h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've stayed out of the various 'Occupy' threads so far, for one reason or another - including the inability to work out what I thought about it all. You see, while I can see what Occupy Wall Street is about, and in fact I think something of the sort is decades overdue, things are different here so the Occupy movement has manifested differently here.

Let's start with a compare-and-contrast. The USA has an economy that's broken, a dreadful unemployment rate, an inequitable distribution of wealth, an inequitable healthcare system and a questionable approach to labour issues and social welfare. Australia, while not paradise (and I'll probably do a separate journal about our main problems), has a sound economy, unemployment somewhere around 5%, a fairer though imperfect distribution of wealth, a reasonable socialised healthcare system, a consensus approach to industrial relations and a social welfare system that is light years ahead of the US version. (I worked in social welfare here for 13 years, so this is my special subject. The US system is brutal compared to the system in any other industrialised country.) I can also add that our banking system is well-regulated, our government debt is under control and we haven't been in recession since 1992. This is what all that evil socialism causes.

So you see, a direct copy of the Occupy movement wasn't going to capture the public mood here. The keynote issues of the US/UK Occupy movements are issues here, but they're not the central issues in the public consciousness. What we had instead was the Occupation of Martin Place in Sydney by about 80-100 people, City Square in Melbourne by about the same number, and apparently there are about three people somewhere among the trees in central Canberra.

There has been no central narrative in the local Occupations, and consequently they've been regarded as little more than an oddity by the mainstream press and they've been largely overlooked by everyone else. The various individual issues they raised were worth raising, but every single one of them was lost among the crowd of other issues. The protests were peaceful, but to the casual observer - as represented by the saner bits of the mainstream media - they were manifestations of student radicalism and not much else.

I am ashamed to say that the Melbourne and Sydney Occupations were ended by the police over the last couple of days. This was completely and utterly unnecessary, but the state governments of Victoria and New South Wales (right-wing governments) thought differently. Precisely why they thought this is unclear but I suspect there might be an element of political chicanery. The federal government is sort-of left-wing and there's any amount of friction between the two levels of government at the moment.

The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he didn't agree with the police interventions, and that the protesters had raised many issues that needed public discussion and action - issues around social inequality and social welfare in Australia. The fact that he's said this is a positive thing. I think he's sincere, too. Whether anything will happen as a direct result of Occupy is, however, doubtful. Some of the issues are already on the government's agenda but with a hung parliament there's no guarantee that action is possible.

After all this - what do I think? Well, I do prefer my protest movements to have a central narrative, but I could see where the local Occupy people were coming from, and good on 'em too. What we need now is for the movement to pick a few issues and run with them. Talking about everything at once just leads to white noise, especially in a media environment dominated by Rupert. (Some cities here, cities with more than a million people, have no newspaper that isn't controlled by Rupert.) If the Occupy movement here can *focus*, and no doubt they can pick a few priority issues through a democratic process, I think they can become a strong voice exposing inequality and injustice. We need something like that.

I'm fully aware that this is simplistic. Frankly I'm tired of typing. By all means, dissect what I've written and challenge me on it. #OccupyIvan'sJournal

Ivan.

I'll sit-in to that.

I admit that the majority of the Occupy movement has passed me by.
The UK sits between the US and Australia in the way you've termed it - we have a welfare state (imperfect though it may be), we have the NHS and so on, so our poorest are not ignored and shat upon the way the are in some parts of the States.

On the other hand we have suffered by concentrating most of our economy into the service and banking sector that behaved exactly in the way that an unregulated banking sector should. People are angry that banks did what they did, but I can't seem to find that in me to be angry. Employees do the job they are paid to do and banks do what they are there to do: make money. Yeah, de-regulation was pretty dumb. We're all feeling it now. How will this help?

There's about 50 people occupying in Birmingham, my closest major city. But really, in such a London-centric country there's not a lot of point in doing anything outside of the City. And heck, even if they were allowed to protest in the City rather than in St. Pauls' graveyard, what good would it do?

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Anyway, enough about my views, this is *your* journal. It's one of the reasons I love this place, I actually get to hear others' opinions from places other than my narrow little UK-centric viewpoint.

I had no idea the Murdoch Empire had such a strong hold over the Australian news though.

On the Rupert thing - once upon a time there was an afternoon semi-tabloid newspaper in my home town Adelaide. It was called 'The News'. It was owned and run by Sir Keith Murdoch. When he died, Rupert took it over and started building an empire. News Limited/News International was the result. (Rupert closed 'The News' sometime in the 80s, the ungrateful toad, but we can't expect much of someone who'll change his citizenship to obtain a commercial advantage.)

The deregulated British financial system has long puzzled me. Trading in intangible things rather than actual products or commodities - well, it's a risk, and that risk has come home to roost. Both sides of UK politics seem responsible for this, at least to an outsider.

What's the population of Birmingham? Sydney has about 4 million, and the Occupy movement mustered 80-100 occupiers.

Regarding the Murdoch thing it does make perfect sense that he has the monopoly in Australia, I just wasn't quite prepared for the full reality of it (spot the Brit again ).

I'd agree that both sides were to blame, but I also think they both had/have a tough job. It's hard to place the British economy. We can no longer compete in our traditional market, manufacturing, so we need something else. We fell into banking and services because we had the technology and skills to do it, but of course it's still just as vulnerable as any other trade. More so, because the gains and therefore the risks are that much higher.

What will we do instead? We attempt to trade on our scientific prowess and our skills, but that disenfranchises the majority of the population who are now unqualified to work, or have been replaced by a computer.

Birmingham city itself has a population of about a million, and including the sprawling conurbation around it it's about 3.5 million.

What do you mean - Australia is not paradise? We've considered it a paradise on for a century already.

*Happily occupies Ivan's mind*

We do have Occupy movements in Denmark - in Copenhagen at least, but I haven't paid much attention.

Our state of state is probably like the Australian - except we are harder hit by financial crisis and unemployment. The banks have now received 4 donations of help from the state.

I've decided I'm too old for many actions, so I'll choose the ones to spend time on carefully.

Besides we have four kids - 3 socialists, 1 liberal (center-right) - it is their turn to fight for a better society.

Like Vip I like to hear about other states etc. and you are very clear and interesting when you explain what is going on down under.

I think you've just summed up the underlying issue for Occupy London. Traditional work has vanished, not everyone can do the new finance/tech jobs, so what does everyone else do? Social inequality, in a nutshell. It's almost exactly what we don't have happening here.

Hati, I'll explain the not-paradise things about Australia tomorrow. Thanks for giving me a topic.

Tartaronne, we have been lucky here because our banks didn't need government help. We did set up a 'guarantee' by which the government promised that nobody would lose their savings, but that's been cancelled now because nobody needed it.

I really do think there was a lot of luck in this, but good regulation helped.