00:00Well, we've actually had to step away from the group because stun grenades went off and
00:07it was really quite loud, everyone scattered just behind me.
00:11The group that I'm with is the Counter Protest for the March for Australia rally and they've
00:16marched all the way from the State Library of Victoria to Parliament, almost to Parliament,
00:21we're actually outside the Princess Theatre where there's hundreds of police, they've
00:26sort of formed these two lines because there's one group here with the Counter Protest and
00:31there's the Riot Squad, there's Mounted Police and they've created this gap between the two
00:37groups and then another line of police officers that are with the March for Australia rally
00:43stopping the two groups from merging.
00:46Now what the March for Australia rally is calling for is, it's an anti-immigration rally basically
00:51and it's their second one.
00:52The first rally was in August of course and the group behind me, the Counter Protest,
00:58they're speaking directly against the racism and fascism that they're claiming is coming
01:02from that other group.
01:04And in the speeches today we heard that they've promised to always come to these protests,
01:09every March for Australia protest that is organised in Melbourne.
01:13They've promised to also come to counter that message, to stand up against racism and say
01:18no to a white Australia.
01:19Now that protest was quite controversial in August, we of course heard from one of the
01:25speeches, one of the men who gave the speeches was a prominent neo-Nazi, Thomas Soule, who's
01:30since been jailed.
01:32And this group here with the Counter Protest, there's a range of messaging here as well, they're
01:37calling to free Palestine, there's the First Nations group that's leading this protest as well,
01:43and they're calling for sovereignty and for treaty.
01:46And the police are here, they've got additional powers today in the CBD and just outside the
01:53CBD they're able to search anyone for weapons and they're also able to direct people away
01:59from the city if they believe that they are a threat and potentially might cause some violence
02:04violence or if they refuse to remove a face covering.
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