The Politicians Can’t Hear You.

Published in 'Woroni' April 2020

https://issuu.com/woroni/docs/edition_2_sex/14

By Nicholas Ward

On Tuesday over one thousand Australians marched around parliament house to protest climate change in near complete silence.

Image by Andrew Watson / Getty Images

I have some bad news for those protesters; the politicians can’t hear you.

A condition of approval of this march was that the protesters leave behind their signs, and refrain from chanting. Because God forbid the politicians hear the people.

Don’t feel bad though. Silent or not they can’t hear you. Because the dark undemocratic secret of new Parliament house is that the politicians literally can’t hear you. Chant as loud as you want, bring megaphones and a thousand of your closest friends. They still won’t hear you.

At the height of Tuesdays protests as a thousand people engaged in a call and response with their enflamed speakers the entry to parliament was silent. The coughing of the several dozen police and trickling of the fountain was more audible than the protesters chanting barley one hundred metres away

It is almost surreal how well the architecture dulls and removes the anger of the people from the air. If one could not see the pennants of protest flying it would seem like any other day.

By comparison the protesters calls ring clear all the way down at old parliament house where the echoes from the walls of that colonial mansion rang clear as a bell so that one could follow every word of the speakers and every call of the protesters from half a kilometre away.

Long gone are the days where Bob Hawke would hang out the windows of Old Parliament house waving at the people. When the Prime Minister’s office was less than one hundred metres from the protest lines. And Politicians were forced to see the anger and complaints of the people going to and from work. Whether they wanted to or not.

Today the minister’s offices are set near the dead centre of the vast complex. Well back from the roads, ensconced in their fortified hill, surrounded by offices of the unimportant staffers. Where no errant sound of discontent can possible reach them.

It’s four fortified entrances where MP’s come and go from are likewise are a no protest zone on the off chance a member of parliament is forced to see something they don’t want to.

Tuesday February 4 marked the first protest to encircle parliament house. And was only approved on the condition that the protester carry no signs and refrain from chanting.

It’s no wonder people feel like the politicians aren’t listening anymore. Because they physically can’t.

The next time Scomo talks about the Canberra bubble he might consider bothering to listen to the people instead of walking away next time he has the chance.