Justice For All!

A HEART committed to justice beats strongly at the Billabong, where all sorts of toxic “isms” can get a Bunyip riled. Discrimination against mythical creatures tops the list, of course, but a close second is speciesism, which imagines some lifeforms innately superior to all others.

Take horses, for example, which are intelligent , noble and loving animals, yet their dignity is compromised every day by the exploitive compulsion of imperialistic humanity to ride about on their backs. Once, before the world bore the tracks of mankind’s jackboots, horses roamed at will and exercised their equine right to self-determination. No longer. Tormented by the whips of bipedal oppressors, lacerated with spurs of hegemonic subjugation and confined for generations in squalid camps known as “stables”, horses have been disenfranchised, robbed of their birthright to roam freely o’er the grassy plains and seen the blood of martyred mobs poured into human food products.

It has gone on long enough!

So, comrades, a call to action and an invitation to join the Professor’s brand new, grassroots movement, Banish Dobbin’s Shame – BDS for short. Campaigners against equine injustice will be kicking off  the crusade any day now with a protest outside the  Macclesfield Adult Pony Club, which may sound kinky to some, but is no more than your usual collection of bankers, media manipulators and scheming horse oppressors. The goal will be to stop supporters of equine injustice getting into their clubhouse, scare off their sympathisers, annoy the club’s neighbours and have an awful lot of self-righteous fun with chants and shouted slogans.

There will be no need to fret about consequences or arrest, even if a number of attending policemen sustain injuries, as one of the Pony Club’s most energetic members is Magistrate Simon Garnett, who yesterday demonstrated an encouraging tolerance for rowdy protests by those who do not like Israel, Jews or chocolates. In dismissing charges against a gaggle of public nuisances arrested as part of the ongoing harassment of the Max Brenner shop in the QV complex, Garnett defended both the right to protest and the accuseds’ selective deafness:

Mr Garnett said while privately owned, QV was a public space and the protesters had a right to exercise their freedom of speech. Mr Garnett said there was no evidence the accused heard requests by QV management and police to leave.

"They entered for the purpose of conducting a political demonstration. They had a lawful right to enter QV Square," he said.

"It cannot be said it was the actions of the protesters that caused any obstruction, hindering or impediment to members of the public.

"They did not surround the premises with hostile intent or demeanour."

Magistrate Garnett, a workers comp specialist and keen student of ambulances' rear perspective before elevated to the bench in 2006 by then-Attorney General Rob Hulls, will find himself personally inconvenienced when he arrives to sling a saddle on his steed, but fear not! As his Max Brenner ruling demonstrates, he recognises the right to protest, to ruin others’ fun or businesses, is sacrosanct.

Sacrosanct, that is, until Tame Ted Baillieu, or whoever replaces Victoria’s Premier, gets around to putting some fresh bottoms on the bench.