About Peacebus.com
Peacebus captain Graeme Dunstan is presently in attending the Students of Sustainability Conference on the Cumberland Campus of the University of Sydney, it's an annual, well established camp and talk fest for activists with some ome 360 participants registered.
On Friday 10 January 2020, Graeme supported an Extinction Rebellion rally in Sydney Town Hall Square. Attendance estimates were as high as 40,000 and the crowd was feisty. "Hey, hey! Hey Ho! Scott Morrison has got to go!".
In preparation, on 9 February Graeme's daughter Softly Dunstan, hosted a making workshop at her home in Marrickville. A group of ten adults set to work making placards on corflute off-cuts from Reverse Garbage, cutting letters from self adhesive vinyl film.
Graeme sewed up the four XR flags to be seen in the pic above, the design being provided by Softly. The Climate Emergency banner was on board Peacebus, painted up in Cairns last October, but also from a Softly Dunstan design.
So it was that the design work of Graeme's talented daughter got to make a huge visual impact on this huge Extinction Rebellion event. Looks splendid, what?
Peacebus journeys for justice, protests for peace and speaks out for a sustaining Earth.
Long time social activist and cultural entrepreneur, Graeme Dunstan, is its captain, the East coast of Australia is its migratory zone.
After a long career as an events organiser Graeme, at 76, is an old age pensioner and just keeps at it, organising as a skilful means for engaging his Vajrayana Buddhist practice in the suffering of the world.
A battered old Mitsubishi L300 serves as a mobile kuti = meditation hut. He travels about with laptop and WiFi, horn speakers, work tables and bamboo poles on the roof racks, a makeshift kitchen under the tailgate and under his bunk, a 24V PA amp plus crates of flags, banners and tools, clothes and stuff.
Sometimes the rig includes a dog, sometimes a woman, sometimes both. Various and wide ranging are the landscapes of his daily meditation and yoga practice. He watches no Tv, listens to no radio.
Best he can, he occupies public place with acts of witness arising from his passion for justice. He likes best to help out at other people's events, rigging flags and banners to add a bit of colour and presence.
For him occupations of public place are an artform and the activist path is a spiritual one.
From 29 December through 4 January 2020 Graeme participated in an End of Year Retreat at the Silver Wattle Quaker Centre on the shore of Lake George near Bungendore, NSW.
Sue and David Woods, directors of the Campfire in the Heart Retreat and Conference Centre in Alice Springs, led the Retreat which was contemplative in style, embracing communal prayer and meditations on scripture and poetry., each day with an elemental themes - Land, Water, Incarnation, Fire, and Air.
This as the worst and most extensive bush fires ever raged in NSW and Victoria. Although Silver Wattle was not threatened by any wild fires, the smoke haze from them hung over Lake George and Silver Wattle the entire retreat. The elements were making their point.
Over a billion animals dead. Dozens of people killed. Thousand of lost homes. Millions of hectares of beautiful forest and ecosystems incinerated. Millions breathing on toxic smoke.
The only good news is that the climate denialism, so long promoted by corporate liar, the coal industry propaganda and corrupt politicians is now dead and the Extinction Rebellion voices are a clamour of undeniable credibility.
On 3 December 2019 Graeme commemorated the 165th anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion by supporting the Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion program of events organised by Dr Joe Toscano.
It's an 18 hour immersion in the Eureka story and Eureka Spirit camaradie for those who stay the course. Starting with a 4 am Dawn Service at the Eureka Stockade Memorial in Ballarat, Victoria, and culminating with the annual Eureka Dinner. Program here.
It was the eighteenth year of Graeme's collaboration with Dr Joe on Eureka commemoration. Graeme provides flags, banners and lanterns to dress the event. For the past 11 years, as part of the Eureka Dawn Service, Graeme has burned as a cardboard effigy of this season's face of tyranny.
It was a splendid burn and the media release drew the attention of ABC Radio Ballarat. Dr Joe got a call at 9am on Eureka Day to be interviewed live to air on the Gavin McGrath's Mornings program.
For a week from 29 September Graeme was at Camp Binbee, the Frontline Action on Coal base camp, 50 km west of Bowen in North Queensland.
When he arrived there were 71 people in camp of which 40 were engaged in meeting planning an action for the next day. The photos above are of that action, a lock on to at the level crossing of the coal rail line into the Abbotts Point coal terminal.
Graeme was mighty impressed with the Camp and its morale. In the week he was there three separate lock on actions took place, one of those was at the Adani workers camp 300 km north west which required the transport convoy to depart Binbee at 2 am in the morning to be there by first light.
On 20 September 2019 Graeme supported the global School Strike 4 Climate in Cairns, a rally which was huge by Cairns expectations with upwards of 1200 school kids, parents and grandparents participating and feisty.
Lots of rally speakers on an inadequate PA, then a parade through Cairns CBD on a route that took us past the offices of GHD, the corporation proposing to build the rail for Adani's Carmichael mine. Much chanting, hooting and hollering there.
Lots of banners and placards and an excellent street band with trumpet, tuber and drums had us dancing. Well some of us that is, because the parade extended over three blocks.
Here a pic of the Climate Emergency banner which Graeme painted for the Strike, leaving the assembly area by the Lagoon on the Cairns Esplanade.
Design courtesy of my daughter Softly Dunstan whose graphic design studio, Mighty Nice, closed for the day in support of SS4C.
That other pic is grand daughter, Pepper Price, with her father, animation master Darren Price at the Sydney SS4C. More quality design, hey.
Mighty Nice also produced a promotional animation video for the event. Check it out.
What a proud grandpa i am.
Anticipating the School Srike for Climate, Graeme made up a banner for it on the deck at Peace by Peace House in Manunda, Cairns, Far North Queensland.
His daughter Softly of Mighty Nice gave him the design and Patrica Gates helped with the painting.
On 9 September 2019 Graeme supported a West Papua solidarity rally outside the Australian Federal Police HQ in Cairns. At the time the indonessian police and armed forces were suppressing large scale rioting in West Papua against Indonesian rule. Many arrests had been made.
The AFP were targetted for their complicity in the training of Indonesian police and military.
There is local WP expat, George Dimara, spruiking and his wife Irene and daughters singing. The action concluded with a ripping up of the Lombok Treaty, the treaty between Indonesian which restrains Australian intervention in West Papua in regard to human rights.
Graeme served as a default MC for the rally with Peacebus providing the PA and flags. The banner was a local one and so shamefully scrappy, Graeme resolved to paint another of better design and craftsmanship. His gift to #FreeWestPapua.
Here a video beginning with the welcome to country by local elder Gudju Gudju.
On 1 September 2019 Graeme supported at a Wage Peace action which disrupted a meeting in the Cairns Civic Centre which urged local businesses to get a share of the military spending our LIbLab governments has been so lavish in splashing about.
Although promoted as a public meeting, it became private one when Graeme got up to speak. He was dragged out by a police officer. The story of the disruption was followed up by the Cairns Post. Here is Graeme's report of the action.
Here is the Cairns Post on line report. It includes a link to Bec Horridge's video of the action.
On 16 August Graeme organised at Whistleblower SpeakOut at the gates of Lavarack Barracks in Townsville, north Quensland. Lavarack Barracks is a major Australian military base, home to two infantry brigades (3rd and 11th) plus support groups, 15,000 service people.
Julian Assange is a Townsville boy and Graeme reckoned the military ought to know what the significance of former SAS Major David McBride and the Afghan Files which he leaked. He proposed the SpeakOut to his Townsville TI mate, John Paiwan, who embraced ther idea with enthusiasm.
Peacebus hurrying north to Cairns, Graeme had just wo days to negotiate and promote the action. Here the media release. Alas the army affairs writer for the Townsville Daily Bulletin, a Murdoch newspaper was not interested.
Just four of us at the gate. Graeme put up an eye catching flag display and the eyes in the base traffic going by were watching us. We got noticed. But not hugely.
While set up banner painting at Havachat, Graeme noticed a post on 7 August 2019 from Front Line Action on Coal announcing a Red Alert on the start up of Adani's Carmichael mine. Here is Graeme's Fb report on what followed:
It was a quiet day in Havachat, the arts warehouse in Rockhampton's CBD, but the proprietor, Chris Hooper, was agitated.
Extinction Rebellion was on his mind. The previous day he had painted up some placards and the news of the Brisbane blockades and arrests had stirred him up.
"Let's do an action outside Canavan's office," he declared. That's Senator Matt Canavan, Qld LNP senator and vociferous, promoter of coal, whose electoral office is few doors away.
There were four of us at hand plus Sunny dog and we were more or less bundled out the door grabbing what props as were at hand.
Local environmental defender, Chris Horton, stripped to his budgie smugglers and grabbed his "Don't Crucify the Reef" cross.
The reluctant Bec, who is decidedly ambivalent about associating with a Jesus in budgie smugglers, reached for Sunny dog and a stuffed gorilla.
Chris Hooper grabbed his new placards and i took the Adani puppet head which was hanging about from previous #StopAdani actions.
There was no rhyme of reason in the imagery. All the rules of messaging ignored, we were propelled by pure enthusiasm.
On the way out the door i called the editor of the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and left a message to say that if he wanted a local lead on the Brisbane Extinction Rebellion story and the Red Alert Adani mobilisation call by Frontline Action on Coal (FLAC), here was an opportunity.
He rang back at once to say he too had seen the story of the FLAC #StopAdani lock-on and asked me to send pix of our action and expect a follow up call.
We assembled outside Canavan's office and a very disgruntled Bec arranged the dog and gorilla and took the photo on her phone.
"I've been bullied into this," she complained as she stormed off. "It makes us and the #StopAdani campaign look stupid."
But for me it was all so zany and bizarre that i laughed out loud. We would have been less that 2 minutes outside Canavan's office. At most two people saw us there and neither was Canavan or a staffer.
Back in Havachat i got a call from the Bulletin's political correspondent, Leighton Smith. The FLAC mobilisation call was news to him.
"How about you write the story and i edit it?" he suggested. He sent me a list of questions as a prompt.
And so it was that the FLAC Red Alert call and their astonishing lockon - 17 pieces of land clearing plant tied up and immobilised - became amplified as news in Central Queensland.
Bec continued to grumble but we blokes marvelled at the serendipity of dissent.
Sometimes one gets noticed, sometimes not.
For me the savour of the action was Yippee. It recalled for me the "DO IT!" attitude of the 60s resistance to the Vietnam War and conscription. Demo as lifestyle.
A few weeks before when we arrived in Rocky, activists had been shell shocked by the federal election result and the pro coal lobby was strutting. Not so now.
Go FLAC!
When in Rockhampton Graeme is the guest of Chris Hooper at Havachat, an arts warehouse in East Street, in Rocky's central business district. There Graeme hangs his banners and murals of campaigns past from the trusses, like old regimental colours in a cathedral. There Chris allows him to set up his work tables and make stuff.
Graeme had been following the whistle blower David McBride, who leaked what are known as the Afghan Files. The leaked douments revealed war crimes committed and covered up by Australian Special Forces if Afghistan in 2012. The Afghan Files were the cause of the raids by the Australian Federal Police on the offices and homes of journalists .
Somerset Bean designed the banner and Graeme completed painting and sewing on 7 August 2019 and mailed it to Cate Adams, Wage Peace's Canberra based organiser of support for whistleblowers. There's a pic of it outside the ACT Supreeme Court 22 August 2019.
Cate was later to report that when McBride saw the banner outside the ACT Supreme Court he wept in gratitude. There to fore he had been feeling alone and suicidal about his stand. Solidarity!
Two Churches is a property outside of Emu Park, a beachside suburb about 40 km from Rockhampton. The two chuches are nineteenth century wooden buildings moved there as part of a project to preserve artefacts of colonial heritage. The owner, a Peacebus fan, offered it as a venue for a fund raising event for Peacebus.
Graeme decided 4 August 2019, his 77th birthday party would be the date and, that he would combine it with a burning in effigy of Gautam Adani, the Indian billionaire who is angling to be subsidised by Australian taxpayers to build the Carmicahel mega coal mine in the Galilee basin.
This was thought too provocative by my host, a driver of 400 tonne coal dump trucks. "I have to live here afterwards," he said. "How about you burn the US Alliance instead?" And since 2019 Talisman Sabre war rehearsals were winding up, it seemed appropriate.
Here the Fb event page. Here the media release.
Graeme created a FaceBook conversation about the design. How to visualise the US Alliance? "Trump driving off a cliff" came the reply. Graeme set to work cutting cardboard in Havachat. There's a photo of the result.
The High Tea began in the afternoon with Graeme's mate Paul Bambrick, the Greens candidate for Capricorn, and his Celtic Faeries playing reels set up outside under the frangipani. Two Churches overlooks Keppel Bay and the island view is magnificent.
There Graeme was - stoned to the gills and maybe a liitle drunk for our host was tending a free bar and providing organic wine and spirits - on top of the world, surrounded by loving friends, being serendaded with the sweetness of music, among art and making art.
Bec Horridge was Graeme's companion and accomplice in the making of this event, not only organised the catering but also put together with a couple of local women friends, Extinction Rebellion Red Brigade costumes. When dark, they appeared wailing at an upper story church window. Very dramatic.
The burn was chaotic, or at least the recording of it was. And there are no "Take Twos" to be had in the effigy burning business. Here a video of Graeme speaking before the burn.
The Soiree was attended by about 30 people. $1500 was received in donations including $1000 from the Shoal Water Action Group. Thank you SWAG!
On 12 July 2019 Graeme dressed the Rockhampton NAIDOC Parade with Murri and TI flags. Rocky Naidoc Parade is the biggest in Queensland and this would make it the biggest in Australia.
The bulk of the flags are the product of a flag making project Graeme did in 2014 with his friend and former Rocky NAIDOC director, Auntie Jeanette Yeoweh. The rest are flags from the Peacebus on board trove - a set of flags for every occasion and bamboo poles on the roof racks.
There are many reasons for the spectacular success of the Rocky Naidoc and the colour and dignity which the mass of tall flags brought to the parade is one of them.
The present director, Krissy Hatfield, continues the good work and the local Darumbil and TI kids love the flags.
Folk, children and adults, help rig the flags on bamboo poles and pile them up on the lawn outside the Civic Centre. Peacebus is draped with the season's Naidoc banner and its PA used for rallying the crowd.
Come the invitation, there is a rush by children and adults to take up a flag.
About 30 flags are on parade. Graeme dreams of there being hundreds.
On 4 July 2019 Graeme celebrated Independence from America Day with a Peacebus SpeakOut outside the gates of Western Barracks in Rockhampton. The event was promoted by a Fb event post and a report in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin headed "Peace Pilgrim celebrates Independence Day from US troops".
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Graeme is somewhat notorious in Rockhampton and this was not the first Independence From America Day to be celebrated in association with Talisman Sabre, the huge US-Australian war rehearsals which happen biennially at the nearby Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area.
The event attracted a crowd of ten, a lot of cops and a lot of attention. The Peacebus PA projected the sound 100m across the busy Western Barracks which is beside the Rockhampton Airport serves as a supply base and transport hub for Talisman Sabre.
The event did not go unnoticed in Central Queensland. Here the Morning Bulletin report.
On 3 July 2019 Graeme supported a Julian Assange birthday celebration on the Esplanade by the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton, Central Queensland. It was a globally networked #FreeAssange campaign event and this was the first action to be organised by #FreeAssange Central Queensland.
Here's Graeme's report to Fb friends:
A stiff breeze blew and it made lighting candles difficult. But we persevered and we made art.
We also had a brazier and after we sat about it for warmth. We recalled Julian had one time been an alumni of Central Queensland University and sang our "Happy Birthday to You" Stevie Wonder style.
Bec was inspired to ask what Julian's call "We must resist!" meant for each us and so we did a go around, listening and taking turns to speak.
Being visible in public place, listening to each other and collaborating certainly enriched and strengthened the bonds of friendship between us.
Bec declared it was the first time since the federal election she had felt like singing.
We resist because we must and because it's good medicine, i say.
Resistance enlivens, emboldens and builds community.
Standing together truly and fighting to defend our rights and liberties.
Eureka Spirit! It has a noble pedigree."
The Nimbin HEMP Embassy helped Graeme with his funding raising for a replacement his ailing Peacebus by presenting a High Tea at the Hemp Bar. Here the media release.
It took place 21 June hosted by the HEMP Embassy. Maybe 30 friends from different parts of Graemer's life gathered. The event began quietly at 4:20 pm with the traditional sacrament and no particular plan.
Soon enough spontaneous testimonial speeches erupted all glowing with praise and love for the community service given and cultural changes wrought, for the campaigns prosecuted and the companionship shared.
Aquarian elders, HEMP elders, indigenous elders, age mate legends and new generations too.
A Magic Hat sat on the bar and waited with the promise that a new Peacebus was to be drawn from it. A steady trickle of coins, $5 and $50 bills was to be seen being slotted in the Hat.
At the end of the night when opened, it was found to be stuffed with wads of notes bound by rubber bands! An astounding $1730 counted!
To which the venerable Michael Balderstone added $70 so that the target of $1800 was reached and full benefit was made the offer to match donations dollar for dollar to that sum.
Which means $3600 was raised that evening and i got to feel much affirmed and loved.
Graeme's cup floweed over.
Graeme thanks all who shared their love and their cash.
Thanks to is old mate Michael Balderstone for his hosting and generosity.
Thanks in particular to the Bales brothers, Mick and Johnny.
There is a side story here. Before she died Graeme had been privileged to meet their mother, Maureen Watson when she came to Nimbin and I was honoured to receive from her a teaching about honourable eldership. (See the report on the Honourable Elders Camp 16-9 May 2008.)
It's a dialogue that continues between Mick, Johnny and Graeme. Honouring the memory of an honourable elder as it were.
Graeme affirms how good the heart feels when one is affirmed in community witness as an honourable elder. And how particularly so when it comes with Murri voices.
When Graeme arrived at the 2019 Nimbin Mardi Grass his Peacebus, a 1991 Mitsubishi Express desel, was without reverse gear. The previous year after Mardi Grass it had rolled into the creek and damaged its electrics. Now it was beyond worth repairing. Simply worn out.
Meanwhile to keep Peacebus rolling, Graeme parked the "no going back" Peacebus (Peacebus2) on a friend's bush block at Kippenduff near Casino, NSW, went to Canberra on public transport, retrieved the still registered Peacebus1 from his friend, Bec Horridge, and refitted it for Peacebus duties.
This meant removing all the stuff and signage oin and on Peacebus2 and putting in Peacebus1 from whence it had come five years before. The job took four days. Graeme then headed north to Rockhampton leaving Peacebus2 parked on the bush block as dry storage of sorts for the stuff that was in excess.
On August 12, Graeme got a message that Peacebus2 had been destroyed in a bush fire propelled by 90kph winds. Vale Peacebus2.
Graeme was invited to present a lantern making workshop for the Nimbin Mardi Grass. That's a pic of the lanterns with his #FreeAssange banner in the Nimbin Mardi Grass Parade, 5 May 2019.
Mardi Grass policing was extra aggressive this year with Roadside Drug Testing road blocks on access roads and a raid on the Embassy Thursday 2 May. A bastard act. Not only was the stash of pot used to supply and fuel volunteers stolen, but the Embassy itself was shut down for 6 hours on a peak Mardi Grass preparation day.
The NSW Police are at war with festivals and events in NSW generally, and Mardi Grass in particular.
The bad news and aggressive policing cost the Mardi Grass in terms of reduced attendence numbers but not in spirit. It is and remains a uniquely beautiful, artful and funny event.
Graeme was Canberra during March and April preparing for the ninth annual Anzac eve Peace Vigil and the Anazc Day Lest We Forget the Fontier Wars March to the Australian War Memorial.
Gratitude to the Friends. Without their support to store there would be no lantern lit 'journey into grief" down the bush track from the top of Mount Ainslie to the Australian War Memorial on Anzac eve. A beautiful event.
Face book event > Anzac eve Peace Vigil 2019. Here the media release.
At 7.30 am on Friday 12 April, the morning after the arrest of Julian Assange in the Ecadorian Embassy Graeme and his woman, Bec Horridge, were out protesting the injustice. Graeme blogged about the next day on FaceBook. Here is the post
During the last 2 weeks of March 2019 Graeme was inspired to paint another banner, a "Lest We Forget the Frontier Wars banner for the upcoming "Lest We Forget the Frontier Wars March" to the Australian War Memorial on Anzac Day, using the Desert Pea motif. Somerset Bean provided the design and Graeme set up his work tables and set to work in the garage of Professor Adrian Horridge in Yarralumla.
Above is the work in progress 12 March 2019. Graeme's technique is to print the design tiled as black outlines on A0 sized pape, lays the cloth over, traces with pencil and masks out the lettering. This makes painting to edges quicker. Marking, masking, taping and painting took three days.
Graeme also sews on a border with sleeves top and bottom to make rigging of the banner easier. Usually he purchases a printed cotton for the job but he could find nothing in SpotLight with a pattern dramatic enough for the banner so he set about hand painting the border fabric with stripes comprised of colours used on the banner - Permaset colours because they are so strong and bright. It took as long to paint the stripes as it did the rest of the banner, plus a day to cut and sew the borders on.
Here is the banner displayed for the first time at a friend's in Curtin 6 April. That's Hazel Davies holding up an end on the right. She the driver of the campaign to have the Desert Pea recognised as the blood for the Frontier Wars, in the same way as the Flanders Poppy is the blood flower for WW1 commemorations.
Hazel took the banner with her to display at the Easter Confest 2019 where she intended conduct Desert Pea wreath making workshop.
Peacebus captain Graeme Dunstan is presently in the Central Highlands of Victoria, grateful to have access to a bush block shed where he can do maintenance on Peacebus, put out his work tables and make more flags.
There's a pic of his apprentice, Leigh Rowe aka Toot the Clown, painting up a new set of West Papuan Morning Star flags.
The flags got their first public display at #FreeWestPapua action outside the Indonesian Consulate in Melbourne on 27 December. Story here.
Papua Merdeka!
Graeme participated in the rituals of commemoration presented by Dr Joe Toscano and his Reclaim the Radical Tradition of the Eureka Rebellion in Ballarat on Monday 3 December. He put out lanterns and a banner rig for the 4 am commencement at the Eureka Stockade Memorial and Peacebus provided a mobile PA for the various "Stations of the Southern Cross" events through out the day.
It was 20th anniversary of Graeme's first engagement with Eureka commemorations in Ballarat. Back then the Ballarat Art Gallery had sponsored him as a lantern maker in the creation of the Eureka Dawn Walk as an event which engaged hundreds. But that was asssociated with the preparation for the 150th anniversary of the Rebellion which came with state and local government money.
When that passed, both governments lost interest and Graeme transferred his talents to supporting Dr Joe's project, which, starting in 2002, commemorated the Eureka Rebellion on 3 December on the day and on the site where the Eureka Stockade was bloodily subjugated.
That was 2006 and twelve years on the fruit of the efforts is a deep network of friendship with the ageing activists (some not so old) of Victoria. Here is the program. A standard flyer, only minor changes are
made each year.
Few but valiant and, in a provincial city where the Eureka flag is the logo and the word "Eureka" appears in the name of every other small business, highly visible and much applauded. For the best Ballarat City Council, as a government agency, can do by way of commemoration for a successful rebellion is to rally redcoat re-enactors to raise the Union Jack raising at the grave of the soldiers. 164 years on and Eureka rebels are unforgiven and the Eureka flag yet to be raised over Ballarat Town Hall .
The Reclaim program has evolved and consolidated over the years. Here is a report by John Englart of Reclaim Eureka2018 which captures some of the sweetness of the event. "Not a cross word heard," said Dr Joe of the day. Everyone knows what to expect and everyone pitches in and helps out.
Part of the program is the so called Stump Orations under the statue of Queen Victoria outside the grand Victoriana architecture of Ballarat Town Hall. Dr Joe attributes the creation of this event to Graeme. It's a pause on the march from Bakery Hill to the mass grave of the diggers at the Old Ballarat Cemetery.
It's an opportunity to declaim and it's a salute to Peter Lalor, who in 1854, it is told, when the leadership of the Ballarat Reform League failed to show for a mass meeting after what was to be the last police License Hunt, rallied the crowd by leaping onto a tree stump, raising his rifle and shouting: "Liberty!" He was thereafter appointed Commander in Chief of the rebels.
Liberty for Julian Assange was Graeme's message.
On 4 November accompanied by Janet Salisbury, singer/producer for A Chorus of Women, Graeme met with Dr Brendan Nelson AO, director of the Australian War Memorial. Graeme, Janet and friends have produced the annual Anzac eve Peace Vigil in the AMW for seven years and so have annual meetings with Dr Nelson and mutual goodwill and respect abounds.
This meeting had special significance because it preceded preparations for the centenary of Armistice Day and followed days after a controversial announcement that the Memorial would receive $500 million for renovations.
Graeme had proposed recording the meeting and to this end invited FaceBook friends to suggest questions to put to Dr Nelson. Come the day Dr Nelson refused the interview but Graeme put questions anyway and wrote this report which he posted to FaceBook.
Graeme Dunstan and his Peacebus companion, Bec Horridge, presented an Assange Picnic and SpeakOut at the gates of the US Embassy in Canberra on Sunday 4 November. Here the media release .
Graeme had had reports from Julian's father, John Shipton, that his son's situation in the Ecadorian Embassy in London was dire and felt compelled to act. He saw notice of an international day of solidarity actions on the web and signed up even though the notice was late and Sunday is a very quiet day in Canberra and at the US Embassy.
With the AFP, notified and happy, we set up a banner rig opposite the tradesmen's entrance in Arkana Street and the Peacebus folding chairs and table for a picnic in shade in the park behind. Three red AFP patrol cars kept watch on us, sometimes cruising by, sometimes parking in the shade on the far side of the park and yarning amongst themselves.
No one seemed to be at home in the US Embassy. Windows closed and blinds drawn, even the security guards were keeping out of sight. A few carloads of tourists cruising the embassies of Yarralumla came by and few local residents too, all regarded us with curiosity.
Our sole visitor was a woman who had organised ACT Friends of WikiLeaks in 2012. Before she burnt out and retired from protest life to secure her career in the public service, she and her friends had installed a beautiful display of candles on the lawns below Parliament House spelling out FREE JULIAN.
A car sticker with that image and the slogan "Time for the Australian Government toi Defend Assange" had been printed and she had a box of 500 or so left over.
She beheld a sticker and said wistfully. "I thought that such a beautiful image and elegant plea would make the media. But no. Nothing. Not one report." Now six years had passed and Julian Assange's situation is more dire and even further beyond the pale of corporate media.
But it was a balmy Canberra spring day and a lovely picnic and conversation none the less.
SpeakOut i did, though not to a crowd. Rather to an apparently empty Embassy imagining myself addressing the Charge Affaires, James Carouso, who was hiding in his bedroom watching from behind the curtains.
Mr Carouso is a career diplomat minding the office till President Trump appoints an ambassador from amongst his Republican mates and benefactors. Something he seems in no hurry to do.
For awhile there retired Admiral Harry Harris was set to be the US Ambassador to Australia.
Known as a war hawk, Admiral Harry had been commander of the US Pacific Fleet (2013) and was hot under the collar about Chinese bases in the South China Sea. He had also been Commander of Joint Taskforce Guantamo in 2003 when David Hicks was incarcerated there and prisoners had died under torture.
Graeme had been gearing up for a campaign to remind Harry Harris of that inconvenient truth when it was announced that the Admiral was to be the Ambassador to South Korea instead. So it goes.
Graeme spoke to his imagined James Carouso knowing that somehow in the wonders of surveillance his words would be recorded, assessed, preserved in silicon and filed somewhere forever more. To back this up Bec recorded his speech and posted it to YouTube here.
H e r e a r e p i x o f B u n g a l u n g f r i e n d a n d s h a m a n , L e w i s W a l k e r , p a i n t i n g u p h i s 2.5 year old d a u g h t e r , L u n a r , f o r P o s s u m D r e a m i n g by the Clarence River at Tabulam, northern NSW Sunday 20 October .
C a p t u r i n g t h e m o m e n t i s l o n g t i m e f r i e n d a n d H e a l i n g C i r c l e s h a m a n , J a i D a e m i o n .
It was at a h e a l i n g c a m p c o n v e n e d b y L e w i s . I hadn't planned to be there but when my Byron Bay abiding friend, Jai, called to ask whom i might suggest as a subject for a portrait for the National Portrait Gallery, my thoughts flew to Lewis.
B e t w e e n L e w i s a n d i there i s a n o n g o i n g F r o n t i e r W a r s s t o r y t e l l i n g c o n v e r s a t i o n . It had paused for 18 months but it began again as if mid sentence as soon as i arrived, my mind still rolling and weary from the drive, hallucinating somewhat from the spliff ihad been offered.
L e w i s h a s b e e n r e s e a rc h i n g t h e s t o r i e s o f t h e m a s s a c r e s o f his people in t h e U p p e r C l a r e n c e t o t h e e x t e n t o f r e c o v e r i n g h u m a n b o n e s - some 1100 of them - f r o m t h e r i v e r bed j u s t b y w h e r e w e w e r e c a m p e d , a n d r e b u r y i n g t h e m w i t h d i g n i t y a n d c e r e m o n y in caves nearby .
This year it was Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. See media release.
At the time we Eurekaphiles were about to depart on our annual parade to Bakery Hill, so we stood about with our flags and banners and cheered Dr Joe, a longtime master of the radio interview, as he used the opportunity to promote the Reclaim commemoration program, defend the burning of the ScoMo effigy and tell the story of Rebellion and its radical outcomes.
Check it out: Radicals burn 'PM' to mark Eureka anniversary.



















"We were few - just nine of us by the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton celebrating Julian Assange's birthday on 3 July.
So Graeme initiated crowd funding for its replacement. The campaign went on for 4 months and raised $12,000.
to store
There he is with his daughter and grand daughter on top of Mt Ainslie on Anzac eve. And there he is with his lantern stash - 280 of them - at the Silver Wattle Quaker Centre near Bungendore.




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I connected Jai and Lewis and then felt compelled to be there too, began driving the next day from Canberra - 1 1 0 0 k m i n 3 6 h o u r s .