Student activists from the Education Action Group at the Australian National University formed a makeshift choir outside the Coombs Lecture Theatre to protest against Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s lecture at the site on Wednesday morning.
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The mostly bearded songbirds referred to themselves as the "crotchety students" and planned their protest on Facebook, advertising the event as a way to peacefully protest at the way Ms Bishop and her government were treating university students, asylum seekers and workers of all stripes.
"Julie Bishop will be here in her official capacity as a minister of the Commonwealth, doing her duty to the cheese platter and swanning with the ANU's management, a hand-picked group of compliant academics and any diplomatic staff who felt that they really should go along," the event's Facebook page said.
But the group said they would not engage in the type of physical heckling that saw the Foreign Minister’s minders called to action at Sydney University in May.
"This does not mean violence; it does mean being ready to tell Bishop that what she and her colleagues in cabinet (and in the ANU chancelry) are doing is fundamentally cruel and, frankly, just stupidly planned,” they said.
The student choir met on Tuesday afternoon at Union Court to rehearse their songs and train their voices for the protest.
One of the singers outside the lecture hall, former student Joel Dignam, who graduated from ANU in 2012, said the choir was comprised of people concerned by Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attacks on education.
“It was a really lovely event and people really took to the songs,” he said. “There was a really good energy.”
Mr Dignam said the choir sang a variety of songs including We Shall Not Be Moved, We’re Not Going To Take It, and the post-budget favourite Dumb Ways to Lie.
Despite the cold morning, Mr Dignam estimated a crowd of about 25 students took part, bolstered by members of the CFMEU.
Mr Dignam said there was no confrontation with the Foreign Minister, as Ms Bishop chose to “sulk" into the building through another entrance, avoiding the protest.
Student protests are seemingly common at the campus in recent months, with a “read-in” staged outside the vice-chancellor's office in May following a protest by hundreds at the campus the week before.
