The protest that changed my life
I grew up leading a fairly privileged life. Not at first perhaps. My mum had me at 18, my dad didn’t want a kid, so he was off, and for the first few years of my life my mum and I lived in Belgrave with my Gran.
Then my mum met a new guy, and she thought he was pretty cool, and so they dated for a while, and eventually he asked her to marry him, and she said yes. I must have been about five years old when they went to the registry office to seal the deal. The story goes that they left me in the car as they went inside to complete the formalities (a simpler time perhaps?) and to help me pass the time my mum suggested a write something about how I felt about them getting married.
She came back to find a one word response: CHIT! (spelling wasn’t my strong game back then clearly, but short punchy messages sure were).
Anyway, I never called this new guy “dad”, I just called him by his name. But over the subsequent years he proved his worth as a provider to the family (they went on and had two kids together) and also as a father.
He was the son of a business man of some note, who had started how own manufacturing business which went on to become a pretty large company. And determined to prove to his dad that he was “worthy”, he too went out and started his own manufacturing business, which also became a decent sized and profitable business through years of hard work.
All of this is a long way of saying that for more of my teenage years I had it pretty good. There was always money for stuff, and we lived in increasingly better houses as their financial status grew.
In year nine I moved to a private school, Camberwell Grammar, and we moved from South Oakleigh to Surrey Hills. As they’d done several times over my childhood, they bought a crappy house in the best suburb they could afford, and they renovated. This time it was a 100 plus year old house that would have been very impressive when it was built, probably one of the first houses in the area. But it was a long way from that now. They had renovation plans.
Ultimately the house was finished, and we settled into just living there. Two doors down the road lived Jimmy and Dave, two brothers a year apart from each other in age. We became friends, and Jimmy introduced me to a bunch of his mates from school. These guys are all still my friends today.
So aged 15 and 16 and 17 I just went to school, I went to Portsea, I played basketball, I did teenage type stuff, and I hung around mostly with people who also had financially successful parents. I wasn’t into politics. I never really thought about it. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t exactly like me.
I developed views over that period, absorbing the “lessons” my parents and school were instilling in me. And when I turned 18 and was suddenly forced to think about politics a little more, I found myself identifying strongly as a Liberal voter. I didn’t like immigration. I looked down my nose at those less fortunate. I thought I knew everything, as people who are 18 tend to do.
I had my first child at 21, and worked my arse off to buy a house and raise a family (of 3). My wife’s parents voted Liberal, so did she, but I didn’t have the time or luxury to really think too much about politics or world affairs, I just worked a lot.
Fast forward to 2012. My marriage had ended, I was in a new relationship and had 2 more kids (yes 5 in total, don’t @ me). And then I became involved in the protest of the Tecoma McDonalds. It happened entirely by accident at the start (just go read the link for more on this), but as I became more aware of the reasons for the protest I began to question everything I ever thought about how the world worked.
I had worked at Maccas as a teen, and so I had seen the side of them that was professional, well organised, focused on customer happiness. What I witnessed in Tecoma was a side I had never seen. This Maccas was a bully. It hired private security guards to do their bully work. It hired ex police to attempt to infiltrate the protest campaign to glean intelligence. It lied to the media. Repeatedly.
I had always seen the side of police that was professional, well organised, and focused on maintaining the law. What i witnessed in Tecoma was a side I had never seen. These police were thugs. They took sides. They were very clearly focused on helping Maccas achieve their outcome, no matter what that meant to the residents of that community. They lied. They laid charges that should never have been laid. All to aid a massive American company build store number #39,873 or whatever.
The more I saw, the more disoriented I became. How had i seen the world so wrong for so long? How had I sided with corporations over people? Why was I someone who had been the sort of person to drive past a protest and yell out things like “get a job you filthy hippies”? How had I not seen the way the world really was? I don’t know how best to explain this feeling, but it was something quite profound, something quite disconcerting. And more a year or more I wrestled with these feelings as I continued working closely with the campaign.
By the time the store had been built, my entire perspective on life had changed completely. I voted Labor for the first time in my life at that State election (Labor had promised to change VCAT legislation to ensure that overwhelming community sentiment MUST be considered in any planning matter). And in the years since i have moved further and further to the left.
I am happier, more content, and less angry at other people than I used to be.
But I am angrier at the injustice of the world. And so I will continue to protest, to agitate, to do what I can to assist in making this world a better place.
Tecoma changed me. It shook me awake. It showed me that people, when they come together, can resist even the biggest forces. That lesson has carried me forward ever since. I can’t undo the years I spent blind to injustice, but I can choose what I do from here. To listen, to learn, and to fight for fairness. That’s the path I’m on now, and it’s where I’ll stay.
