For the third time this year, thousands of high school students across the country walked out of class on 12 November to reject One Nation’s far-right agenda. Buoyed by the youth revolt igniting Europe, the protesters drew direct links between their fight and the one against our own monsters here in Australia.
Students faced a deluge of condescending articles in the media decrying the long-term developmental dangers of missing an afternoon of classes. Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek suggested it was just an excuse for students to wag school, "We'll see how many kids turn up if it's a Saturday”. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said, “These kids really need to get back to class”.
Students proudly clapped back though creative handmade signs which read: “We are skipping class to teach you a lesson” and “The only minority destroying Australia is the rich”. In Sydney, protesters were cheered on by workers at a construction site as they made their way through the CBD.
“Migrants are welcome, Hanson is not” was a popular chant, an expression of solidarity between the protesters and their migrant classmates who are facing the brunt of One Nation’s extreme racism. Minh, a Vietnamese university student speaking at the Adelaide rally, pointed out Labor’s complicity in the increasingly right-wing climate:
“Labor’s tripling of student visa fees and the barring of international student family members is an attack on the rights of migrants. These cowards are happy to appease Hanson while punching down on the rest of us.”
References to the courageous student movements overseas were met with huge cheers. Australian young people connect with the problems driving students in Europe to protest, including having their futures sold off to the highest bidder, the racist politicians who legitimise genocide and then speak down to young people who call them out, and the schools left under-funded while governments hand tax cuts to the rich and billions to the military.
Luca, a high school speaker in Brisbane, spoke to the sentiment underpinning the protests:
“I refuse to sit and accept the terror inflicted all across the planet by the minority ruling class. We must rise up and join France, Spain, Germany, Serbia and many more in their fight. We all have the same goal, and we can only win if we move together.”
