Looking for trouble? You just found it. The National Trouble Makers Union is holding the public launch of its South Australian branch in Port Adelaide this month.
Well-known political satirist, Bryan Dawe (ABC’s 'Clarke & Dawe'), will host the rambunctious event as his alter-ego, Sir Murray Rivers QC; inviting troublemakers of all persuasions to join. “Every time I mentioned the term, people laughed and said that they wanted to become a member, so I decided to actually form it,” says Bryan.
With the state of Australian politics having truly hit “rock bottom”, Bryan says the NTMU aims to gather like-minded people, to informally share their frustrations with inaction. “Nothing is going on in local politics … nobody is doing anything. You have a PM in this country that is telling the voters that coal mines are good for humanity – I mean that’s about as stupid as it gets. The object of the exercise is to give people space to enjoy themselves, and feel that they’re among people who give a damn.”
A vital reminder from Sir Murray Rivers QC on his important upcoming talk at the Waterside Workers Hall in Port Adelaide. Please contact Agnes at the Office for further details.
Posted by National Trouble Makers Union on Day o' the Sun, Jul-aye! 19, 2015
Talking about youth engagement in politics, Bryan hopes the event will attract some young movers and shakers. “There’s no point in us old-farts showing up and speaking the obvious … but why would someone under 30 want to be involved with the liberal or labor party in this country? There are a lot of good things being done politically by young people around the world, but we don’t necessarily see it in newspapers. The fringes are where all the stuff is happening, because that’s the only place where people get to express themselves.”
Bryan also feels strongly about the Abbott Government’s current stance on renewable energy. “We are worse now with our environment than we’ve ever been in our history. To talk about getting rid of renewable energy industries – what planet are we living on? I’ve still got parts of my talk for Sir Murray, about the environment, that I wrote 12 years ago; nothing has changed, so I’ve left them in.”
Bryan has even embellished the union’s back-story, which has remained a covert operation since the 1960s. “We’re saying the NTMU was actually formed in 1965 and it was an amalgamation of two unions; a New Zealand union and a South Australian union. They held a Trans-Tasman conference and woke up in the wrong hotel rooms the next morning – somehow, during the night, they had decided to amalgamate.”
Proceedings will cover the history of Australia unionism, as well as other figures who have stirred the pot. “We’ll be acknowledging the suffragettes and the early pioneers of the women’s movement. Banksy is one of our heros, and we will have an honour role of people that are no longer with us who we considered to be excellent trouble makers.”
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The launch will be held at the Waterside Workers Hall in Port Adelaide, hosted by contemporary arts organisation, Vitalstatistix. “[The hall] has a lot of significance for me because I grew up literally across the river… It has played a very important part in union history for a long time. It’s a bit of a fundraiser for Vitalstatistix, because most of their funding has been taken away by Mr [George] Brandis.”
The first meeting of members will be dedicated to former member for Port Adelaide, the late Mick Young. “He was a severe trouble maker in his time, and a very fine man. His wife is coming from Sydney with their daughter and I’m going to give them the first certificate of membership for the union.”
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The NTMU will also launch in Melbourne in mid-August, with the view to becoming a regular event. “We will have a night, once every month or so in Adelaide and Melbourne. I might have a Q&A with an artist, an author or a musician… It’s like a little club, whereby being a member, they’re basically saying that they don’t belong to the idiots running the place.”
The National Trouble Makers Union will launch publicly at Waterside Workers Hall, 7 August.
