Mass nonviolent protest, Australia

Abstract

Mass protest serves either to pressure the government to change policy or to heighten awareness of the issue among the general population in order to effect policy changes. This has been a regular characteristic of new social movement activity in Australia during the past 40 years. These movements include those against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early '70s (especially the Vietnam Moratorium movement in 1970 when 100,000 people marched in Melbourne alone), the campaign against the Franklin Dam in the early '80s, the anti-uranium and nuclear disarmament campaigns of the '70s and '80s, the Reconciliation movement culminating in the Sorry Day marches by one million Australians in the year 2000, and large protests of a similar scale against the Iraq War in 2003.