Anarchist Age

The Wednesday Action Group was established in 1999 to take issues that directly affect us as individuals, communities and the nation, directly to the people on the streets. The group is a coalition of concerned reformers, radicals and conservatives who believe the current social, cultural, political and economic needs of the people of this country cannot be met by the economic, legal and political institutions that currently dominate life in Australia. The Wednesday Action Group

The Wednesday Action Group was formed in 1999 to raise important social and political issues on the streets of Melbourne's CBD. Public rights to public space are a major issue for this group. Every Wednesday, over the last 14 years, we have legally assembled on the footpath collecting signatures on petitions that we have presented to the House of Representatives and the Senate in the Federal Parliament and the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council in the Victorian Parliament.

E: [email protected]
A: P.O. Box 5035, Alphington 3078
M: 0439 395 489

Petition activities on street

Over the years we have collected thousands of names, addresses and signatures on various petitions relating to important political issues of the day. Currently we are collecting signatures on six petitions.

A petition to the Victorian Legislative Assembly and the Victorian Legislative Council calling for a Royal Commission into Corruption in Victoria.

A petition to the Federal House of Representatives and the Senate calling for the establishment of a New People's Bank.

A petition to the Federal House of Representatives and the Senate calling for the introduction of a 1% Stock Market Turnover tax on transactions of over $10,000.

Council bylaw-bullies

Over the years countless hours and millions of dollars of public money has been spent trying to stop us exercising our constitutional rights to use the streets to petition Parliament. During the last three months the Melbourne City Council has regularly been using its bylaws officers to try to force us off the streets claiming we need a Melbourne City Council permit to set up the card table that houses the petitions. Police have been called on every occasion. Two weeks ago 14 police were despatched at the request of Melbourne City Council bylaws officers to try to force us to remove the card table which holds the petitions.

Not a flash in the pan

Unlike Occupy Melbourne, we are not a flash in the pan. We have legally and peacefully exercised our constitutional rights for the last 14 years and will continue to do so irrespective of Melbourne City Council and Melbourne business harassment. The waste of thousands of hours of police time and millions of dollars of public money that has occurred over this issue is unacceptable.

Melbourne City Council is overreaching its prerogative

Allowing the Melbourne City Council to decide how political activity should be conducted on the streets of Melbourne is totally unacceptable. To apply for a permit to set up a card table gives a faceless bureaucracy the power to curtail legal legitimate political activity. It gives Councils, State governments and the Federal government the power to determine what is and isn't peaceful legitimate political activity.

Be a witness on 5 June outside Melbourne Town Hall, 11.30am

There are more than enough laws at the local, state and federal level to regulate political activity in this country. We encourage you to join us outside Melbourne Town Hall at 11:30am on Wednesday 5th June to witness our continuing struggle to exercise our constitutional rights. What may at first seem like a trivial insignificant issue has ramifications for every Australian that goes far beyond whether we need a Melbourne City Council permit to set up a card table to collect signatures for a petition.

Dr. Joseph TOSCANO / Convenor Wednesday Action Group
Steering Committee: Bobbie Burns, Jack Collins, Mick Doran, Simic Juric, Ruth Martin, Beth Matthews, John Murray, Bill Pickering, Jude Pierce, Peter Riley, Rick Simpson, Vasil Tilev, John Zabane

Why?

The Wednesday Action Group was established in 1999 to take issues that directly affect us as individuals, communities and the nation, directly to the people on the streets. The group is a coalition of concerned reformers, radicals and conservatives who believe the current social, cultural, political and economic needs of the people of this country cannot be met by the economic, legal and political institutions that currently dominate life in Australia.

Useful Links:
http://www.anarchistmedia.org http://www.rulebythepeople.org http://www.seditioncharter.org

On every available indicator and every batch of statistics the gap between the powerless and the powerful has grown in Australia. Despite the wealth being generated by a once in a lifetime mining boom, 22 million people living on a continent still have trouble tackling issues that should have been sorted out decades ago. The lid has been kept on dissent through the availability of relatively easy credit for people with investments and jobs.

In the West unaccountable national and transnational corporations have usurped the role of parliament. In the rest of the world the fortunes and power of authoritarian regimes have been bolstered by these same corporations. The changing of the guard in China could not have occurred without Western corporate assistance. The problem isn’t whether the cat that catches mice is white or black, the problem is what happens when the cat becomes too bloated to catch mice as a consequence of its privileged position. The bloated fat cats in the West and countless authoritarian regimes around the world need to be put on a starvation diet and their monopoly on catching mice needs to be rescinded if the significant issues faced by seven billion people trying to survive on a planet with finite resources are to be tackled.

“Every available indicator”

On every available indicator and every batch of statistics the gap between the powerless and the powerful has grown in Australia. Despite the wealth being generated by a once in a lifetime mining boom, 22 million people living on a continent still have trouble tackling issues that should have been sorted out decades ago. The lid has been kept on dissent through the availability of relatively easy credit for people with investments and jobs.

Selling money has become the major industry in Australia. More people are employed in the financial sector than in manufacturing or the mining sector. While financial institutions can sell money and those Australians who buy money can pay it off, the middle classes will never accept their interests are interrelated with the interests of those 40% of Australians who rely on social security benefits to survive. Nothing highlights this more than the negative attitudes among many of those who need to service private debt to survive, to those who rely on government “handouts” to survive.

It’s no accident as increasing pressure is placed on middle Australians to service their debt the “entitlement” debate is being pushed to the fore. As long as the 10% of Australians who control over 70% of the wealth in this country are able to divide and rule the rest of the country the gap between the haves, “aspirational” Australians and the have nots will grow. When parliament becomes the plaything of the rich and powerful and dictates parliamentary policy the only way to close the gap is for people to use extra parliamentary options to push the demands that each and every one of us, irrespective of who we are is born with an inalienable right to share the common wealth.

Joe Toscano

Excerpt from The Anarchist Age Weekly Review No.998

An Anarchist Society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society based on the creation of social and political structures which allow all people
equal decision making power and equal access to society's wealth.

P.O. Box 20, Parkville VIC 3052 Australia

Telephone : +61 0439 395 489

Internet : http://anarchistmedia.org/weekly.html

Email : [email protected]

Anarchist World This Week. Radio Program on the net http://www.3cr.org.au

The violent removal of Occupy Melbourne protestors by Victoria Police on Friday 21st October 2011 from Melbourne’s City Square after being given the green light by the Melbourne Mayor, Robert Doyle, and the Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu highlights how important it is to reclaim open public space for political activity in the City of Melbourne, a city that only gives lip service to the right to protest.

The 11th November has played an important role in radical Australian history. On the 11th November 2011 the Melbourne based Anarchist Media Institute encourages the people of Melbourne to reclaim Melbourne’s City Square to commemorate:

The 11th November 1854, the day 157 years ago when the Ballarat Reform League, the organisation behind the Eureka Rebellion, was formed on the Ballarat goldfields.

The 11th November 1880, the day 131 years ago when Ned Kelly one of Australia's most well known rebels was executed in the Old Melbourne Gaol.

The 11th November 1918, the day 93 years ago that marked the end of World War One, a war fought by workers at either end of a bayonet fo the glory of God, King and Country that resulted in the death of ove
60,000 young Australian men from a population of only five million people.

The 11th November 1975, the day 36 years ago when the Governor General dismissed the Whitlam Labor government, a government that introduced more reforms in four years than every post war Australian government put together has been able to achieve.

Join us - Midday Friday 11th November Melbourne City Square Reclaim the Past to Understand the Present and Change the Future.

Australian Radical History the Eureka Series 2011 No. 10 - Think about it!!

The media reports about the violent dispersal by the Victoria Police of peaceful Occupy Melbourne protestors on the 21st October 2011 is full of justifications for the outrageous actions of the Lord Mayo Robert Doyle and the Premier Ted Baillieu. One hundred and fifty-seven years ago, despite the authorities best effort, the people of Victoria rallied behind the Eureka rebels, not Governor Hotham and Queen Victoria.

Within four months of the rebellion the 13 men charged with High Treason for their participation in the rebellion had been acquitted in the Victorian Supreme Court by a jury of their peers. Within six months a General Amnesty was declared for all those miners and esidents connected with the Eureka Stockade. Within six months a new Electoral Act gave miners the right to vote. Within seven months the notorious gold license was replaced with an export duty on gold and the hated Gold Commission was abolished.

Within eight months Raffaello Carboni, one of the leaders of the Eureka Rebellion, was elected to the Local Court at Ballarat to adjudicate mining disputes. Within eleven months both Peter Lalor, the elected leader of the Eureka rebels and John Humffray, the leade of the passive resistance group within the Ballarat Reform League, were elected to the Legislative Council of Victoria.

The difference between 1854 and 2011 is a free diverse vibrant media that reflects the will of the people not the will of the corporate sector and the government. The Eureka Rebellion did not end on the 3rd December 1854, the Occupy Melbourne protests will not end on the 21st October 2011, they will continue while that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution and exchange dominates every aspect of our lives.

You can hear Joe Toscano's wonderful weekly radio show on 3CR by podcast. Catch the latest here