Looting and Riots in Australia

[The Coup]

Have we ever had many of these?

We protest a bit, but we never descend into the capitalist chaos of American riots. I'm wondering if any of you think that could change with the current economic reality?

What's your opinion of looting? Valid expression of rage at the system? Great opportunity to get new guitars and amps? Just thieves doin thievery? Victimless crime?

 

[Illinois Nazi]

American riot looting always strikes me as people looking to get free stuff.

 

[The Coup]

American riot looting always strikes me as people looking to get free stuff.

Tend to agree, it even crosses class barriers.

 

[Scotland]

I'd be up for a bit of looting. VCRs and DVD players are a bit old tech now, so what do people nick and go running down the street with? iPads I'm guessing. Or maybe Thermomixs. Those things are pretty popular and worth a mint.

Lambing Flat was a riot back in the day, too. Collectivism under a blue and white banner. Right up your alley, no?

 

[The Coup]

Lambing was pre Communism and a great example of the Capitalists whipping the serfs up into a frenzy to distract from the real problem (capitalism).

 

[JeffDunne]

We have a safety net so we don't have the same sort of poverty as the US. If you're poor in Oz you're also dependent on the state, which helps keep people in line.

You need a critical mass of people willing to throw caution to the wind for looting to occur. We just don't have the demographics that make it likely to occur like they do in the US.

 

[The Coup]

We have a safety net so we don't have the same sort of poverty as the US. If you're poor in Oz you're also dependent on the state, which helps keep people in line.

You need a critical mass of people willing to throw caution to the wind for looting to occur. We just don't have the demographics that make it likely to occur like they do in the US.

Depends where though.

The drag racing fans out in Dandenong smashed up a Bob Jane's over a car race.

Say a cop shoots an innocent kid in Bankstown during a protests. What do you think the response would be?

 

[Scotland]

Probably a lot of talk about about burning down ANZ Stadium then little action to back it up.

 

[JeffDunne]

Depends where though.

The drag racing fans out in Dandenong smashed up a Bob Jane's over a car race.

We've had plenty of stuff like that.

Glenelg in Adelaide was the closest I've seen to a full scale riot (showing my age). A police care getting turned over and a few bottles thrown but really nothing compared to what we've seen in the US.

 

[MrCharisma]

Bit of looting going on during the Brisbane floods.

One of the guys who was caught killed himself on the day of his court appearence. People considered it to be a worse crime than murder. I guess that's the price you pay for stealing a fire extinguisher.

 

[MrCharisma]

No looting though mottrain. And what good is a riot without free stuff?

And that one in Canberra wasn't a riot. Not even close. A few people yelling does not a riot make.

Yeah, but... The left and Muslims.

 

[little graham]

American riot looting always strikes me as people looking to get free stuff.

 

[little graham]

Been some good ones at Roxby, especially in the 80's. I've heard stories from the capitalist pigs sent up their to stop those protests over uranium mining. I've heard stories from some of the major organizers involved with the traditional owners wanting no uranium mining.

Pigs nearly killed a heap locking them up in shipping containers in the desert heat. But the creepiest story is the big storm that came the day it was announced mining would go ahead (ironically a lab gov fed and state) The photos are memorable (if you've ever seen them). Black fellahs warned it was a bad omen. One young black shaman actually, with his cow boy hat, business shirt and levis.

I suppose its a matter of perspective that this was the place Fukishima got a heap of its yellow cake, thats giving the pacific its cream.

 

[Pie eyed]

Star Hotel...

We generally have different prioritise than other nations...

Those cans are for the most part ...empties.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Rioting is an expression of rage, justified or not.

Looting is opportunistic profiteering through thievery.

 

[Pie eyed]

Rioting is an expression of rage, justified or not.

Looting is opportunistic profiteering through thievery.

What really amuses me is how there seems to be this concept that prior to the apocalypse, specifically in any western movie ever made, the first thing the masses will do is loot big screen TV's almost exclusively after the networks have gone down and the power grid is in ruins???
I'm going straight for the cold beer and prawns. They can have the LG's and Sony's.

 

[MaddAdam]

The Battle of Brisbane was pretty full on.

The 1923 police strike in Vic saw cops deployed on the bridges over the Yarra to stop expected mobs from storming the poshos.

Early North Melbourne games at Arden Street were basically organised orgies of violence while a footy game went on.

 

[clogged]

Aside from Sydney, all Australian cities are specifically designed to prevent rioting.

 

[skilts]

On October 31st, 1923, there began in Melbourne, Victoria, what to this day, is the only strike by policemen in the history of Australia. The strike was the result of several factors which developed over a number of years but when it broke the strike did so suddenly and with catastrophic consequences. The strike lasted only six days before order was finally restored but during that period 636 policemen were lost from a Force of 1,808. At this time Melbourne was the scene of violent looting and rioting. Mobs ran the streets, killing two men, injuring hundreds of others and causing damage valued at over seventy-eight thousand pounds. In order to stem the tide of violence the Government was forced to recruit a Special Constabulary Force of about 2,000 civilians and it was these men who filled the void left by the striking police. The Specials were armed with cartwheel spokes shaped into batons and they clashed often and heavily with mobs of roughs who overturned trams and looted shops.
It was a police strike which produced the most violent scenes since those in Boston in 1919 and was not to be repeated again until the Montreal police strike in 1969.

This is an extract from an essay written by the estimable Robert Haldane, about Victoria's Police strike of 1923. Nothing of its scale or level of violence happened before or since. Anarchy in the streets gave rise to the Special Forces (mostly WW I veterans), under Monash's direction, to quell the rioters. Over the next thirty years, the riots gave impetus to the establishment of various clandestine right-wing organisations, formed by those who saw an underlying hand of Communism in all of this. This was bullshit, the cause of the strike was the appalling treatment of the police by governments dating back decades.

My father lived through this. He was working as a telegram boy in the city at the time. I have often thought that this experience had a significant influence on his later, manic anti-communism. Seeing he never went to either war, this was the scariest episode of his life. I wholeheartedly recommend Haldane's writings on the history of Victoria Police. He is a fair and balanced chronicler of a fascinating story, even though he was a serving officer for 34 years, ending up as a Superintendent.

 

[medusala]

The Battle of Brisbane was pretty full on.

The 1923 police strike in Vic saw cops deployed on the bridges over the Yarra to stop expected mobs from storming the poshos.

Early North Melbourne games at Arden Street were basically organised orgies of violence while a footy game went on.

Isnt there a story re Jack Dyer taking a pistol to one game as the players were rather worried re the fans of another team? Not sure if it was North.

 

[MaddAdam]

Aside from Sydney, all Australian cities are specifically designed to prevent rioting.

Like the centre of Paris.

 

[clogged]

Like the centre of Paris.

Yeah, same thinking as Haussmann's design. To make sure there were no further revolutions.

 

[Scotland]

Aside from Sydney, all Australian cities are specifically designed to prevent rioting.

Interesting. How so?

 

[smokingjacket]

Not recent and no specific mention of looting (some charges for stealing so maybe) but a good old fashioned dust up none the less.

http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_in_time/Transcripts/s502101.htm

They never used to fight in hotels in those times. It just wasn't on. If you had an argument with a bloke, you went out the back or front. And, uh, anyhow, if it looked like getting a bit dangerous, it was very soon stopped. But anyhow, Mattaboni knocked Jordan down and Jordan had to be taken to hospital. He never got up off the footpath. It turned out later on that he had an eggshell skull that cracked when it hit the footpath. On Sunday, when his mates started to find out that he'd been killed, they decided they'd better do something about it. They decided to go down and teach them a lesson at the Home From Home Hotel that night. No intention whatsoever of burning the place down or doing anything like that in any shape or form. Once it started, it got out of hand and when the rabble came along, somebody lit a fire. They went upstairs, chucking furniture over the balcony rails. The next thing, there's a fire on. The fire brigade come down. And they had their hoses laid out. The next thing, the hoses are cut with an axe. And by 10:00 at night, the thing had got completely out of hand. The mob had taken over. They went across to the All Nations Hotel and they burnt that down. They went up next-door to the wine saloon, which was one hell of a good place, and they burnt that down. Then they went up town, and as long as your name was foreign, your windows were broken, your stock was destroyed until they got to the Palace and then they commandeered the trams and went out to Boulder...It developed into a running fight there and they ran for the bush. Then the government stepped in and it all quietened down.

I don't think anybody was ever really scared. Tuesday night, they probably were when it became a pitched battle. There was quite a lot of gunfire. Quite a lot of dynamite was used.

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/kalgoorlie.htm

In time, eighty six people were arrested on a variety of charges in connection with the riots - 22 charges of stealing, 55 for unlawful possession, four for vagrancy, 17 for riotin (one absconded from bail) and four for possession of unlicensed firearms. The police were able to secure 83 convictions and 14 men received gaol sentences. Eight of those charged with rioting were found guilty. The arrest records indicate that the riot participants had a wide range of occupations and that there was a preponderance of young men among those charged. Alongside the 37 miners who were charged were listed several women domestics, a housewife, two building contractors, an upholsterer, a billiard marker, a salesman, a clerk, a gardener, a barman, a storekeeper and a 73 year old hawker named Juma Khan.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

We have a safety net so we don't have the same sort of poverty as the US...

"Safety net? Really? Well, we'll just see about THAT"


Medicare co-payments. Cutbacks to the dole. An increase in taxes for the national security bureaucracy. Tone will cut the canopy two inches from the canopy frame, you see if he dosen't.