National climate emergency rally in Melbourne

At the National Climate Emergency Rally in Melbourne on Saturday 13th July (see: http://indymedia.org.au/national-climate-emergency-rally-melbourne) organises said at the Town Hall there were up to 5,000 people present on the march - listening to speeches and walking from the State Library, stopping at Melbourne Town Hall where the Victorian ALP was meeting, before heading to Treasury Gardens.

See also Climate Emergency: Thousands march for action across Australia, for another Melbourne report.

Here's some pictures:

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Comments

It's no surprise that the mainstream papers have downplayed the rally. An inspection of the Sunday Age and Sunday Herald Sun online editions makes NO mention of the rally at all. The Sunday Age has an opinion piece that refers to the rallies but has no separate story on them.(see link below)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/stop-wasting-time-and-save-the-pla...

Other online stories refer to hundreds or thousands of demonstrators but none quotes the organisers of the Melbourne rally as estimating 30,000 in attendance. For example the ABC online story below refers to 1000 people in Melbourne but no mention of numbers in other states.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/13/2597392.htm

It sounds like a great rally yesterday. Whilst the media and the politicians want to pretend that ordinary people are invisible and dont count in this debate. They are wrong. (Renewable)Power to the People!

There was not 30,000 people at the Melbourne rally. At the Town Hall organisers estimated there were up to 5,000 people present. A report on Green Livingpedia estimated 4000. 4000 to 5000 seems to be about right from my views of the march and rally.

Thanks for the clarification - still I think its bogus that it got no mention on the Herald Sun and The Age websites - its still a decent sized rally.

The Rally is an initiative of Australia's Climate Action Summit, when over 140 community climate groups came together in Canberra in February 2009 to plan community action on climate change. There will be rallies in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart on the same day.

On Saturday 13 June 2009 thousands of Australians gathered in Australia's capitol cities to demand action on climate change from the federal government In Sydney thousands of families, students and professionals wore red to warn the Rudd Government of the seriousness of the situation. In Melbourne the Green's senator Bob Brown addressed the crowd of hundreds saying a move towards emissions reductions would only boost the economy.

Thanks for sharing.