The “occupy” movement in Australia would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating and ignorant. It’s a little solar system with a small sun of a genuine point, then orbiting socialism groups, anti-vaccination superstition, 9/11 “truthers” and every other conceivable wholegrain nutbar and the whole thing is a gajillion light years away from the actual problems that motivated the action in the US. The American originals aren’t without their share of bongo drum aficionados and people who are at one with themselves, but it’s a whole different beast there.

When I was about eleven, my parents separated and eventually divorced. Unremarkable in this day and age I suppose and only mildly remarkable back then. Over the years both would both move on in much the same way, both remarrying and both relocating — my mother a couple of hundred kilometres away with myself and my sister, and my father to the United States. The final thing they would do similarly would be to both develop cancer. I wouldn’t wish the same on anyone, but my perspective of the “occupy” movement that’s going on in the US at the moment (and subsequently here) is one of someone who has watched two loved ones deal first with their lives changing drastically and then with severe threats to their health, separately in the United States where the “occupy” movement started and in Australia where it’s being copied. When my mother conceded to the illness in the opening years of the 21st century she had accessed the best possible care and paid barely a penny for it. Meanwhile my father, who seems to have at least negotiated some sort of ceasefire with “the big C”, had to enter clinics with his wallet already out of his pocket, paying a fortune for treatments that are just part of what we get for being Australians. He’s self-employed, and my stepmother has been outsourced and insourced a half-dozen times by the corporate that employs her and the costs of dealing with dad’s illness have just about rolled them.

Dad is part of the “99%”, who played within the rules, worked hard, and got screwed anyway. If you ask him, he’d deny it. The reason he’ll get his teeth fixed in a couple of years isn’t the fault of a lack of affordable and accessible healthcare in the US, it’s just a case of priorities. The air conditioning needs to be fixed first. We can’t have everything we want — we can pay for a doctor to investigate the soaking night sweats, or we can fix the back yard patio up so we can have mates around for barbeques again.

Mum wasn’t part of the 99%, because the system here actually works and if it doesn’t care it does a good job of pretending. She never chose between spending her government-funded disability pension on chemo and spending it on food. She never put off an x-ray because it was a while before payday. She may not have made it, but that wasn’t because she only got the treatment she could afford. She got the best medical care available and cancer is just a relentless bitch that’ll kill people you love.

The naïveté of protests in Martin Place or City Square or King George square would be adorable if they weren’t so misguided and messy. A respectable show of unity with the situation in the US aside, protesting a broken Australian system when Australia is just so unbroken feels almost like it’s a joke or set-up. Welfare, education, healthcare and employment in Australia are simply awesome, but in the US you can do everything right and still not be able to afford medicine, food, vocational training or a roof over your head. It doesn’t mean that everyone in Australia has an awesome life, but if they don’t, the reasons why are different, and so are the ways of fixing it. Maybe that’s why there’s so much tinfoil headwear at the protests in Australia — when you try to say “me too” and the facts don’t support it, your protest movement becomes a soft white noise and all the voices calling for an end to fluoride in the drinking water or the government to admit its involvement in chemtrails become the only audible ones.

I think the people involved in the movement in Australia need to take a good hard look at themselves, and probably just pack up the two man tents for this time around. I think the movement largely failed, because its relevance didn’t hit critical mass in time to be immune to a horde of the usual suspects that want pet issues to have oxygen. Better luck next time maybe; take the time to consider whether what you consider problems are actually problems in Australia, and before you head down to City Square, come up with a plan to avoid giving Raelians for Legalised Marijuana the podium in your media tent. You might want to nominate ten or so people to be in charge and vote on matters before them, with a person to head them up (consider a vice person in case the head guy is too hungover one day), and someone to look after the money and someone to rule the affairs of that group. You could call them a board or something.

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Jeff is a conservative professional nerd living and loving in Sydney

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