We were attending a National Conference in support of Palestine in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley . We heard that Zionists had planned an event at The Wickham Hotel. It was pouring rain. We spontaneously scooted over to The Wickham, a few blocks away. By the time I arrived on my bike the scene at the Wickham was very confusing. Workers were talking with JfP Magan-djin organisers on the footpath. I asked a bouncer at the venue what he thought about the protest. He told me you can be as loud as you want suggesting that he did not want to have anything to do with Zionists using the venue. We formed a picket of about 150 people outside the hotel. Several police arrived but kept it low key. Management sent out pizzas to picketers just asking us not to block entry and exit to the hotel. It turned out management were onside but the owners of the hotel were not.
Magandjin People’s Pride put out the following statement:
“Despite staff and performer requests to cancel, Australian Venue Co. refuses to cancel the event” event organisers wrote online. We do not welcome or condone Zionism in queer spaces.”
“The decision to hold the Zionist Council’s event at The Wickham was not made by the staff who are routinely in the venue, on the ground and in our community” they said.“The decision was made by the parent company Aus Venue Co (AVC).”
JfP Magan-djin in conjunction with Unionists for Palestine raised funds to support workers at The Wickham to cover lost wages as a result of walking off the job on Saturday 31st of May, 2025 in protest at being asked to work for a private party for the State Zionist Council of Queensland.
The Wickham is a vital queer space in Magan-djin. Performers and workers at the venue actively did not support the decision to host this event at The Wickham. After asking Management to refuse to host this event, and being refused, workers took the brave decision to walk off the job or not come in to work during the event.
Justice for Palestine Magan-djin organised support as well:
Justice for Palestine Magan-djin and Unionists for Palestine stand in solidarity with these workers. We know that when workers stand up for Palestine, they are doing so despite facing punishment, threats, and repression. We are grateful for the bravery of these workers in choosing to walk out. We applaud their courageous decision to align themselves with values of freedom, justice, care, and dignity; choosing to stand alongside Palestinians who are right now facing the genocidal violence of the Zionist settler colonial state of Israel.
We strongly condemn management’s decision to host the Zionist Council of Queensland despite clear opposition from workers and performers. A support committee has been set up to stand by all workers who have made the decision to walk out or refuse work, as they have stood by us in this moment.
Each of the workers and performers that walked off their jobs for this event lost between $180 – $200 each in wages for the night. We have raised the funds to cover some of that loss.
Standing up against genocide should not have to come to taking unprotected industrial action and the loss of wages. Show your support and appreciation for their bold act of solidarity by chipping in to cover their lost wages! (Description based on Justice for Palestine Magan-djin’s statement of solidarity.)
Suddenly after two years of ignoring the genocide in Gaza the media wanted to talk to Justice for Palestine representative. Predictably they printed lies. It is hard to work out how journalists and their editors could write the nonsense that came out in the Courier Mail. But we have heard it all before. Mass Murdoch is shameless in its support of the Zionists and their genocide of the Palestinian people.
Workers United will never be defeated!
Ian Curr, 21 June 2024
A big thank you to The Star Observer whose archives are an important publicly available record of Australian LGBTQ+ history.
A big thanks to the accurate account of this event, Jono. It was a shame that the workers were not organised (not union members). It would have been good to see the full force of the union challenge the discrimination, banning, and arbitrary sackings that followed. Ed., WBT 1 July 2025.
–oOo–
Watching the mainstream media and the Liberal National Party constructing alternate realities is fascinating but also kinda scary. The mayor has been defaming me on his public social media channels, but he’s previously blocked my account so I can’t even respond to the misinformation.
For those who missed it, there was a peaceful protest outside the Wickham Hotel on Saturday night after a bunch of hospo workers refused to work at a social event organised by the State Zionist Council of Queensland.
Conservative media outlets have completely misreported what happened.
The Zionist Council is a political group which supports forcibly removing Palestinians from their land (often referred to as ‘ethnic cleansing’) and annexing the rest of Palestine into the Israeli nation-state.
I was present for most of the protest on Saturday (I left about 15 minutes before it ended). It largely consisted of people standing on the footpaths outside the Wickham, chanting slogans about freeing Palestine and rising up against oppression etc.
Some media reports suggested there were 150 people participating in the protest. Personally I reckon there would’ve been 70 or 80 at absolute maximum. Usually the mainstream media grossly underestimates the number of people attending pro-Palestine protests, so it’s funny that in this case they’ve significantly exaggerated the turnout.
Let’s look at some of the claims made by the Courier Mail and other conservative media outlets like 4BC radio:
– protesters ‘surrounded’ the building – this is false
– protesters blocked entrances/exits to the Wickham Hotel – this is also false (I think reasonable people could argue that it WOULD have been ethically justifiable to block entrances to prevent the Zionist event from happening, but that’s not what happened here in the real world)
– protesters “stormed the venue” – utter bullshit
– protesters ‘hurled objects’ at attendees – I didn’t see anyone throwing anything at Zionists, and people on the megaphone were repeatedly emphasising the importance of keeping the protest peaceful. It’s worth noting that several police were present at the main entrance and would almost certainly have arrested a protester if they’d thrown something. Channel 7 had a cameraman onsite and lots of other people were filming too.
If a protester had thrown something at another person, there’s a very high chance it would’ve been filmed, and there probably would’ve been arrests. I’m gonna treat this claim as false too until someone shows me footage to the contrary.
So what we have here is a noisy but strictly non-violent footpath protest, that didn’t block roads, driveways or building entrances, during which even the Queensland Police (who love creating bullshit excuses for arresting activists) couldn’t find ANY examples of assault, hate speech, trespass or anything else for which they might justify arresting someone.
And yet, if you read the Courier Mail or listen to 4BC radio shock-jocks, you’d be led to believe that a violent anti-Semitic mob attacked a Jewish religious festival.
We’ve all seen media beat-ups before. But in this case the chasm between reality and how the media are describing it is breathtakingly wide.
I should note that a few commenters have suggested that even though Israel’s genocidal invasion and occupation of Palestine is worthy of condemnation, it’s wrong to protest outside a social event that’s held to coincide with a religious festival. This line of argument falls into the same trap of conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Remember: this event was organised by a political advocacy group in a bar/nightclub. It’s in no way equivalent to a religious ceremony at a church/temple/mosque.
If the Minerals Council of Australia (a political lobby group that advocates for the interests of mining billionaires) held a Christmas Party at the Wickham Hotel, I would protest that too. The fact that the party was connected to a religious event – Christmas – doesn’t mean that protesting outside would be equivalent to spreading hatred against Christians.
Political groups that wield significant power in society while advocating harmful and destructive policies don’t get to claim immunity from protest just because their social events double up as religious festivities.
I know different people have different definitions of what the word ‘Zionism’ means to them, but as far as I know, the State Zionist Council of Queensland is still actively supporting the Israeli regime and advocating for more Australian government support for Israel’s invasion of Palestine.
Until the Zionist Council publicly condemns the brutal murders of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, I will feel very comfortable supporting peaceful protests against such an organisation.
I’ll end with a quote from a Jewish-Australian woman, Robin, who was present outside the Wickham Hotel on Saturday night in support of the workers protesting against the event.
“Shame Courier Mail! Disgraceful so-called journalism. I was there – on the outside – and I am Jewish. It was a Zionist event – not a Jewish one. It was literally the Zionist Council of Queensland. We don’t know the ethnicity or religion of the people who attended – only that they are Zionists- which is a political ideology. Many Zionists are not Jewish. And many Jewish people – like me – oppose Zionism. No-one on the outside said anything about Jewish people. And no-one stormed the place. The Courier Mail has “limited” who can comment on this story but we need to call out their conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and their referring to Zionists as Jews. Stop the genocide. Free Palestine!”
Jonathan Sriranganathan
2 June 2025
It doesn’t matter what the truth of the event was. These protests are being used by the Zionist lobby to portray opposition to Israel as anti-semitic terrorism, or hadn’t you noticed? All the protests do is provide a sensational flashpoint for Zionist media statements, they fuel the Zionist agenda and are of no relevance to the Palestinian agenda – which is not symbolic BDS, it is Belt and Road and BRICS for joint trade with Israel and Palestine. The Chinese/PLO plan, which is the only alternative to Trump-Gaza, uses trade as a carrot not a stick to establish and support a Palestinian state. The protests do not even allude to a solution and what Australia might be able to do to support it, they just play their well rehearsed role in the Zionist narrative.
I am blocked from Jonathan’s social media so I hope he can read this here.
What is significant is that it is the first time in Brisbane that workers standing up for Palestine have been sacked by the owners of the hotel who support Zionism.
That is another reason why this knee-jerk protest was counter-productive. Lost jobs and fuel for Zionist propaganda, what was the benefit?
Can anybody explain the strategic purpose of this protest, or any other Palestine support protests?
I can’t speak for the strategy of the workers themselves, but it is a model for unions to engage in direct action against Zionists interests here in Australia that are supporting the genocide in Gaza.
The management of the hotel actually came out and supported the workers and the solidarity shown by Justice for Palestine by giving us food and by offering us access to their toilets. It was the owners of the Wickham who demanded that the Zionist should have their event on the second floor .
The Courier Mail article was a shameful piece of journalism, as pointed out by Jonathan Sriranganathan. It is a lesson in how not to report on the democratic right to strike against a genocide.
Justice for Palestine Magan-djin not only offered solidarity on the night but also provided funds to compensate the workers for their loss of wages. Ed., 11 July 2025
I can’t speak for the strategy of the workers themselves, but it is important that rank and file engage in direct action against Zionists interests here in Australia.
Opposing the genocide in Gaza is union business. The management of the hotel actually came out and supported the workers and the solidarity shown by Justice for Palestine 🇵🇸 Magandjin. Management gave us food and offered us access to their toilets.
It was the owners of the Wickham Hotel who demanded that the Zionists should have their event on the second floor, not management. I’m guessing that it was the owners that insisted on the canceling of the contracts of employment and of the venue being used by those particular hospitality workers .
The Courier Mail article was a shameful piece of journalism, as pointed out by Jonathan Sriranganathan.
It is a lesson in how not to report on the democratic right to strike against a genocide.
Ed., 13 July 2025
If the workers were not unionised as you suggest then it was stupid to engage in industrial action – basic left wing common sense I would have thought. Sorry for being so negative but I am saddened and angered by the new radicalism’s embrace of personalist moral posturing as the strategic direction, at the expense of strategy to build real power to affect change. Personal moralism might get Green votes in elections or recruit to socialist parties but it is irrelevant to Palestine (and the Australian underclass).
How ironic, the great moralist, telling Wickham Hotel workers they shouldn’t take a moral stand against genocide!
Don’t be downhearted, John.
Fact Check: The Palestine 🇵🇸 solidarity struggle in Brisbane Magan-djin is not being led by Greens or Socialists, it is now a mass movement here in Brisbane because of hard organising work by a diverse group of people with different political beliefs, driven mainly by humanitarian concern for the Palestinian suffering a genocide. The 50,000 plus people who marched last Sunday share similar concerns.
The sad truth is neither students nor unions are strong enough to organise this movement . The United Workers Union (UWU) has not been able to organise hospitality workers at pubs like the Wickham but have had some success at the Casinos.
BTW Justice for Palestine Magan-djin 🇵🇸 does not put celebrities out front as occured in the Sydney Harbour Bridge march.
The politics of JFP is too egalitarian for that nonsense.
Ian Curr, Editor WBT
1 September 2025