After an estimated 300,000 people ignored the rain and the wishes of the NSW premier to peacefully march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in solidarity with the starving people of Gaza, Page MP and Deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan’s contribution was to share a number of images purporting to show that this event was actually about supporting Muslim extremism.
Like most of the people in his Lismore electorate, Hogan wasn’t actually present at the Sydney march, but he decided to use his position to support the rantings of Sky News’ Rowan Dean, who set up his own heavily curated and unrepresentative collection of clips by saying, ‘Here’s just a small taste of this week’s hatred and hostility courtesy of the pro-Palestinian leftist rabble in the crowds.’
On social media, Mr Hogan wrote; ‘Burning the Australian flag. Flags associated with ISIS and the Taliban. Posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader, whose regime executes gay people and restricts women’s freedoms. All on display during protests in Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday.’
The images in question were shared widely by Murdoch media and gathered, respectively, by Channel Nine (isolated masked figures burning Australian flag in Melbourne), The Australian (unknown man holding a poster of Iranian leader Ali Khamenei behind march leaders – ‘Bridge to peace’ march marred by hate signs and Hamas horror’), Instagram phone video grab (flags with Arabic writing at back of crowd), X post (masked person holding ISIS flag), and another X post of a sign saying ‘Abolish Israel, Abolish Australia, LAND BACK’.
Kevin Hogan was accused by some on social media of sharing doctored images, which is untrue, but the enormous pool of publicly available photos and videos shot by professionals and amateurs clearly show that Hogan’s cherrypicked images could not be said to represent the vast majority of this massive crowd, which waited for hours and then marched through pouring rain to demand a logical and humanitarian response from Australia’s political leaders to the situation unfolding in Gaza.
The tactic is similar to that used by News Corp in covering the gas protests at Bentley ten years ago, in which an image of a scary balaclava-wearing person up a pole was used rather than showing Knitting Nannas, dawn vigil community members, rock stars or any of the myriad other images available.
There was also that time they sent some fake students in to gather incriminating words from protectors, but I digress…
Why did Kev do it?
Perhaps Hogan was heartened by the recent flurry of media attention for his presentation of a petition to the CSIRO to deliver an impossible, concrete-based solution to the climate crisis, and deliver Lismore from inevitable further flooding? All that he actually demonstrated was that like gremlins, Nationals should be kept as far away from water as possible.
As for his inflammatory and inaccurate social media response to the Sydney protest, by focusing on the exception rather than the rule, the point seemed to be that the substantive issue of epic human suffering could be entirely ignored. Interestingly, Hogan’s decision appears not to have come from Nationals’ head office – there were no similar social media posts from party leader David Littleproud, or Senate leader Bridget McKenzie.
The MO of the ratbag right is always to demonise progressive protesters and scare the wider public, but this was extra-challenging in this case, as the march across Sydney Harbour Bridge was led by respected media personalities, several current members of parliament, at least one former state premier, international poster boy for the underdog Julian Assange and human rights activist Craig Foster, who has been widely praised across the political spectrum for his principled stand on Gaza and many other issues.
Foster’s own take on the Sydney march was that ‘politics rarely leads’. As he correctly pointed out, it takes community activism to force political change. ‘Standing against genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation and the deliberate starvation of children is never wrong. Doesn’t matter where it is,’ he said.
‘It is confronting, yes, because changing power dynamics always is. But irrespective of the media framing or power dynamics of today, Australia will take immense pride that 300,000 people chose to confront mass injustice, protect innocent children, support international law, commit to shared humanity and demand a just peace.
‘Unfortunately, it’s not enough. It’ll take many more.’
Ex-Socceroo Craig Foster was back in his home town of Lismore on the weekend for the opening of a new grandstand named in his honour at Oakes Oval. Strangely, local member Kevin Hogan was otherwise engaged.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
You can find more of his writing at Patreon and Gumroad.
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