protest marches and riots

In conjunction with May Day, there was a protest on the streets of Central Melbourne this afternoon. Men and women, young and old, marched on the streets of Melbourne holding up posters and signboards demanding more rights for workers. Even young children and dogs wearing customized T-shirts with words like, 'May Day' and 'More rights for workers' in support of the protest thronged the streets.

Needless to say, the protest march attracted a lot of attention from passers-by, who stopped to stare or take a couple of photos.

The group who led the protest were decked out in Scottish outfits, armed with heavy band equipments, blowing their trumpets and beating their drums.

On another occasion, April 30, a protest by taxi drivers jammed up the streets of Melbourne's CBD. Photos of a large gathering of taxi drivers, mostly of Indian ethnicity, were splashed all over the major metropolitan newspapers and dailies.

The cabbies whipped off their shirts and sat down in the cross-intersection road just outside the busy streets of Flinders Street Station. The protest occurred because of the fatal stabbing of a fellow taxi-driver. Transport system was disrupted and traffic brought to a halt. Within 22 hours, the government had acceded to most or all of the demands and requests of the cabbies, such as installation of safety screens and mandatory pre-payment of night fares.

This sparked off a copycat scenario the very next day. Commuters taking the train refused to pay their transport fares, to protest against bad service standards. And, when they were caught, they refused to pay the fines. They said that by doing so, the government will listen to them, and they were just following the example demonstrated by the taxi drivers.