Amazing statistics and analysis to inform this decision! My two cents: Could be good to have Syd, Mel and Perth coordinated mass blockades for wave 3 given higher participation rates and the national support and pressure toward govts that would be garnered from those three cities shutting down
By this logic, we shouldnât be mobilising to Sydney, but smaller cities with less police resources
Earlier discussion in this channel, arguing for Sydney or Melbourne rather than Canberra, emphasised the need for the disruption to be financial/economic rather than focusing directly on the political - highlighting the April 2019 disruption in London as an example. Interestingly here is what XR UK are planning for September:
âTHE REBELLION GOES TO PARLIAMENT Beginning on 1 September, Extinction Rebellion will return. On that day the UK Parliament starts re-sitting after the summer: but weâre not going to let them back in until they agree to start anew with justice, care and life at the heart of it. From the 1st we will peacefully blockade the UK Parliament in London until they promise that the first thing theyâll do is debate our 3 demands.
The Rebellion will not just be focused on London though. Welsh Rebels will join us in Rebellion by causing disruption in Cardiff, with rebels in the North and Scotland formulating plans as we speak.â
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Yes, this phase of action at UK Parliament is not equivalent in strategic intent to âwave 3â.
We have an unsolvable problem in Australia in that the economic centres and main population centres are not the seat of federal political power. So we canât replicate the UK London strategy.
I just finished reading Rupert Readâs new book âInside Extinction Rebellionâ and I think that he has some useful things to say. He has been a long-standing opponent of the âShut down the CBD, cause massive disruption and cost and winâ approach. And he was surprised the April 2019 London Rebellion worked so well.
History has of course shown him wrong on this and I still think that disruption of CBDs (as recommended by Roger Hallam) is a worthwhile aim.
A week of less sustained disruption - mainly in Melbourne and Sydney - in October 2019 worked very well and was immediately followed by a 400,000 signature petition to Parliament calling for the declaration of a climate emergency (ie strong public support) and three climate emergency motions to Parliament (two to the lower house and one to the Senate) all narrowly lost. So I think a longer disruption in several (or all Australian state capitals is very worthwhile.
We will be trialling major disruption (or varying levels of disruption) as Wave 2 so that will give us a good idea of police responses, which cities are easier to disrupt, how many rebels will risk arrest etc. The hard bit is Wave 3 but maybe we donât need to make a final decision till after we have the learnings from Wave 2, and possibly from some small to medium scale disruption of Parliament?
Anyway ⌠returning to the Rupert Read book ⌠RR doesnât think the October wave of rebellion worked that well in London (and nor do I) - though whether there would have been a better result without the Camden Town tube action is hard to know. There was a lot of luck as well as judgement in the success of April and it was always going to be a challenge to make âmore of the sameâ work. So RR argues for a greater focus on Parliament and disrupting wealthy people rather than ordinary folks. Hence the London focus on Parliament in September. And on London Airport, rather than Heathrow. Will be interesting to see how the UK goes with this approach.
Mostly Iâm a fan of more economic disruption + overwhelming the police etc = more chance of success, (as argued by Roger Hallam) but the thing that RR says that makes sense to me is that if you are going to disrupt ordinary people you need a good strong narrative explaining why you are doing it.
When I imagine Scott Morrison capitulating to our demands, I find it a lot easier to imagine as arising out of a long blockade, or a series of large disruptive actions, in and around Canberra. (But building on past disruption elsewhere.) And it seems to me that there are quite a number of ways of causing major disruption to politicians in Canberra even without huge numbers.
Probably we need a combination approach. I think we had it right in our planning for May 2020 (sadly cancelled due to the pandemic): major sustained disruption in as many state capitals as possible and then a convergence of a relatively small number of the highly motivated on Canberra during a sitting week (ideally budget week or some other high profile sitting week).
That way the public narrative is âlook how we have been forced to shut down major cities and cause disruption to force our broken system to act on this emergency - this disruption is a message for the (state and?) federal government(s) and in two weeks time we will be in Canberra to deliver this message to Parliamentâ.
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Reposting another rebelâs comment from our facebook discussion group in case anyone finds it interesting:
"This potentially begins to take things to another level in these protests.
âPotentiallyâ in that the strikes are still small, and may be easily suppressed.
âAnother levelâ in that the greatest lever of the oppressed is the ability to deny profits.
XR has tried to do that in particular ways - by blocking roads and so forth. It has its costs to XR, and the costs to the ruling class are indirect.
Are we, as XR ACT people, aware of the legal structures that make it so difficult for Australian workers to take such action, be it in support of BLM or in support of climate action?
If we are talking about building alliances, it is important that we come to understand such dynamics.
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Two questions in response to this -
Q1 how can we be more inclusive of people who have to travel for a national action?
Q2 do we want to optimising only to participation rates or to non-violent disruption overall?
Further to Q1 is that if people are only participating 50% or 30% for the national action, what is the major blocker to them, and how can we lift this up to 85%-90%?
If people travel for relaxation, major cultural events, and other ârelatively trivialâ causes - what are we doing wrong that we canât assume they will travel for survival?
I would like it if we could organise effective community support to make us as inclusive as possible regarding distance:
- a financial pledge to equalise travel expenses so that people who happen to be a long way away can still come
- logistic organisation around buses or vans, drivers, routes and people who need lifts.
Further to Q2, if we take the logical extreme in optimising only on participation rates, we end up not doing a national action at all and have many local group doing road waves.
The equation needs to be driven off non-violent disruption overall, and we need to be doing everything we can to make the national action inclusive to people who are remote.
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âAs youâre not doing your job - the citizens of Australia will do it for you.â Perhaps the Canberra lock down could be special 3rd demand Citizensâ Assembly Action. Block the Government from doing their job - because theyâre not doing their job. Blockade them out and stage a theatrical Citizensâ Assembly - complete with speeches by international experts and a randomly picked jury.
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WEATHER
Seeing as we have wave 2 big actions (hopefully multiple day long) coming up on March 22 - it follows that about 3-4 months later we should be mobilising again.
I was thinking, ok Sydney in July⌠thatâs the middle of winter. But what is interesting to realise is that July weather in Sydney is comparable to April weather in London. The biggest difference is 4 hours less daylight. My point is that, thankfully, for now, we are blessed with bloody nice weather in Sydney in winter. Probably relatively perfect weather in fact. So⌠just putting it out there that a mass mobilisation in Sydney could take place in July/August - based on weather that is 
Agree. What are the thoughts also on inviting rebels from WA and TAS or even Adelaide to say, fly to Sydney for it? It is (or used to be) the cheapest travel option, and obviously quick (time=money) but is it too blatantly hypocritical? Alternatively a suggestion is that convoys drive slowly along the highways towards Sydney in the lead up to the event. That could cause big news⌠âA slow drive to Sydney will be taking place as members of ⌠make their way for what they are calling a MASS DISRUPTION of the broken economic systemâ⌠That could be very cool IMO