It’s time.

From Friday 2 Dec to Sunday 4 Dec, the Australian Labor Party will hold its National Conference. Delegates will be voting on whether to make it their policy to end marriage discrimination.

This video done by activist organisation GetUp! has already reached 1,000,000 people. They are now campaigning and raising money to get it on TV and increase the pressure on the Labor government.

Counter-intuitively for non-Australian observers, GetUp! and ‘the Left’ have a love-hate relationship. GetUp!’s modus operandi its at times received with cynicism by critics who accuse them of moving from one issue to the other, to make a lot of noise in order to appear as the saviours of the ‘cause of the day’. (the Great Barrier Reef, Refugees, Coal Seam Gas, Gay Marriage… indeed, they are active on all symbolic fronts). You can even vote for one of the hundreds of suggested “campaigns” on their website … - ‘progressive activist’ vertigo guaranteed.

However, others have also observed that you’ve got to salute the fact that they managed to build a rather effective ‘shtick’. But like any ’shtick’, it’s just a ’shtick’. So up to their community of interest to use it wisely.

Anyhow… no matter your opinion about their methods, you would probably agree that this video is particularly well executed and actually quite beautiful. And as the say goes, “if it’s good for the cause…”

{ leLaissezFaire, Sydney, 27 November 2011 }