By John Stapleton
Four years ago Australia saw the largest demonstrations in its history, as hundreds of thousands of people descended on the nation’s capital. The Australian media and the Australian authorities colluded in lying about the numbers, and lied about the type of people involved, labelling the many decent people involved as conspiracy theorists. Now, with the Covid narrative peddled by pharmaceutical companies and their collaborators in the government having been been discredited worldwide, we look back in wonder, if not anger.
Exhibition Park in Canberra, otherwise known as Epic, lies on the northern outskirts of Canberra and is the site of the annual Canberra Show, which like other shows around the country exhibits the produce and achievements of local farmers, craftspeople and others, a festive occasion to delight the nation’s children and the public at large.
It features a network of showgrounds and a racecourse, variously intended for horses, dogs, cattle and other events, and is equipped to deal with large numbers of people.
Which was just as well.
As the week progressed, numbers rose from the thousands into the tens of thousands, culminating in an estimated 200,000 people on this one campsite alone. Hotels, campsites and other forms of accommodation were full across Canberra.
With numbers rising daily, the atmosphere at the heart of Australia’s Camp Freedom and the epicenter for the Convoy to Canberra was chaotic and glorious, jubilant, exultant; tinged with both exhilaration and fear.
There were plenty of smiles, music performances, hugs were for free and kids played in between the tents or in organised activities; fire twirlers, opera singers, and impromptu artists added to the dizzying, joyful atmosphere, a kind of Woodstock without the drugs or the mud.
All participants said one thing: “This is history in the making.”
Crowds lined the streets of the campsite cheering the arrival of every new truck and car. “Welcome, welcome,” they shouted, whistling and cheering every last newcomer.
Country music celebrity Dusty Star roamed the pavilions with his trusty guitar singing:
Now we’re from the right
And we’re shaking to the left
We close our eyes
Open wide
And take the test
We do a lock down turn around
Jump up and scream.
We’re just waking up to Corona 19
There were no QR codes, no masks, absolutely no social distancing and lots of tears. There were signs everywhere calling for freedom and “Hands Off Our Kids”.
There were no mainstream journalists at the centre of the Epic Showgrounds, none daring to show their faces at one of the most singularly historic gatherings in the nation’s history.
The role of Australia’s heavily manipulated and controlled media in promoting panic and marginalising those who did not want to comply with government mandated vaccines would be the subject of introspection and reflection for years to come. But that is an argument for another time.
Nothing, no amount of whitewashing or rewriting of history by the authorities, could change the chaotic and glorious scenes which overwhelmed the nation’s capital. More often described by outsiders as a “soulless shit box”, joy and outrage overtook Canberra.
While in the centre of the city the nation’s spoilt public servants, all masked up and socially distanced, added to the bizarre Stepford Wives feel of this artificially created city; at the campsite itself there were no masks, absolutely no social distancing, with complete strangers embracing each other, and certainly no QR codes.
This was myth busting at its best.
The hysteria visited upon the nation’s capital over a virus and cures heavily promoted by the most ruthless pharmaceutical companies on Earth, in league with local governments, was blown apart as hundreds of thousands of people joyously celebrated a freedom that had been denied them through the previous two terrible years.
If large gatherings really were “superspreader events” the authorities had been claiming they were as justification for shutting down everything from concerts to churches, then this was a superspreader event extraordinaire.
However there were no reports of Covid outbreaks as a result of the Convoy to Canberra.
As people celebrated their God given right to be themselves and common humanity won out at last, the high minded dictatorial lunacy of federal and state governments finally came to look exactly as it was: a criminal assault on the freedoms, the jobs and the bodily integrity of the populace.
There could be no going back.
There could be no going back to the days of house arrest and claims that gatherings of more than two people were a threat to public health, the days when if two people were talking outside their own home and a third person joined them that was regarded as a criminal offence and the neighbours encouraged to report them.
The game was up; the government perpetrated farce was over.
***
In the jubilant atmosphere, people would repeatedly start singing:
We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We’ll share a dream and sing with one voice
“I am, you are, we are Australian.”
It was one of the greatest stirrings of national pride anyone had ever seen.
Daniel, 45, a farmer from Kempsey on the NSW mid-North Coast, described it all thus: “Just the sheer magnitude of the gathering of the people, the smiles, the loves, the togetherness of everybody. Everyone helping each other.
“I came here; I just saw the inequality in everything around me and just knew in my soul that something was wrong and needed to be brought to light. That everyone needed to gather to put light on this.
“Everybody here wants freedom from the medical tyranny and segregation. They want to have elections that are untainted. And they need stop jabbing kids, because of their level of natural immunity they don’t need to be jabbed.”
“You come together, and people are able to sit down and talk without the fear of being alienated, vilified, outcast from the group, because everybody is accepted.”
***
Janaya Markwell, 25, Gold Coast, a very lively young woman who, armed with nothing but a smart phone and boundless energy, became one of the most significant documenters of the Freedom movement. She said: “To find the words to describe what I’m experiencing is quite difficult but I’ll try my best. I’ve cried the most joyful tears from being so overwhelmed in the best way possible, the love and the energy is so beautifully electric. I feel at home here surrounded by like minded souls who have now become family, the community we’ve created continues to blow my mind as I’ve watched it all organically grow and come together.
“This is what they fear the most, from strategically dividing us for many many years to now we the people bringing everyone back together, restoring the love, compassion, empathy, connection, we the people have the power to create a new world for our generations to come.”
***
Alison, 49, a former café manager from Brisbane, said she had left her job three months before, unable and unwilling to deal with or enforce the endless health diktats of masks, QR codes, social distancing, the final straw being vaccine mandates. She particularly objected to the idea that she was supposed to push vaccines onto her teenage staff. She now travels the country in her Woke Folk Coffee Van.
“We had the police come every other day,” she said. “Each time they came they were inconsistent with their rules and said different things. Eventually I knew this wasn’t the place for me to be.
“All the doors shut behind me, and another door opened.
“The people here at this campsite have been chosen to be here at the end of days. This is spiritual warfare. This is heavy stuff. I have three children. All non-vaxxed. I have been fighting this since my first was born.
“The Woke Folk Coffee Van came into my life and allows me to go places and talk to people. It belongs in the people’s army. We need to push back. I aim to stay on the frontline, where all Australia needs to be right now.”
***
Simon, from rural Australia, says he wants to live in Camp Freedom forever with his pig called “Dude”.
“I drove in here and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I can truly now understand the meaning of the term ‘tears of joy’. It’s so beautiful. It’s home. I don’t want to go back.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s hard to put into words. I have never experienced anything like this. It’s very healing.
“Dude brings so much joy, especially to the kids.”
***
Guya from Bellingen, a small town on the mid-North Coast of NSW, said: “I am here to support freedom and a return to sovereignty.”
***
One young man told his story: “I had a franchise but because I refused to get jabbed I lost the whole business.
“My girlfriend is from the Philippines and she went back to her country, she was having trouble getting a visa here. She was pregnant.
“The $16,000 it was going to cost to have the baby here, we decided to put it into the business and I was going to go back to the Philippines for the birth.
“The lockdowns happened. 2020. I made no money from the business.
“Then they told me get the jab or lose my business.
“I just want to get back to my Baby Girl. And I want to see my girlfriend, I want to marry her.”
And then he started to cry.
***
Brent, 34, who owns a construction business from Western Australia, describes himself as a “vaccine survivor”.
“I spent 20 days in hospital and I was told the whole time it was anxiety,” he says. “My wife and children are at home in WA.
“I want to go home as soon as possible. And that’s when we achieve our goal.
“At this point time I can’t legally get home. I’m doing this for my kids, and if I didn’t have the adverse reaction I wouldn’t have woken up and my children would be vaccinated.
“When I left WA I was eligible to return because I was double vaxxed. As soon as you are due for your booster, you have to have it, which was the day I arrived in Canberra.
“My children will only be vaccinated over my dead-vaxxed body.”
When last spotted, Brent was camping with a group of some 350 cars from WA, none of whom could return to their home state.
***
Peter, 50, a support disability worker who lost his job after being accused of talking “negatively” about Covid, said: “I am single dad. I have to pay the mortgage. As soon as the people in my workplace discovered I was not double vaccinated, even though I had a medical exemption, they turned on me and went to management.
“I went to one of the large protests, and asked one of my fellow employees if they would cover me for an hour to allow me time to get back to work. I was accused of talking about Covid again, because I replied honestly when she asked if I was going to a rally.
“I was given a first and final warning; and after some bull dust had a fellow employee turn on me. That’s what I’m dealing with. I was suspended. When I went to the Australian Services Union they told me to fall on my knees and beg for my job.
“It has been therapy for me, coming to Canberra, sharing my stories with people in the same situation. It’s been very sad meeting with other fathers, our role is to protect our children, and every father I have spoken to here have had children turn against them over this.
“It is heart breaking for all of us.”
***
The government dismissed these people at their peril.
One participant passionately argued that we should all learn from nature and Australia’s stunning landscapes, that we should return the nation to its ancient spirits and rename the Constitution “The Land of Magnificent Trees”.
There was a lot of that sort of thing. And it was very sincerely felt.
Entire suburbs of tents spread out from the showground’s central pavilion, neatly lined in rows, with barbeques and beds and chairs. The atmosphere was invariably joyful.
Australians love of camping and the outdoors was now serving them well.
For some it was an intensely spiritual event; as if an Imperial Warship inhabited by supranatural beings existing outside of time, those entities the humans call Gods, had settled in the sky above the campground; an airborne megalopolis, a giant and extraordinary swirl of out-of-this-world intelligences; as if there had been nothing like it since the Sermon on the Mount and the story of the Loaves and Fishes.
However various inflamed imaginations may have interpreted it; on the ground there was certainly a fair bit of loaves and fishes going on, as makeshift kitchens staffed with volunteers sprang up to feed thousands of people every day.
As if out of nowhere, the right people appeared at the right time, from chefs to dishwashers, kitchen assistants to food servers, while at the same time carload after carload appeared delivering supplies and donations, some travelling many miles to do so.
While Canberra’s taxpayer funded elites sniffed and condemned the members of the working class now on their doorsteps as “bogans”; many others found it in their hearts to deliver supplies, rolling up with boxes of fruit and vegetables, trays of sausages and steaks, steaks and legs of ham; and massive numbers of supplies, including shampoo, soap, toothbrushes and toilet paper.
Michael Griffith of Café Lockdown wrote: “I stood at the front gates of Epic Park as vehicles kept arriving from all over Australia. These vehicles were flying Australian flags, both red and blue and many of these flags were upside down, and or their vehicles’ windows were covered in slogans. Hands off our kids. End the mandates. Freedom.
“The day before the big march, this constant arrival of Australians became a tsunami. All day Epic Park’s main winding road was a traffic jam of cars full of people who had come here, from every corner of the country, to demand that the government return their freedoms and leave their children alone.
“As soon as they passed through the gate, a crowd lining the avenues of Epic showground cheered and then the vehicle’s occupants cheered back. They had made it. They were here, the Anti Vax Capital of Australia. The long, long drive had been well and truly worth it.
“Everyone who was here, these witnesses, kept stating that they had never experienced anything like this before. Many of them old people, and many of these were teary with joy, assured us that nothing like this had ever happened before. Not in Australia.
“This was a Gathering of Guardians, the defenders of freedom. This organic, nationwide, communal protest was the birth of a new nation.”
***
Kim Ward, 59, a former aged care worker from Redcliffe in Brisbane, had been at the camp since the first of the Convoy.
“It started about 10am. I just travelled down in a car with my girlfriend. There were about 60 of us outside the front of Parliament House, where we camped overnight.
“I thought, we’re going to be screwed here. There’s just not enough of us.
“Then they just started pouring in. We stayed in the car park the first night; the police moved a lot of us on. They weren’t violent; but they were arrogant. You wouldn’t want to approach them.
“The mood was great, even though there weren’t many of us. There were people from all over.
“Now, there’s probably more than 200,000 in this camp alone. It gives you hope. You don’t feel so alone now, when you see how many people are fighting. I am amazed by the whole lot of it, these people fighting for their children. To be honest, I am so happy because we’ve made them nervous. We haven’t seen much light.”
***
Maria Pilar, 67, from Byron Bay in northern NSW, was part of the Convoy to Canberra since the very first day. She spent much of her time working out of a temporary office helping others.
“I am deeply concerned for the children,” she said in her exuberant, heavy accent. “I come from an original sovereign tribe, the Mapuche from central Chile.
“We have never given away our sovereignty and our freedom.
“I was amazed from the beginning at the quality of the people I was with, the clarity and their skills. How well and how quickly we self organised. It is a spontaneous community.
“Now my heart is just full of joy to see so many people coming together in unity and cooperation.”
***
Perry Thorp, 20, from Melbourne, the world’s most locked down city, a Bible College student, found a purpose for his computer expertise helping with the social media campaign for Reignite Democracy Australia.
“Unity for a cause has brought me here,” he said. “I feel deeply passionate to stand up for my generation and the ones to follow.
“I feel people my age aren’t brave enough to step up, because they’ve been taught to respect society.
“That society has now betrayed them and their futures.
“I feel God is doing something here, in this nation, in the here and now.”
***
Once inside Camp Freedom new arrivals set up their swags and tents, parked their caravans or set up beds in their cars. And they did this without anyone telling them where to park. Together they just figured it out, and then, instead of awkwardly talking about the footy or the weather, they vigorously shook hands with each other then went, ‘fuck it,’ before fitfully embracing.
Then they asked each other if they needed anything. They shared food, beer and dope, and they laughed as much as they cried.
As the new arrivals told the cheering groups lining the roads of the showgrounds where they were from, everyone cheered, in this new city where there were no QR codes, no social distancing, and no masks.
“The victory of this day was that we had answered the great question: ‘What sort of future do Australians want?
“The answer was clear. The people want Freedom.”
The Government, and its propaganda machine the mainstream media could never have compelled this many people to make their way, out of their own pocket, to the Country’s Capitol, chanting “I really want to take the booster.”
“It appears, as always, courage is finally trumping fear.
“Sadly, we will probably have to play out the rest of the game, which could take a while, but it is only for show, for like I said, and somewhere in the halls of power they have figured this out too, that in this war, that was brought to the people, we, the people have already won.”
