(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

Stop me if this sounds familiar: you’ve spent the past two days doomscrolling and inhaling footage of unruly protesters causing a ruckus in the streets of Melbourne. You feel awful. What is the world coming to? 

I’m an internet reporter who has been following this anti-vaccine movement in Australia for the past two years and I’ve seen quite a few of these protests, encouraged by conspiracists and extremists. Between the broken bottles, flares and hi-vis vests, I think there’s real reason for optimism — not despair.

We’re on day three of protests against a vaccine mandate in the construction industry. The Victorian government has temporarily shut the industry down after major outbreaks and shockingly high numbers of non-compliance on public health measures on sites. Zooming out, we’re on day 200+ of lockdowns in Melbourne. People are worn down from forced isolation and income insecurity. But looking at the problems clearly should give us some hope. 

Leaders in the labour movement, like John Setka and Bill Shorten, have tried to chalk up the protests to non-union members, non-construction workers, as “fake tradies”. Screenshots of messages encouraging people to pretend to be workers or flyers telling people to “blend in” went viral. Actual evidence supporting this is scarce. 

Nine’s Ben Schneiders — who is well sourced within the CFMMEU in Melbourne — says people within the union think that more than 80% of protesters on the first day were construction workers. There were definitely some of the usual suspects from conspiracy and fringe groups but for the most part those who know about these things think it wasn’t a false flag operation by anti-vaxxers.

We mustn’t let anti-vaxxers turn us into conspiracy theorists.

Such a response from this industry shouldn’t be a surprise. The ABC’s Max Chalmers pointed to research from Melbourne University’s Melbourne Institute on vaccine hesitancy by industry which found construction and utilities employees had the highest level; 35% saying they were unwilling or unsure about vaccination. We know there’s a problem in the industry and the union has been reluctant to use its might to get members vaccinated. 

So what’s the case for optimism? Estimates were that up to 1000 people protested on Tuesday. While that looks like a lot when they’re singing Daryl Braithwaite’s “The Horses” on a bridge, it’s actually a tiny number of Melburnians. It’s a very, very vocal minority.

I’ve seen protests spike when restrictions were the strictest. They peaked during Melbourne’s second lockdown, and in the past few months as many cities went back into lockdown. It’s natural that the harshest restrictions would elicit the biggest response. It’s not surprising that a vaccine mandate and then industry shutdown would get people active from a group of workers used to taking industrial action.

The good news is I’ve also seen them dissipate soon afterwards. Protests largely stopped when lockdowns stopped. In Australia’s two most populous cities, lockdowns will probably lift in the next month and a half. Soon there will be little to protest against. Momentum will leave the movement like air in a deflating balloon.

There’s another number that’s important: 43,056 vaccines were administered in Victoria yesterday. On Monday Australia passed a milestone of 15 million Australians having had their first dose. There have been 25 million doses administered and it was our best Monday yet for total doses. Australians are overwhelmingly getting vaccinated. They’re getting less sick when they catch COVID-19. Every dose is also an advertisement about the institutions that invented, manufactured and distributed these miracles.

And while it might feel like anti-vaxxers are having a moment, evidence suggests they’re not. Different pollsters have found that vaccine hesitancy has precipitously dropped from earlier this year. The University of Melbourne’s vaccine hesitancy tracker reckons it just about halved (from 19% to 10%) in May. Some combination of education campaigns, dangled incentives and the normalisation of seeing every man and his dog get the vaccine means that fewer and fewer people are hesitant. 

Anti-vaxxers are losing ground, and fast. While some have organised into groups using tech platforms, various setbacks including arrests and disunity mean they’ve been unable to build the movement into anything more than a series of disconnected protests so far.

It’s not all good news. I am very concerned about vaccine-hesitant people becoming more emphatic about their beliefs. We know that far-right extremists, racists and full-blown conspiracy theorists hope to recruit people from these groups and are exploiting vaccine anxiety. In an online event featuring unionists talking about the protest last night, it’s clear that members are concerned about their reactionary streak in the movement.

We can see people who are even a bit worried about vaccines (which I empathise with, even if I understand it’s misguided) are being brought into these movements by being introduced to online spaces like Telegram channels filled with misinformation, fear and rage. These connections pave the way for further radicalisation. 

Even a small proportion of the overall population with these harmful beliefs is a large number of people. Increasingly spurned from society, we should be worried about what happens when a disgruntled group is allowed to fester. Bringing them back into the fold must be a priority.

But let’s not lose the forest for the trees: Australians are getting vaccinations as fast as they’ll give them. Our country has avoided the catastrophic number of COVID deaths that have happened elsewhere. It is not long until restrictions will be loosened and lifted altogether. There’ll be nothing left to protest against. The pub beckons. COVID? Never heard of her.

The protesters walking through the streets right now are the dying gasps of a losing movement. Vaccines won.