (eg government), with the express intention of locking out an entire cohort of Kiwis? No? Then Auden’s words don’t apply.

    • Pat O’Dea: “Anti vaccination protesters
      ……..
      The group called Voices for Freedom…”

      It isn’t clear to me why anyone would characterise this group as “fascist/far right” – terms which are being used interchangeably.

      We’ve had anti-vaccination groups here for many years. Often, the same people are anti-fluoride as well. Even anti-abortion, in some cases. Have they ever before been accused of being fascist/far right? If so, I don’t recall it.

      “….with signs saying ‘can we trust the media?’ and “vaccines are bioweapons”.”

      Bioweapons? Well, folks are entitled to believe any tommyrot they like, and to say so. Free speech and all that.

      As to whether we can trust the media, I’ve spent a lot of years taking with a grain of salt everything broadcast and published here about international politics. If I don’t trust the media not to comprehensively propagandise us about what’s happening politically here and overseas, why on earth would I trust it in its coverage of the coronavirus? I guess many people have the same view. We aren’t fascist for being sceptical: I’d call it plain common sense.

  5. If you take away peoples’ rights and then proclaim you are going to give them back the same rights as vaccinated ‘freedoms’ you are already on a path to 1984 and Brave New World. I say this as someone that is double jabbed and pro-vaccination (and wants his 11-yr old daughter vaccinated asap).

    If people haven’t worked out by now there is a building disjoint between the the working and the management classes in first world nations then you haven’t been watching closely enough outside of your own bubble. Covid has only accelerated this. These types of demonstrations are occurring right across Europe; North America (including Canada) is split by province/state and otherwise there is rising tension in Asia.

    The clicker will come when we (and other nations) hit their vaccination targets. Most of Europe has already realized they needed to release the pressure cooker whereas here in Australasia their is still a belief that Joe Public will accept health/travel/activity restrictions post vaccination. The tide will turn however authorities will as slow as they can release the valve and then sell themselves as the liberator. They are drunk on control and power in a once in generational grab in otherwise fundamentally liberal democracies. This power grab is largely politically blind.

    It won’t work. Watch this space. The Western world is ripe for a Marie Antoinette style upbringing on a scale we haven’t seen since the fall of the iron curtain.

    • Pro fascist blather

      “The tide will turn however authorities will as slow as they can release the valve and then sell themselves as the liberator. They are drunk on control and power in a once in generational grab in otherwise fundamentally liberal democracies. This power grab is largely politically blind.

      It won’t work. Watch this space. The Western world is ripe for a Marie Antoinette style upbringing on a scale we haven’t seen since the fall of the iron curtain.” Frank the Tankie

      To which I say; No pasarán

        • In ”Animal Farm” by George Orwell, not many animals are smart enough to figure out what the pigs are up to, but Benjamin is.

          https://study.com/academy/lesson/benjamin-in-animal-farm-character-allegory-analysis.html

          “The tide will turn however authorities will as slow as they can release the valve and then sell themselves as the liberator.” Frank the Tankie

          Smug little Benjamin knows what the authorities up to. He can see what no one else can see. He knows what is beyond the looking glass.

          Coronavirus
          It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories

          George Monbiot
          It’s not just anti-vaxxers. The themes of resisting power and regaining control of our lives have been cynically repurposed

          Wed 22 Sep 2021 09.00 BST

          … in the countercultural movements where my sympathies lie, people are dropping like flies. Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals….

          …..I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to left. I hear right-on people mouthing the claims of white supremacists, apparently in total ignorance of their origins. I encounter hippies who once sought to build communities sharing the memes of extreme individualism….

          …..The anti-vaccine movement is a highly effective channel for the penetration of far-right ideas into leftwing countercultures. For several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right.

          …..Anti-vax beliefs overlap strongly with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories. This tendency has been reinforced by Facebook algorithms directing vaccine-hesitant people towards far-right conspiracy groups. Ancient links between “wellness” movements and antisemitic paranoia have in some cases been re-established. The notion of the “sovereign body”, untainted by chemical contamination, has begun to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us of autonomy.

          https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power?

        • It was also used during the Spanish Civil War, this time at the siege of Madrid by Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, a member of the Communist Party of Spain, in her famous “No pasarán” speech on 18 July 1936. The leader of the Nationalist forces, Generalísimo Francisco Franco, upon gaining Madrid, responded to this slogan by declaring “Hemos pasado” (“We have passed”).
          wikipedia

  6. It must be very hard for the educated writers and pontificators of good taste and good obidient citizenry to wake up and realise that the workers that actually keep everything running, don’t listen to you. And that includes you dear Chris. Fact is that these people do not trust government, don’t trust the media and don’t trust opinion writers. And here you go, they don’t behave. And they are not rightwingers, they are not fascists, they are ordinary Jo and Jane Citizens that have the guts full of lockdowns, fear of job loss, fear of losing their business etc, and above all that are tired to listen to wrung out platitudes of people who can not build anything other then their own careers on the backs of everyone else.
    I will promise you one thing tho, dear Jacinda is watching, and is wondering if L4 is ever going to be enforcable again in NZ.

    • Couldn’t have said it better. Nailed it.

      These people have had a gutsful of getting hammered by loss of work, livelihoods and freedoms, yet continue to be preached to people who haven’t shed any skin in the game.

      They’re not right wing nut jobs, just good hard working folk who’ve had enough. I don’t support their anti Vax attitude, but I understand why people are cautious.

      • Bear in mind that many of these “good hard working folk” are also of rugby ,racing and beer mentality and wilfully ignorant of social issues in their “self made man” lifestyles.
        The trades are well endowed with these people.

        • Supercilious academic privilege & confirmation bias nonsense. That wasn’t true 50 years ago when I started work in a factory & isn’t now when I’ve retired from the Boardroom for several years.

          A typical Argumentum ad Hominem/Identity fallacy

        • yep, and you can find the same on any other side of the spectacle.
          Or are you saying that lefty men don’t like rugby, racing and beer and fwiw, are also wilfully ignorant of social issues that do not affect Penis Havers?

        • @garibaldi. I would say if you come from a working class background you are probably more aware of the reality social issues than those who live more comfortable lives, and for whom social justice issues are merely some abstract thing to twitter about while sipping a latte

    • “Fact is that these people do not trust government, don’t trust the media and don’t trust opinion writers”.

      You could add, they don’t trust science, workers in white coats (or jackets and ties) with medical knowledge gleaned from years of study and experience. Fact is the delporables trust nothing and noone. Except those peddling snake oil.

    • “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind”. What price freedom is it for the good of all people or a select few. I really don’t understand the anti vax anti freedom sentiment, because for some people the anti vax brigade makes life a prison and maybe a death sentence for them so where is their freedom . What if we had something like ebola or smallpox on the loose and no vaccines ,who would be the first ones to demand the government do something . Covid is a rose by any other name but unfortunately for the ignorant just as deadly

  7. Until you (all) acknowledge that not all people against these C-19 ‘vaccines’ are antivaxxers, and that there maybe something wrong with these vaccines that needs to be investiagted further, you’re going to get SOooo many of your conclusions wrong, even with sound logic up to ‘the point’ ….in say a debate 100+ years ago, which might have gone along the lines of ‘blah, blash, blah, ………….but as s/he is black/female, they can’t be right’…… or Galileo and the Catholic church.

    ‘The science’ is NOT all in favour of these ‘vaccines’. The opposition to them have been silenced by MSM, YouTube etc. Which doesn’t make them wrong.

    Have an OPEN debate, i.e. how science is worked out.

    Don’t be the fool that history looks back upon, over THIS subject. Even back then the Govt/PTB could find experts that agreed with their point of view and the others (who turned out to be correct) were ridiculed and ignored.

    • I concede that in a couple of years you may be able to say told you so as the negative effects of the vaccine show up and the billions that have had the vaccine around the World will look silly. In the meantime we need to have a passport as soon as possible to protect me incase you are wrong. The other question is where is your science coming from and what do you want to do with all those that are sick at the moment.

  8. Frank EVEN Pfizer are concerned that the full dose may be too much of a dose for the 12-30 year old range. They guess a 1/4 dose might need to be used?
    It is on the FDA web site, so becareful with getting your 11 yr old vaccinated and ESPECIALLY careful with girls. See possible side effects with menstration with ‘women of child rearing age’.

    • Kevin, say you’re right. What do we do in the meantime, watch thousands die because there maybe a side effect. My 12 yr old granddaughter is done with no issues. Maybe think of getting done is the best of two evils.

      • Be healthy, eat well, don’t get grossly over weight, get some Vit D (sunlight) and you’re 99.999% sure you’ll be OK, if under 65.
        Delta and future variants are a LOT weaker, though more contagiuos.
        1,000 would have died under the first Covid, I agree, hence I supported that first lock down; better safe than sorry. Good on JacindaBlair. She has done one thing right.
        But now we have LOT’s of data, so the game plan needs to change. BUT the wealthy PTB have seen a way to make some serious money, so they’ll play this game for as long as it’s profitable.

        • Kevin. You can see the death rates in the USA but for whatever reason disregard what you know. Unless you are totally convinced the news we read is incorrect in which case you are a conspiracy theory advocate or, you are happy to let everyone else take the risk hoping they’ll protect you with herd immunity. Maybe it’s just that you’re a bit selfish or is it you’re just anxious and are looking for excuses not to be vaccinated. Read it.
          https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/09/21/us/idaho-covid-crisis-nurse-death/index.html

          • ‘conspiracy theory advocate’

            ‘Conspiracy Theory’ ,.. originally coined by the CIA to smear those who questioned the Warren Commissions finding in the assignation of JFK. Now most Americans don’t believe it was Oswald but was in fact a collaborative operation , … thus a ‘conspiracy’.

    • We’ll take our chances.

      That said I don’t give 2 fucks whether you vaccinate or not. I really don’t.

      But if you don’t and get sick – well that is your problem not mine.

  9. Another gritty article there @CT
    Can’t help but feel these sorts of shenanigans gotten up to by the Melbourne construction workers will be coming to town near you and I as lockdowns coupled with mainly social media misinformation carries on. Interesting times we are living in right now.

  10. Not a “Robo-Trotter” post this one!
    –(acknowledgement to Country Boy).

    I would characterise the blue collar/middle class/precariat splits as largely the result of something academics have warned about for some time–the “atomisation” of the population (not just the working class) under the influence of neo liberal individualism and post modernist philosophy. Collectivism, participation in traditional forms of society, union density, have all faded as people have become consumers (commodity fetishists) first and foremost–me me me. Pressure from monetarist Governments and deregulated capital for 40 odd years across the OECD has seen horrendous inequality develop, in NZ the bottom 50% own just 2% of the wealth.

    What should the response be? Authoritarianism, white supremacy and boofheaded anti intellectualism is not going to fix anything–it just further empowers the 1%ers by creating division along so many fronts. A united fightback is made especially difficult when central Labour organisations such as the ACTU and the NZCTU operate largely as class collaborationists. Backing up their respective neo liberal Labor/Labour Parliamentary parties rather than acting as class left fighting organisations in their own right.

    An interesting footnote is some Aussie leftists claim that CFEMU State Secretary John Setka is a bit of a rightist himself, along with some of his Croatian buddies. He was expelled from the Australian Labor Party in 2019.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Setka

  11. Great column Chris and nice that you are painting the bigger picture as well This confrontation has been years in the making it just needed a catalyst to bring all the different threads together

  12. Strewth Chris ya don’t shout stinkin’ fish in yer own backyard mate. Not when our cobbers are havin’ a real donnybrook over there. A trick cyclist or even a good sky pilot might help cheer ya up. Gotta be more positive mate. Hooroo…

  13. All the points Chris makes are valid. This group (lead by a few I imagine)are using their numbers, brashness and social media to good effect. They don’t like being pushed around and as Chris has pointed out the Union people have been caught out. Most of these people would have had their baby jabs. They are not a large group of anti vac people although no doubt the ones that are, are using their mates(sheep) for their own agendas. I suspect if you locked them in a AR stadium and chucked a couple of dying Covid patients in with them you would have them all vaccinated in a couple of hours. There are some people who will never accept getting vaccinated is for them. You have to be irrational to accept the risk of not having a jab, not unintelligent. There are plenty of so called intelligent people that have decided the Covid vaccine is not for them. This article out of CNN is a good example.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/09/21/us/idaho-covid-crisis-nurse-death/index.html

    The workers in Victoria and the Authorities Will stare each other down until one of them blinks.

  14. Contagion. Keep NZ’s border closed between NZ & Oz indefinitely.

    They’ve become a fascist, Nazi ultra-right Zombie nation. Even god knows that! Hehehe!

    Keep the sheep shaggers out!

  15. Umm it’s grand final week in Melbourne and the spectacle has been moved to Perth! Deny these folks their footy and yer fucked!

  16. The WH Auden quote is very apposite. I have just been reading about the furious anger by other groups in Australia (I suspect across class divides) about the Aukas deal in which, as commentators put it, Australia pays out a fortune to get US submarines in the Pacific. As if they were not there already. I do think the Australian national and state governments are getting what they deserve on both of these issues. The cavalier way they treat their people (and our people, too) and their contempt for basic human rights must come back to bite them on the bum. I like the Warehouse’s $100 employee bonus for getting vaccinated – that should mop up a small amount of soft targets. Actually, just thinking, it would cost less than a billion to give every NZer $200 as a tax free thankyou for being double-vaxxed, and people would rush out and spend it, causing a nice little short term boom for struggling businesses. All I am saying is there is more than one way to skin a cat.

    • Ae Liz. Tautoko. $200 each is chump change and Robo still has a few billion left of his $100b QE splurge that he coughed up to, mainly middle-class home-flipp’n-buyers!
      They got a 25% boost in property prices in 12 months and the 7100 in House Buyers Clubs own 7000+ 2nd or more properties. So yeah, some crumbs for the rest would be good. 🙁

  17. We need another war. Put all the “angry and frustrated young men” here and in Australia on ships and planes and send them to fight a war somewhere. And get all the older ones, the recently qualified expert epidemiologists to go with them too.

    I’m sure the gentry would be right into that, (excused by way of bone spurs of course.). Isn’t that the way the world works?

    • Interesting you say that Peter.
      Although agreeing with most of Mr Trotters piece I think his “toxic masculinity” line is off.
      I think blokishness is a thing – not going to the doctor with a broken limb or when needing medical attention being a classic- ask a doctor which gender thinks they are bulletproof.
      I’m sure a gender breakdown of the vaccine hesitant would reveal some bulletproof thinking.
      Violence is violence of course and a bad thing where it has happened (as with BLM riots)

      But the upside is that yes it’s the same gender that stood up to machine gun fire and died in their thousands for their country and families.
      Let’s not assume every male trait is inherently bad but understand it in order to get more people willingly vaccinated.

      • …”But the upside is that yes it’s the same gender that stood up to machine gun fire and died in their thousands for their country and families.
        Let’s not assume every male trait is inherently bad but understand it in order to get more people willingly vaccinated”…

        —————

        And about time somebody stood up and said it. Where were all the feminists, the woke and all the other scowling ‘ism’s when young guys predominantly were getting their guts blown out and their heads cut in two with bombs, shrapnel and bullets on some muddy , shitty battlefield far from home??

        Many of these ‘ism’s’ are a modern product of indolence and the freedoms they take for granted on the backs and the blood of these young guys. The same ones they target today as being ‘louts’ and ‘thugs’ . Easy to forget that, eh.

  18. The Govt/MoH could do an early roll out of the Covid Passport to get things cracking. Have Passport or NO Theatre, Restaurants, Concerts, Rugby/Soccer/Netball matches (any and all), Womad etc etc etc etc etc.
    A fair bet that most of the “hesitant” will see this will be to their benefit, and a bonus for the majority Vaxxed.

  19. Don’t understand how trade union members can be described as far right let alone fascists?
    To me they are fundamentally good people who have seen their world turned upside down.
    Frustrated to breaking point.

  20. The symptoms of a disfranchised working class locked out by the ruling elite has been showing up all over the west. The election of Trump and Brexit are obvious relatively recent manifestations of decades of class neglect.

  21. Don’t trust the media ? well that has been a given since the media in this country has always pushed a right wing agenda and still does.

    There is no voice from the left to correct the balance and provide a level playing field , just one right wing opinion which has now infiltrated most of what Kiwis see and listen to …..there is no counter argument to the bias that permeates our media landscape and has to much influence for to long.

    Thanks to Bomber and all the work that the TDB does to give anyone wanting the other side of the story then it is here on this site and i only wish it had more influence and coverage.

  22. Obviously you don’t know the construction industry. It itself is run by “elites”, implementing a wide range of polices and bureaucratic walls. More importantly its officer workers who know diddly squat about anything enforcing rules and regulations of the workers, its one thing to make them wear a range of safety gear, but when your requiring them to inject themselves with a immature vaccination. Well the results speak for themselves.

    • Australia different. The starting rate on construction is usually closer to $32 P/h so when these guys say something, you’d be good to listen.

  23. Who does this power mad Andrews think he is? The only thing that the Victorian lockdowns have proved is that lockdowns don’t work. They haven’t worked at suppressing infections or their spread, so why use them? Continuing to do something and hoping for a different result is the actual definition of cuckoo. They don’t protect the health of citizens but they certainly ruin a functioning society.
    Covid-19 burnt out 18 months ago. It only affected the elderly. The black box PCR testing is flawed and not fit for purpose. A supposed positive result is medically insignificant and case numbers are therefore statistically meaningless. The chances of getting sick from the disease let alone dying from it are so minute that any global response cannot be for health reasons.
    If we are to believe ‘the science’, vaccines apparently only work for months, so you will need to take them forever (in this definition they are not a vaccine). If the vaccine was effective then someone not wanting to take it is only a threat to themselves: anything else is coercion. Medicine is now a racket. Government health bodies have gone from responsible precautionary advisors to tyrannical bullies. They have used every psychological tool to ‘nudge’ the public into submission. If that doesn’t work they use censorship (social media, the press or online access), propaganda and then force. Doctors have ditched service for the good of humanity for some deranged drug peddling crusade. Police would rather take a baton to elderly citizens exercising their right to protest these lockdowns than fight real crime. ANZAC soldiers died for these rights, our freedoms. Big pharma and the medical industrial complex is making the big play. With help from the government, the media and an army of soldiers with covid brain, they hope to fight this forever war forever, with or without a healthy citizenry.

    • Big yawn.

      Volumes are down by at least half. Because of social distancing hospitality has had to halve its patronage an dthats generalized across the board and immigration is almost none existence.

      In the greatest most splendid nation in the world, America, has 400,000 deaths due to corona.

      The second most splendid, China, has fuck all death thanks to there authoritairan style lockdowns and that’s a that nub.

      Because of vaccine production being retarded by profit it is unlikely in the extreme that 90% of of population or 7 billion people can be vaccinated in one generation or any further generation, mostly because of retarded nubs like Ethan who has hit the limits of his abilities.

  24. Hi Chris,

    Good article. However…

    I think that you don’t have a decent understanding of an Ozzie tradie. Most vote Libs, ’cause low taxes, less government oversight, and anti immigration.

    Are Union members because the Unions are anti immigration, and they are good as back up for when getting caught out for slacking off or outright bunking off on the job. Nice to have around to force work stoppages over safety issues as well.

    Australian women love tradies as they are well paid, $70K -$100K a year, so have alot of disposable income, usually drive a nice vehicle, if not two, and can repair stuff around the house and are in good physical condition.

    These guys are not forgotten by society, they are the living embodiment of what it is to be an Ozzie male. When was the last time you watched Australian Bachelorette, and half of the male participants weren’t tradies? Throw in some toxic masculinity, some Australian jingoism, an absolute distaste for authority and bureaucrats, a dash of poisonous Ozzie mateship, and you have a nihilistic recipe for a bunch of self entitled man childes.

    Now… How do i dare say these things? I am a tradie, I work in construction, I worked in Australia. My younger brother also works in construction and still resides in Australia, and it is his opinion, note the word opinion, that a significant portion of the young tradies, not all, spent their lockdown watching Aussie Rules, Cricket and guzzling VB’s, and didn’t bother to get vaccinated. And now the Union has said “no jab, no work”, and their paychecks and lifestyles are under attack, they are lashing out at the Unions and the “clipboard warriors”, instead of having a little introspection. Also, take note, that older tradiesare getting jabs, and in private are saying “idiots”, but are saying nothing publicly, ’cause mateship.

    I do not discount the talk of far right and anti-vaxxer antagonists, but understand this, a lot of Australians are complete bigots, and we are not talking about rural types, the working class, if you can call tradesmen in Australia that, working middle class would be more correct, are very casually racist, and don’t need much convincing to riot along those lines. Think Bondi beach. But a main reason for these riots will be for a more common Australian refrain… “F*** you, ya c***, ya can’t tell me what to do…”

    I do agree with most of what you have essayed, however, I do believe you have over estimated the psychology of the rioters.

    Regards.

  25. Fair suck of the sav Standalonecomplex an interesting letter you wrote there cobber. I to have worked in Oz be it a few years ago now and not in construction, but I tend to agree that the average working class type Ozy male is somewhat of a basic sort of a critter and that CT may have over estimated there political intellect and that most of them just didn’t get around or couldn’t be f****d to get the jab because watching footy and smashing back VBs was far more important to do during lockdown.
    All I can say to them and those in NZ/A who don’t get the jab….
    May your turds turn to emus and kick yer shithouse down!

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