Occupy Melbourne

Occupy Melbourne
Part of the Occupy movement
Occupy Melbourne's First General Assembly, City Square
Date	15 October 2011 – 2012
Location	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 37°48′51″S 144°58′34″E / 37.814158°S 144.976194°E / -37.814158; 144.976194
Causes	Economic inequality, corporate influence over government, inter alia.
Methods	Demonstration, occupation, protest, street protesters
Number
2,500 at peak (150 sleeping at peak)
Arrests and injuries
Injuries	54 (inflicted by police)
Arrested	112 (no charges)

Occupy Melbourne was a social movement which took place from late 2011 to mid 2012 in Melbourne, Australia as part of the global Occupy movement. Participants expressed grievances concerning economic inequality, social injustice, corruption in the financial sector, corporate greed and the influence of companies and lobbyists on government. Protests began on 15 October 2011 in City Square with a 6-day-long protest encampment, from which people were forcibly evicted by Victoria Police at the request of the City of Melbourne CEO on 21 October 2011. From 2 November 2011, Occupy set up camp in Treasury Gardens before being moved on from that location in December. A significantly diminished number of protesters set up camp at Father Bob's church at his invitation until his retirement in January 2012. Physical manifestations of the movement had largely dissipated by mid-2012 though it adopted a strategy of decentralisation and became influential in the creation of new community networks, affinity groups and collectives.

In response to a call out of the United States from Occupy Together for global protest encampments in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, and a call from the Spanish los indignados for a global day of action on 15 October, an Occupy Melbourne Facebook group was started at the end of September by a young non-activist woman living in the suburbs. From this, two organising meetings were held, the first at a venue on Sydney Road in Brunswick, the second at Ross House in Melbourne city. At the second, several working groups were formed, a website launched and plans made to begin a protest encampment at City Square commencing 15 October.

The protest encampment was established at City Square on the afternoon of Saturday 15 October during and following a rally at the site attended by 3,000-5,000 people. Approximately 50 people slept the first night, numbers of people sleeping steadily increased each night. By day 3 most of the infrastructure was established, with power provided by generators donated by passers by. Infrastructure included two large communal sleeping tents, many smaller tents, a media centre, first aid and legal support/observers, indigenous tent, a large undercover gathering space used for art, banner painting, a free school, free library, a free shop, a kids space, a women's space and a large and ever-expanding kitchen in the centre of the square.