The protest, organised by Across Victoria Alliance, brought around 300 CFA volunteers, farmers, One Nation and National party supporters, and a variety of renewable energy opponents into Melbourne on the sunny Friday morning.

Speakers, mainly men standing inside a large delivery truck, used Trumpian language to play up city-country divisions and went hard on militaristic calls for a war on transmission lines, renewable energy and data centres.

I'm disappointed that so many farmers and CFA (Country Fire Authority volunteers) who are going the be the most affected by climate change fronting this anti-renewables rally.

all 3 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Luddites are on the march!

Lawd save us all!

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    Luddites specifically wanted machines to serve people, these people just hate everything.

    Also I hope these people are getting paid well by Rupert Murdoch.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago*

    s/Rupert Murdoch/Gina Rinehart - If you are unfamiliar with Australian politics, Gina is the heir to the Hancock mining empire, and she's used her billions to prop up Pauline Hanson's One Nation (the extreme right wing racist climate change denier party that was also at this rally)

  • source
  • parent
  • 18 comments in c/melbourne@aussie.zone view that post
    [–] 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Imagine being this huge of a fucking muppet

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
    [–] 19 points 3 weeks ago

    I had to read that headline 3 times as I didn’t believe my brain was reading correctly.

  • source
  • [–] 34 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    We are on the dumbest timeline.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 child)

    Takes a lot of money to organize something like this. But I bet you the state government isn't competent enough to look into who bought all their train tickets/lunches.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    One Nation and the National Party were present at the rally, so I'm assuming it traces back to Gina and the Minerals Council / Australian Energy Producers. They fund other pro-fossil-fuel astroturfing groups like "Hands off our Fuel"

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 16 points 3 weeks ago

    Not to mention a lot of the farmers who are most up in Arms could be making a tidy profit off setting up shop on their land. Plenty of studies find that solar panels create useful micro climates under them that can yield some super positive results. I'd link to some of the articles but I am lazy and a hack, so I won't.

  • source
  • [–] 12 points 3 weeks ago

    Anti RENEWABLES. WTF?

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago

    Sorry, they’re anti what now?

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago

    Okay, how do you wind up anti power transmission line? I am pretty sure these people are pro oil. How's that supposed to work?

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago

    So they are building an army of brownshirts then.

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago
    [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago

    A small group of useful idiots fighting someone else's battles instead of their own.

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago

    I'm not surprised at all. It's the kind of mindset where I am in the regional area that I live in Qld.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    Look at all the attention these 300 people are getting!

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    As someone who grew up in a remote rural Victorian town, only coming to Melbourne as an adult, this to me is the strongest domestic indicator of what the current UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently announced regarding the 2016 UK Brexit Vote.

    Growing up around and knowing varying types of personality traits from that region, consistently there was a greater understanding for the environment and how to manage it in order to benefit from it.

    This was prevalent and consistent to those on farms and the many that rarely stepped foot on a farm. The inner town people weren't much different from Melbourne suburbans, but most had a Greens leaning when it came specifically to environmental matters.

    It was the more complicated social issues that were seen as a 'city issue', and a consensus that the Nationals were the only way to have a rural voting block, even if they aligned with what was strongly seen as a city party.

    Personally I always felt that rural voters would be greater represented by a block of independents, rather than trading most of their votes to a city party for minimal concessions and the odd pork barreling, but that's neither here nor there.

    To see rural people, who exist and live in the very environment that they themselves often have a conscientious understanding of responsibility for, fall into emotional misinformation and manipulation, really brings home just how significant an issue of political manipulation farms are from outside each of our democracies.

    We need to consider what political free speech means for Australians in Australia and how it relates to people from outside of Australian IP addresses, whilst avoiding the loss of the inherent right to privacy that is mutually necessary in a democracy.

    Australians don't have a right to free speech, but we do have the right to political free speech, I don't see how people commenting or posting from an IP address outside of the Australian geolocation would fall under our right to that.

  • source
  • 6 comments in c/energy@slrpnk.net view that post
    [–] 26 points 3 weeks ago

    Energy that reduces pollution and costs a fraction of fossil fuels? Not on my watch!

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    The article doesn't really explain their points

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    There's nothing wrong with hating AI DCs.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago

    These advertising campaigns have been around a lot longer than Data Centres.

    All the FUD about Windfarms killing birds and windmills being made of non-recyclable materials has been peddled for decades. All the falsehoods about solar farm panels creating wastelands, that High Tension Powerlines Pylons are any eyesore (we all know they are a “Tribute to man’s ability to make electricity”😏) are fever dreams of a Fossil Fuel companies marketing departments.

    The latest campaign is that Grid batteries are going to explode! If you drive out to Morwell, you will see the faux-hand-drawn signage inferring that a new Samsung battery development will actually be constructed from Galaxy Note Sevens.

  • source
  • parent