ELITIST

Posted 8:12 AM by David Morgan
DAMN, MISSED THE RIOT. Wednesday's demo-turned-riot in Sydney's Town Hall Square was especially shocking for me: I go to Town Hall House several days a week, working for the City of Sydney History Program. Perhaps I've sat on one of the cafe chairs that were thrown at police. But I wasn't in there that day.

The phrase 'I've seen better organized riots' may well apply to what happened. Was the march inadequately marshalled? Did the police overreact? I don't know: but I notice in the Sydney Morning Herald Friday print edition (no link available) a picture of broken stained glass windows at St Andrews Cathedral, with this caption:

Smashed...eight stained glass windows of St Andrew's Cathedral at Town Hall Square must be replaced after damage caused during Wednesday's anti-war rally. The verger of St. Andrews, Rick Filmer, who estimates the cost of the damage at about $6000, was pelted with stones and verbally harassed by a group of teenage boys who apparently mistook the cathedral for a synagogue. The cathedral's 150-year-old carved pulpit was splashed with pink paint during the protest.

Where did they get stones? Town Hall Square is paved with pebblecrete.

UPDATE, TUESDAY, APRIL 1: As I'm a volunteer at the City of Sydney History Program, I needed to get details of the Public Liability Insurance arrangements for people working for the Council. Today I called the Council's Risk Manager, but he wouldn't give them to me - I had to get my supervisor to ask for them. She did, and he emailed back the reason why: he'd been getting some 'strange phone calls' from people asking about the Council's insurance, and he'd become 'gun-shy' after last week's riot. (He described me as 'a person claiming to be a volunteer working for the Council'.)

Also today, I saw the barriers being put up in Town Hall Square for another rally tomorrow. This time they won't get near the cafe chairs.