Melbourne G20 Summit

Melbourne has been a centre of International affairs this week, being the host of the G20 summit. They started closing roads and putting police on the streets on Thursday. I had to laugh on Friday when I saw a policeman wearing a vest with 'Police Crowd Safety' on it. Yes, the police are safer in crowds I thought. But today I wasn't laughing any more.

This is where it is all centred.

The Hyatt hotel is a couple of blocks down Russell St from my hotel and a block along Collins St from my office.

The roads were barricaded off in each direction from the Hyatt. There were police everywhere, seemingly outnumbering demonstrators. The news says there were only about 2000 demonstrators, although 10000 were expected. There were certainly some colourful characters about.

Mostly I saw people just sat about in the road, or dancing to music pumped from impromptu lorry concert platforms. Here they had a bit of a dig at President Bush.

I didn't see much real confrontation, although I did see broken glass on the ground. I certainly didn't see anything like what the media called the 'Battle of Collins St'. But here is what I saw across the crossroads from my office.

The ANZ Bank were being accused of profiting from warfare and exploitation of the poor. Well I'm not sure why they should be singled out. But here were the police in more than just their normal uniforms and a streetwide line of police horses. I suppose it was necessary - there were clearly a few troublemakers around, but it did seem a bit excessive.

You can see some more of my pictures here on Flickr.