Thousands of anti-vax, vaccine mandate protesters gather in Rundle Park for ‘celebration of freedom’ rally
Two days before South Australia opens its borders to the rest of Australia, thousands of people have gathered in Adelaide to protest the Covid vaccination and vaccine mandates.
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Thousands of people have gathered in Rundle Park to protest against the Covid vaccination, and vaccine mandates, in a rally promoted as a “celebration of freedom”.
Liberal senator Alex Antic – who is threatening to frustrate the federal government’s agenda by withholding his vote until people are given protections from discrimination based upon their Covid-19 vaccine status – is the key speaker.
Senator Antic told the crowd he would “take your message to Canberra.”
The rally, which included fully vaccinated people against vaccination mandates, featured Field of Dreams Christian pastor Joshua Woskett who told the crowd the Lord was their refuge and strength.
He exhorted the gathering to reply to his question with the word “freedom.”
And then asked: “Heaven has a wish that South Australia should be a state of?”
The crowd responded “freedom.”
Well-known SA musicians The Borderers are also playing at the protest.
The band opened its set saying: “It’s about keeping an open mind, not just what we are told to believe.”
Nobody in the crowd wore a mask.
Sights in the crowd include a life-size cardboard cutout of Pauline Hanson and signs decrying the “death jab”.
Supporters of former US president Donald Trump are among the crowd. Many waved Southern Cross banners.
Organiser Kathy Scarborough told the crowd that “disrupters were not welcome” at the “celebration of freedom”.
It worked. The protest gathering and subsequent march through the city was peaceful as people carried wildly various placardsand flags but most boiling down to “my body, my choice.”
SA now stands at 86.8 first dose vaccinated, 76.9 fully vaxxed.
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