Australia has become a nation of spoilt whingers

AUSTRALIA has become a nation of spoilt whingers. Take the shenanigans over Sydney’s CBD and South East Light Rail, says Caroline Marcus.

AT a recent protest over the upgrading of Bondi Pavilion, an Indian tourist pauses while taking happy snaps of his family in front of the iconic shoreline.

“In my country, they protest because the government doesn’t do enough,” he says, shaking his head. “Here, they protest because the government does too much.”

In this instance locals, Greens members, celebrity artists and Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union honchos came together to shout down the $38 million upgrade to the tired building that forms the centrepiece of our most famous beach.

You see, they want the building renovated, just not that much, thank you — a cool $9 million should do the trick.

Our Indian friend is right: we’ve become a nation of spoilt whingers.

Take the shenanigans over Sydney’s CBD and South East Light Rail.

Protesters, including former TV personality James Mathison, chained themselves to trees at Moore Park to stop six being chopped down to make way for the environmentally friendly transport.

(On a side note, Mathison has also recently announced he will challenge Tony Abbott in the seat of Warringah in the federal election, cementing his status as ultimate hipster by revealing he would crowdfund his campaign and plans to canvass voters’ views by getting an Uber licence. Instead of a sausage sizzle at the polling booths come July 2, my mail is Mathison will be offering kale smoothies.)

Back to Save Our Trees, and Mathison and his Birkenstock-clad mates had to be hauled off the branches by police.

The delicious irony, though, is these are the same activists who lobbied so hard for the $2.1 billion project to go ahead.

Artwork: John Tiedmann

Jeff Angel from the Total Environment Centre is one of those leading the campaign to stop the half-dozen trees being removed.

But back in 2006, he was part of the push for the light rail to go ahead, saying it would make a major contribution to the sustainability of the city and surrounding suburbs, take polluting buses off congested roads and reduce greenhouse gas emission.

“We have always supported light rail because it can carry more passengers than a bus system for the same space,” Angel told The Sydney Morning Herald at the time.

How maddening all this must be for the majority of Sydneysiders living in the western suburbs and beyond, with their own pitiful access to public transport.

Then consider last month’s march against Premier Mike Baird, in which the CBD was brought to a standstill by thousands moaning about no fewer than 24 grievances, from WestConnex to drug sniffer dogs.

Sometimes, they contradicted each other, some calling for an end to the lockout laws, while others raged about alcohol advertising. One woman bizarrely was protesting for the uniting of “eco-sexuals”. I have no idea what this means, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Mathison is one.

Others reportedly carried signs comparing the NSW leader to Hitler, and some lunatics chanted “Kill Mike Baird”.

Just as disturbing were the anti-merger protesters at the previous week’s inaugural Inner West Council meeting, in which feral illustrator Nicky Minus spat at council administrator Richard Pearson. Of course, the right to protest is fundamental to democracy, though some of these protesters are less concerned with respecting others’ rights — to hold differing views, to free speech and to not cop a ball of stranger’s slobber to the face.

In Melbourne’s Coburg riots the weekend before last, “anti-racist” Socialist protesters were as bad, some may say worse, than the far-right United Patriots Front they were rallying against.

It’s usually when Antifa (that’s short for anti-fascist) anarchists, with their masked faces and signs bearing slogans like “the only good fascist is a dead one”, show up that things tend to get really ugly.

There were similar scenes at Sydney’s Cronulla beach last summer, when the same group tried to crash a woefully attended anti-Islamic barbecue.

But there was Antifa, with their threatening black face masks and signs calling for death, pushing and shoving those draped in the Australian flag.

“Take off that fascist flag now,” one reportedly yelled; “burn that flag and burn that woman,” another called out.

Over in the US, Donald Trump supporters are routinely egged, sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray and bashed until they bleed by protesters.

Whatever you think of The Don’s crazier politics, such behaviour can never be condoned.

And the paradox is these protesters will ultimately be the ones with egg on their face, their special brand of violence only bolstering support for the Republican candidate.

Those whingers doth protest too much.

Caroline Marcus is a journalist with A Current Affair