Protestors Prevent Me From Getting Home

By theunaustralianblog on 13/04/2015

Protestors (henceforth referred to as the Selfish Rabble) shut down the Melbourne CBD on Friday, preventing thousands of workers returning home from their barista jobs and ruining my evening.

The Selfish Rabble, whose numbers varied between “several thousand” to “ten people and a dog” depending on the political affiliation of the person estimating, started protesting at 4pm and continued throughout the evening rush hour despite the fact that I don’t care about the welfare of Indigenous people.

While commuters were able to access trains, every state has trains. Melbourne is known for its trams. Why should I have to catch a train home like some Queenslander?

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle criticised the protesters as self-indulgent;

“While the right to protest is legitimate, doing it during a period where people would have to take notice is selfish and inconvenient. This was a protest against the closure of Indigenous communities, not something important like a parade for the Melbourne Cup.”

It should be noted that the Melbourne Cup parade and these protests are two very different things as I like the Melbourne Cup parade and therefore am ok with shutting the CBD down for it.

While police were present at the protest, they described the Selfish Rabble as “peaceful” and showed little concern at the fact that I needed to get home and change before attending my ironic go-go dancing class in Carlton South.

Commuter Steven Lindsey was also inconvenienced by the protest;

“I need to get to the Eureka Barbershop before 6, these Drake lyrics are not going to tattoo themselves.”

Similarly, Carly Hartman a fashion blogger and welfare recipient described the protests as a “joke”;

“I’m not Indigenous and I’m not affected by the government’s proposed policy so it’s unfair of these people to make me have to think about it.

“I had no opinion before but this inconvenience will only get me to vindictively support the Abbott government on this,” Ms Hartman added, not realising that apathy is already the same thing as supporting those in power.

I interviewed several other people but I’ve not included their opinions in this article as they did not agree with my point of view.

To prevent incidences like this occurring again in the future, organisers should give me a call so they can figure out what times they can protest when I won’t be in the CBD.

Matthew Farthing is the Victorian reporter for The (un)Australian. He totally gets every reference to Melbourne on the latest Courtney Barnett album and was listening to her way before you losers even knew who she was.

https://twitter.com/MattJFarthing

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