On my way to work this morning I took a detour through Occupy Brisbane. About 50 tents continue to occupy Post Office Square in the city, with maybe 20 people out and about on site at 9am. Everyone was friendly and helpful, offering me information and keen to talk. They seemed to have weathered last nights torrential rain with good grace.
I spoke to a friend who had been there for a week, B. B said he was enjoying the degree to which to participants and the local passers-by were getting along. Locals and businesses were donating food to the substantial kitchen tent.
At the end of week three for the Occupy Brisbane camp, the participants have learned a thing or two about cooperative living and organising, with hundreds participating in consensus decision-making at General Assemblies, many probably for the first time in their lives. While there had been some internal conflicts over free speech and how to best move forwards, the group has not experienced any major split, despite the wide range of views participants espouse. One thing they all agree on is that the current economically unjust system is not working for most people, while benefiting the few wildly out of proportion to their needs.
B said that they had some conflicts with the public, where some had come to shout at them and tell them to leave, but whom had come back later and apologised after reading on the internet what Occupy Wall Street was all about. Clearly the mainstream media are once again failing the public in the biased portrayal of the Occupy movement, with police violence this week dominating the media coverage of Sydney and Melbourne.
B told me an story about a bank worker who came by one day to chat, saying she didn't agree with the protest because she thought it was against her. As a loans officer, she was approving loans for other people, loans that her own wage would not allow her to ever have. B asked her what she thought about the CEO of her company earning in a few hours what it takes her a year to earn. The location of the camp is surrounded by many big name banks and just a block from the Brisbane Stock Exchange.
People I spoke to were of the opinion that although the police had been friendly and were fairly visible in keeping an eye on the site, they were probably more likely to be letting the protest peter out, rather than repeating the kind of violence seen in Sydney and Melbourne this week. However, the electricity had been cut off by Energex at the behest of the Liberal-run Brisbane City Council, who it is thought may be the biggest source of pressure on the police to act.
Later I interviewed a young camp resident, Tayne, who had been at the camp since day one. You can listen to it below.
