Jonathan Sri’s posse loves the limelight
Brisbane’s climate campaigners knew the people of Brisbane were not on their side but didn’t care - what these activists were counting on was that their face would be in newspapers or on the 6pm news.
Opinion
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T HE Millennial protesters who have been disrupting Brisbane traffic may well care about climate change but they also just want to be famous.
And Green Brisbane City Councillor Jonathan Sri is a C-Grade politician looking for a young posse to captain.
Earlier this month, the grieving families of the MH17 mass murder protested outside of the Russian consulate in Sydney.
There was no disruption, or impact on the city, or on workers’ ability to get to their job or drop the kids off at school.
It was a quiet, sombre protest, with names of the dead written on pieces of paper and hung outside the consulate. Its impact was breathtaking and heartfelt. Australians across the country metaphorically stood side-by-side with them.
Compare that with some of these young adults – some on the dole – causing havoc during peak hour in Brisbane.
They knew it was agitating motorists.
They knew the people of Brisbane were not on their side – and if those commuters were ambivalent to their cause before, they later had the rip-roaring s--ts.
But what these activists were counting on was that their face would be in newspapers or on the 6pm news.
Among their small protest groups, they have become celebrities.
Sri wants to be the captain of these protagonists because his politics is as childish as their behaviour.
And as The Courier-Mail reveals today, Sri and these entitled brats, will further entrench the acrimony most Australians feel towards them.
Sri recently claimed that diggers who march on Anzac Day are just as disruptive as climate change protesters.
“The group’s core demands are perfectly reasonable and in fact essential if we are to prevent catastrophic weather events, sea level rise and mass displacement of climate refugees,’’ Cr Sri wrote on his Facebook page alongside a picture of The Courier-Mail coverage of the protests.
“Personally I think these activists are doing important and valuable work and should be applauded for it.
“Protesters have been peacefully blocking roads for decades, whether they were marching against Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s corrupt government, police brutality, uranium mining, racism, sexism, homophobia, worker exploitation, war, animal abuse, tree-clearing or the theft of Aboriginal land, wages and children.
“It’s a legitimate and effective strategy for maintaining political pressure and drawing attention to an issue. A whole rage of parades and events (eg Anzac Day marches) block Brisbane streets all the time and inconvenience motorists.”
Resources Minister Matt Canavan is right to give Sri a blast: “The superglue protesters are hypocritical and pampered professional dummy spitters. They are nothing like the Diggers. Supergluing yourself to a road to stop ordinary people going about their day is about the direct opposite of digging a trench to stop a German invasion.”
The great thing about Australia is the right to protest. It is not China, and we are grateful for that.
However, protesters also need to follow the law. They should get permits like everyone else.
But I wonder how devout these protesters would be to their cause if the media did not publish their faces.
Would they still be willing to turn up at 6am if there were no cameras present? I doubt it.
A number of these protesters have been fined thousands of dollars for their disruption and ignoring police direction.
But that is pointless because it is unlikely these fines will ever be paid.
So what courts should do is to sentence them to clean up our beaches, our waterways or the rubbish left at music festivals.
And they should be grateful for that type of sentence – because they say they care about the environment.
It is time Queensland courts were able to find some activists “professional protesters” when it comes to sentencing and load their punishment differently to others.
Some activists – including a number who have been up north to protest against Adani before shifting their protagonism to Brisbane – who hop from cause to cause.
For example, Timothy Buchanan, 32, from NSW, appeared in Proserpine Magistrate Court in March on charges of obstructing railways at Collinsville. He was acquitted on charges of intentionally damaging Commonwealth property after allegedly supergluing his hands to a balustrade in Parliament House in 2016 to campaign against the federal government’s border security polices.
Victorian Greg Rolles, 37, recently faced Bowen Magistrates Court for allegedly blocking an Aurizon railway track. He has been detained several times, including for storming the restricted Defence Force Base at Swan Island in 2014.
Protesting is not a lifestyle but for some, the courts and the welfare system have indulged this so-called contribution to public debate.
renee.viellaris@news.com.au