“Towers of Power” – OM tours Melbourne CBD, 5 November 2011

BHP Billiton’s head office in Melbourne was one of the stops on a ‘sight-seeing’ tour of Melbourne organised by Occupy Melbourne under the title “Towers of Power of the Corporate 1%”. Starting at the City Square, site of a violent eviction by police on Friday 21 October, the tour took in buildings that had been the subject of union ‘Green bans’ – not forgetting the Regent Theatre itself, which borders the Square – starting with 333 Collins Street and the ANZ bank building on the corner of Collins and Queen Streets – as well as BHP and the offices of Australia Post (currently imposing new work practices – see http://waverley-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/australia-post-dispute-set-to-escalate-in-mt-waverley/. The tour ended back at the City Square in time for the 14th General Assembly …
Tour guide throughout was long-time unionist Dave Kerin, and Victoria Police provided a generous escort.

See also:
How Public is Melbourne’s City Square?
Rescuing the Regent Theatre – Louise Blake
bhpbilliton – undermining the future
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Photos from the tour and start of 14th General Assembly:

Occupy Melbourne Resumes – 29 October 2011

A report on the day’s events has already been posted on Melbourne Indymedia, supplemented by updates on the Occupy Melbourne Facebook page.[Update: Occupation re-established ... ] This post is essentially a gallery of photos taken at the initial assembly at the State Library, the march down Swanston Street, along Flinders Street and up Spring Street to the meeting point in the Treasury Gardens, followed by the relocation to Bowen Street at RMIT. (At time of writing the Occupation has moved to the State Library and settled in for the night.) Most of the photos should be self-explanatory, though unfortunately out of order. A few call perhaps for comment:
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A small group of West Papuan refugees joined the Occupation at the State Library and could be seen at each stage of proceedings.
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There was only a small and unobtrusive police presence at the State Library – though this increased markedly once the march set off – but a quite extraordinary deployment at the stated destination, the Treasury Gardens, including horses, riot police, several divisional vans, and these dogs.
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The Aboriginal flag led the march for much of the way, accompanied here by a group of ‘tranny cops’ who had joined the march in Swanston Street, and are elsewhere seen providing a little theatre in the Gardens.
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This was resorted to when the PA system failed for a time…
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These miniature animals provided decoration for a window sill at RMIT.
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See also Occupy Melbourne website – http://occupymelbourne.org/

Occupy Melbourne Day 7 – Police move in …

See video links at end of post, added later… (23 October – added a few frame captures to the slideshow from the video)(24 October – converted slideshow into gallery. Click on thumbnails for larger images.)
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As mentioned in the previous post, we were not able to get down to the City Square by the 9am deadline, but we were in time (about 11.30am) to see the final stages of the dismantling of the tent city, and the deployment of riot police against the remaining occupiers by this time ‘kettled’ in the centre. This was followed by the use of horses and threat of dogs to clear the rest of the square and subsequently the entire intersection and stretches of Swanston Street northwards beyond the Town Hall and south to some distance that was not clear from where we were.
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With memory cards full we left about 2.15pm, with a standoff continuing in Swanston Street just north of the Town Hall: an announcement on the tram seemed to suggest that this had turned into a march up Bourke Street…

The following images will not appear in any particular order, but should be self-explanatory. As before, the place to go is Occupy Melbourne and related Facebook and Twitter accounts. Not forgetting Melbourne Indymedia, of course.

Added a few hours later: anyone viewing the slideshow gallery above would have realised there was something missing. Hopefully the following videos will fill the gaps:
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