Australia's Top 5 Most Committed Protesters That Have Been Rallying Outside Town Hall For Decades

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The Harbour City is growing up! This comes as designs for a new public square opposite Sydney Town Hall in the CBD have been released to the public

Town Hall Square, earmarked to be completed by 2031, will have the "grandeur of a European square" - as city council earmarks the project as gathering point for the community and a space for markets, festival and music events.

However, everyone knows that it's just going to become a giant cobblestoned urban expanse full of the nichest protest groups - who will keep turning up every day.

Likewise, Brisbane has also begun to open up new public spaces in anticipation for the 2032 Olympic Games. This redevelopment of the inner city will also bring with it countless petitions and and megaphones.

And Melbourne, well it is basically just one perpetual protest anyway.

As the Australian people succumb to the fact that we now live a one-party state, with a Labor mega-majority at a federal level and in every state except Queensland - voting feels less effective than it did in the days of minority governments.

This means, for anyone who has a current problem with the system, protesting is all we have left.

But protesting is a long game. It takes time to build movements - sometimes decades. The messaging can take a while to get right - and some groups do it far better than others.

Some people don't even seem to want to change the system, they just enjoy protesting it.

Let's take a look list of the top 5 most committed Australian protest groups of the last 50 years.

5. The Old Fashioned God-Botherers 

The original CBD protesters. The god-botherers may not always have the numbers, but that isn’t a problem, in fact, it may even be a strength. All they need is a very confident man with a bodgy megaphone and the energy to scream at people for 6 hours straight.

Obviously they have a habit of taking things way too far, and there have been countless state laws introduced to stop them from brazenly harrassing members of the public. Their causes are also the least popular amongst the Australina public, according to the hard data of opinion surveys.

But they keep turning up.

4. The Proper Vegans

Strangely, the group that manages to annoy God botherers more than any Islamic proselytiser ever could.

While God Botherers have traditionally taken a more bare-bones approach to getting their message across, five metres down the strip the animal rights crowd can be seen pushing the technological boundaries of public protest.

Armed with dozens of plasma screens, they broadcast cursed footage of animals being slaughtered directly at pedestrians who’ve just polished off a three-piece feed from KFC.

While many pedestrians initially find their cause one of the more understandable on the strip, that sympathy has often been completely reversed by the time they’ve made it past them.

3. The ‘Persian’ not ‘Iranian’ crowd

A true rainbow coalition of nostalgic pro-Shah monarchists, Iranian socialists, Kurdish people, Zionists, Iranian feminists and basically anyone with an axe to grind with the Islamic republic of Iran.

This decades-old protest group has long confused everyday Australians - who are already quite uninformed when it comes to the cultural fault lines that exist in the Middle East - and are just trying to do their Sunday shopping in town.

2. Falun Gong

The greatest petitioners of all time

This ‘spiritual movement’, which definitely is NOT a cult, is led by the charismatic, US-based Li Hongzhi, who teaches that humanity has been corrupted by modern influences, introduced by extraterrestrial beings.

After being banned and brutally suppressed in China as the movement gained millions of followers, Falun Gong established a huge presence overseas, launching a relentless fusion of calming tai-chi with an in your face anti-organ harvesting campaign against the Chinese government in practically every major city that will let them protest.

One of their signature moves is having a sweet Chinese auntie sideline you with a clipboard and ask you to sign a petition without ever explaining what it’s for or where it’s going.

1. The Free [Insert banged up white guy] Protesters

Your City's Stoner Boomer Uncles

Whether its Josh Zarb, David Hicks, Julian Assange or David McBride, this group of nostalgic former Vietnam war protesters have routinely been the last voice for Australian men who’ve pissed off some authoritarian somewhere in the world.

Usually armed with a folding table, a stack of photocopied pamphlets and an encyclopaedic knowledge of one bloke’s specific court case, these ageing activists will happily explain the situation to anyone who accidently makes eye contact with them.