Photos: A Night at Occupy Sydney

 Occupy Sydney, Martin Place.  Photos: Ruth Skilbeck

I am covering the events of Occupy Sydney as a freelance journalist and putting up stories on my blog. I went to the Occupy Sydney site in Martin Place for about two hours on the night of Tuesday 18 October, spoke to people, and took these photos.

                                              

                                                                                     Photographs © Copyright Ruth Skilbeck

GFC Suicides and the ‘Super’ Swindle

By Ruth Skilbeck

Today’s front  page article in the Australian online announces “Market forcing retirees to work after $75bn paper loss in superannuation.” The article discusses the economic loss using standard mass media cliches: “Baby-boomer retirees are being forced back to work, with workers having almost nothing to show for contributing $430 billion to Australia’s compulsory superannuation pool since the global financial crisis”. ‘Wealth Editor’  Andrew Main omits to mention the cost in human terms.

The human toll of the GFC is as broad as it is global. This is recognized in the worldwide Occupy movement’s ‘We are the 99%'  slogan. The GFC has triggered an unreported chilling trend for suicide, and that includes suicide by the men ( and perhaps also women) who work in the finance industries - those who advised their clients to invest their earnings and  lifesavings.

                                                                Occupy Sydney, Martin Place  Photo: Ruth Skilbeck

When I lived in Balmoral (before I moved to Newcastle in Jan 2010) I had friends whose husbands or ex-husbands worked in  finance industries, and I can report that there are many stories that are not published in the mainstream media. About the human cost of the Global Financial Crisis, not only on those who have lost all their saving, and had their lifetime savings wiped to face a retirement of (comparative) poverty, but of those who worked in the finance industries that took those savings, advising their clients on where to “invest”. 

The GFC hit when I was living in Balmoral. A friend and her ex spouse attended the funeral of a good friend of theirs who drove to North Head. And then jumped off North Head. Leaving behind a wife and two adolescent children to fend for themselves. My friend was angry with him. Now what are his wife and children going to do? She knew of several men who worked in finance who had jumped off Northbridge. It’s never reported but it has happened a lot.

As a divorced, 'casual academic' and freelance journalist I have not been able to make enough money to lose. Twice I have had to draw down my  superannuation due to financial hardship. Each time it has amounted to a princely sum of $3,000 and the government has taken one-third of that in tax.

In comparison, there are those in a senior generation in my family who have lost considerable life savings for retirement earned in very successful full-time academic careers. Investments planned to support their retirement,  have disappeared. If they are ‘too old’ to return to the work force, what about them? 

The men who worked in finance who committed suicide could not face the moral consequences of what they had done: advise people such as my senior relatives to invest their earnings and savings into superannuation funds that evaporated like the Howard government’s attempts at integrity and accountability.

“The hit to nest eggs has been exacerbated by the flood of personal contributions Australians made after Howard government treasurer Peter Costello announced in the 2006 budget that pre-retirees could contribute an extra $1 million into their super funds until June 30 the following year as  an undeducted contribution - that is without paying extra tax on it. That attracted an extra $95bn of personal contributions to super just before the GFC hit.” 

Self managed super funds lost between 20 and 40 pc in 2008 - an unprecedented drop . Previously 5 pc was the most lost in the "tech wreck" of 2002  and in the 1930s depression (when my grandparents lost a lot of their savings after following the advice of their accountant). 

Could it be that the GFC is in some way a leveller from the  heights of economic  fantasy to our core humanity that always seems to emerge as we are suffering the most? The deep pre-semiotic reality of affect that  may yet be the salvation of the human race and the planet that we inhabit.

Given this, it is supremely ‘ironic’, if not blatant evidence of serving the machine  of the system for the mainstream media not to be reporting the human cost. Instead simply announcing “baby boomer retirees are being forced back to work.”  Note the use of  “forced”. In capitalism’s theatre of cruelty, such glib statements may be made with abandon. 

What a facile statement from the 'Wealth Editor'.

And yes, that is my opinion.

A Night at Occupy Sydney in Martin Place

Spent a few hours at Occupy Sydney in Martin Place, where there was an energised and peaceful gestalt buzz; rather extraordinary that about 80 people are living in an open community in between the corporate towers, and plaza fountains. Since the event began on Saturday,  each day at least another ten people have joined, one of the Occupiers said. It's 12.41 am now and I am having a coffee at MacDonalds on George Street, where a noisy fight broke out in a group of young lads in the hamburger queue, the air is electric with aggression; they are escorted or thrown outside onto the street. Then a police van arrived and female and male police officers conduct upper torso strip searches of the  brawling boys on the street directly outside the very window next to where I'm sitting (Of course all this has nothing to do with Occupy Sydney...) It all goes on for quite a while. I have to avert my eyes and occupy myself with checking my emails and teaching notes.  This is the third violent fight incident with intoxicated young people  that I passed since walking away from peaceful OS. It's another world down here on George Street. The wild west! I am considering going back to OS for the night. I forgot warm socks and it is chilly. But there's a lot of warmth from the people there that compensates for the chill in the night air. Met interesting friendly people, who've been there for days and had long conversations; with P. who told me he has not been to a protest since 1978...  The creative peaceful, alternative community feeling of creating something new and counter-cultural, and the way that strangers were talking to each other like friends reminded me of Australia in the late 70s.

Occupy Sydney- Sleeping Out at Martin Place

As a freelance journalist I plan to sleep out at Occupy Sydney tomorrow night at Martin Place with several friends, to report on the  Sydney manifestation of the new worldwide movement in collaborative support for a vision for a new global governance, to improve conditions for all workers: that includes the many thousands of “casual” academics in Australian who will, routinely, be made unemployed at the end of the semester, and the current industrial disputes of Qantas workers.

Occupy Sydney began on Saturday 15th October together with hundreds of Occupy events around the world in sympathy with Occupy Wall Street that began one month ago as a people’s movement  opposed to corporate greed and corruption and calling for a world revolution for real democracy, closing the gap between the 99% and the 1% who control the worlds wealth and resources, and the banking system that brought about the Global Financial Crisis.

Sydney’s Martin Place is home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Macquarie Bank, and is known as the centre of corporate Australia.  The Sydney GPO and Seven news media centre are also located on Martin Place.

I’ve been advised to wrap up warmly. I will bring a camera, and plan to report on what’s happening in the public square!




24/10/11
Post-script. I didn't sleep out at Occupy Sydney as a journalist to report on the movement.  When I went there with a friend we went to the George Street end of Martin Place, and I discovered an interesting 'optical illusion'. Martin Place is a disappearing public square. From the lower concourse of the southern end looking up, the upper northern end disappears from view. This effect is aided by the strategic placement of a long based fountain. From the perspective of where I was standing it looked as if Martin Place was unoccupied. Little did I know that there was an active camp site of peaceful protest out of my line of sight. The next night, Tuesday 18 October, I went alone after work in the evening. I found the site stayed for over two hours, talking to people and took the photos posted on this blog.