As you can see from the picture above, the local opposition to the Patriotic Youth League now has a name — the Northern District Multicultural Foundation — a logo and plenty of people power behind it.

I just had to incorporate the Eastwood apple somewhere and I guess you can see a bit of Maori influence with the koru spiral as well. I like it.

After what we accomplished last night, I think it’s fair to say that the sticker war is now won.

Every single PYL and Australia First poster/sticker was removed from the streets of the Northern Suburbs last night.

We couldn’t do this one by halves, so we staged a community event. Here is the press release/agenda we sent out.

The NDMF was set up to combat the divisive racist propaganda spread by groups like the Patriotic Youth League and the Australia First Party. It comprises people from varied ethnic backgrounds and from groups such as the Bennelong Friends of Refugees, the Greens, the Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party.

The NDMF will prove that despite the best efforts from those who would seek to divide our community with hate and racism, multiculturalism works. As residents of Eastwood,
Epping and surrounds, we feel that cultural diversity enriches and compliments not just our community, but Australia as a whole.

Tonight’s Community Action involves removing illegal PYL and AFP signage from our streets. We will divide into three groups and cover the areas listed over the page. The black dots indicate streets where illegal posters and stickers have been reported. They are stuck on signposts, telegraph poles, street signs (often behind the sign), letterboxes and power boxes. Look for signage bearing the following messages:

• AUSSIES FIGHTING BACK!
• End all immigration before it ends Australia.
• Deport boat people. Stop the boat people invasion
• Australian – an identity defined by ethnicity, not paperwork.
• Support the diggers not the war.
• Stop the marking up of foreign students.
• Hands off Captain Cook.
• Stop anti-Aussie racism and attacks.
• Mass immigration = water restrictions.

At approximately 8:30-9:00, we will meet at [a bookshop in] Epping for coffee and debriefing. In order to better coordinate future activities, please write your name and email address on the clipboards being passed around. If you have any further enquiries throughout the evening, please contact me on [redacted].

Please call me if you find any illegal material posted on private property.

Mat Henderson-Hau
The Northern District Multicultural Foundation

Considering we only had roughly eighteen hours to publicise this, I was quite chuffed to see 30-35 people rock up outside The Epping Club, paint scrapers in hand. If a certain photographer had turned up to the right venue and not the Epping Community Centre, I’d have some much better photos to share with you all. As it stood, there were enough photographers there anyway from… from… from…

I don’t think I want to let the press coverage completely out of the bag with this one just yet. Stay tuned, you won’t be able to miss it. I’ll just say that there were three different media organisations there last night.

I encourage those people who were there to share their recollections of the evening for our supporters interstate and overseas. It was an amazing night and sight to see people of varied ethnic backgrounds, ages and walks of life all coming together to fight those who would divide us.

Strikeforce Tiberius: The men and women responsible for the removal of PYL signage in Gamma Sector (Hillview Rd and Auld Ave). Ryde Council’s Tom McCosker is the second from the left.

A special shout-out must go to the Bennelong Friends of Refugees contingent. They had a couple of tireless septuagenarians in their ranks who motored about like people half their age. They inspired everyone with their energy and drive. One of them had to be talked out of climbing a street sign to remove a sticker. Thankfully the local Labor crowd brought a couple of step ladders along (as did the Dems, I promised I wouldn’t forget them).

The support from the general public was amazing. There is a community Basketball court up on Willoughby St that got covered with PYL stuff. On the benches, on poles, even on the backboards. The court is regularly used by a mixture of Anglos, Koreans, Polynesians, and Armenians and by a Nigerian contingent who live in North Parramatta. I paid them a visit during the afternoon to try and drag a few of them along for the clean-up and was surprised by the fact that some of them had already lodged a complaint with Parramatta council regarding the posters but nothing had been done. I shouldn’t say I’m that surprised, I’ve been hounding them as well, to little effect.

I did most of my cleaning up in Eastwood later that night but the crew who handled the basketball court reported a rousing reception from the assembled nationalities on the court. They halted their game and helped our guys get the job done. Apparently they erected the extension ladder to clean the backboard when a seven foot Nigerian grabbed a paint scraper and sorted the problem in one giant leap.

Whilst cleaning off posters at the end of my street, a group of Macquarie Uni students who lived across the road broke off their end of year BBQ to come and join us. One bloke said he tried to remove the posters a few days prior with a butter knife but to no avail.

The glossy posters in particular were a real pain to get off. They’ve stopped using flour and water paste and are using proper glue. The actual labour cost for local council’s to remove this stuff is frightening.

Interestingly, during the recent federal election. The Ryde Council Rangers were very brisk when it came to removing Greens and ALP posters from public property, but it has taken a major kick up the arse from the community in order to get them to do something about these ones.

In this week’s Northern District Times, Ryde Mayor Terry Perram has vowed to crack down on PYL material:

If I see anything, or if the council becomes aware of it, then we will immediately remove it. If the stickers are on private property, we will ask the owners to remove it. Our city has a mix of ethnic backgrounds and we are richer for it.

Major kudos is also due to local Greens Councillor Tom McCosker. Tom was elected to Ryde Council at age 18 and 4 months, making him Australia’s youngest ever elected official in public office. The pair of us have been working closely to bring the NDMF campaign to life and Tom has contributed in the best possible way by ensuring that an emergency motion concerning the legality of the PYL was passed through Ryde Council on Tuesday night. I won’t go into the specifics of that motion, you’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks also to Flashman. This guy is an absolute champion and natural auteur. I couldn’t have picked a better filmmaker to document this campaign. Thanks also to Weezil, who drove half way across Sydney to provide us with a generator and extra lighting gear. He was a bit knocked about after a cop car recently rear-ended him and probably should have been in traction or at-least on crutches, but he came through with the goods — as he always does.

So, in closing, the sticker war is won. The divisive PYL and AFP garbage has been removed from our streets effectively cutting off their main means of propaganda and subversion. That’s one battle won, a couple more to go.

Last night, we sent them a message that the community is prepared to unite against racism, bigotry and neo-Nazism.

The PYL is not welcome here.

Update

The Sun-Herald article is available
here. Yes, my mullet is now long enough to tie back. It has to go, just like all those posters did.