"In the ocean, the magnificent, ancient and iconic sharks create order, not chaos.”
(Editor’s note: This a nine-part fictional story about a little surf town that is forced to confront the real world effects of shark protection, the removal of shark nets and the obfuscation of public servants wildly out of their depth. It’s based on the experience of Ballina, if y’hadn’t worked that out yet. Read part one here. Part two here. Part three here. Part four here. Part five here. Parts six and seven here.)
Graham Piper was an Australian Film and Television School graduate who was working on his own self-funded documentary, the working title of which was the same as the group he was following, The Berry Manksters.
He had embedded himself within the group of activists, who lived in an abandoned building in a suburb outside Melbourne called Berry, who protested many different causes. Graham worked alone. He knew it was impossible for him to get any backing from government-supported film funding bodies, as his project was opposed to the current mainstream narrative.
What he was doing also had to be kept secret.
Before approaching the activists, Graham had deleted everything from all his social media accounts that might lead them to believe he was anything other than what he was pretending to be: a progressive. Not only this, he started posting lots of left-wing propaganda on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, upsetting his parents, but fooling those he was documenting, when they were performing what they considered background checks.
Over the last three months, Graham had built solid relationships with everyone, from the leader of the self-described ‘Action Group’, Pinko, down to many of the lower minions. He had interviewed all of them, both masked and unmasked, while they protested an ever-changing variety of causes, and even documented vandalism, vilification, and downright persecution.
All the while, cunningly succeeding in getting them, usually in moments of vainglory or hubris, to expose what he believed was their subconscious motivation: destruction.
Graham had become a kind of confidant of Pinkos, the pink beret-wearing leader of the operation, who, like everyone else, wore all-black clothing. All in the group referred to each other, when not speaking to or about them specifically, as ‘Comrade’.
Graham was spellbound by the behind-the-scenes footage he videoed of meetings and the preparation for the protests, let alone the acts of violent sabotage. The Berry Manksters had broken in to pharmaceutical company laboratories and smashed everything they could get their hands on; released cows and pigs from a big cattle station into the wilderness; accidentally set fire to an endangered forest they were trying to protect from a logging company; and even pulled down a phone tower with a stolen bulldozer which also started a fire that burned down a small country church and school.
It mattered not to the Manksters that they had destroyed the livelihoods and homes of hardworking, innocent people. They believed that it was all for the greater good and reassured one another that their hearts were in the right place.
Graham guessed that those appearing on camera unmasked were willing to do so because they were so defiantly proud and saw themselves as the modern-day versions of the people they looked up to most, the activists and revolutionaries of the 1960s.
A few weeks earlier, after Graham had complained to Pinko that he was struggling financially to keep up with the group’s activities, Pinko started giving Graham envelopes full of money. Graham hacked Pinko’s bank account and discovered he was receiving large monthly payments from a bank account in Switzerland.
Graham travelled with Pinko and the Berry Manksters in their multi-coloured, hand-painted bus, from where they had been picketing outside a coal plant north of Newcastle, but it had broken down in Port Macquarie. To keep busy, some of the Manksters re-painted old picket signs on the long desk at the back of the bus to suit the occasion.
One of the activists boasted to Pinko that he could fix the engine. Pinko rang the NRMA.
“By all means, let them paint the bus, but for God’s sake, don’t ever let them work on the engine!” Pinko whispered to Graham.
They arrived in Freeport on Thursday, the 10th, a few days after the shark attacks became international news. Before they parked the bus down by the wharf on the river, Pinko called for quiet and told them what they were doing.
“We’re going to be chanting ‘We have the land, they have the sea’, and if anyone asks you what you’re protesting about, tell them that while humankind is the apex predator on land, he has destroyed everything, while in the ocean, the magnificent, ancient, and iconic sharks create order, not chaos.”
Outside, Pinko led the chant with his megaphone while the others mimicked his words and actions. Very soon, television camera crews swarmed to capture the activity.
“What are you protesting about?” Milly Parsons asked a blue-haired young woman with a big brass septum ring.
“Humankind is the apex predator on land; it has destroyed everything, while in the ocean, the magnificent, ancient, and iconic sharks create order, not chaos.” She quoted Pinko perfectly.
Graham saw some angry khaki and camo-wearing Hillbillies eyeing off the Berry Manksters. Grant and Keith, from the mountain range inland, who were arriving at Aldi for their fortnightly shop were seething.
Graham got close and secretly recorded them from behind. They were incensed by the crowd of “city slickers” who looked so different to them.
“What say we get our guns and crossbows from the truck and scare some sense into these vermin?” Grant said to Keith.
“I’d rather go out and kill a few sharks,” Keith responded, pointing to a sign in the fishing shop window. “We can rent a tinny for two hundred dollars for the day. Let’s get one, buy some blood and bone, head out, and burley up and kill as many of the critters as we can.”
“Sure beats buyin’ all the same old boring food again. Let’s get a case of beer as well.”
Graham peeled away from following the usual focus of his attention and surreptitiously videoed Grant and Keith from a distance as they loaded their trollies with bags of blood and bone and boxes of beer. At the wharf across the road from the protest, while Grant and Keith were loading their sheathed weapons, bags of blood and bone, and cases of beer into the tinny, Graham set up his tripod and longest lens.
Grant and Keith disappeared out of the rivermouth and, far beyond Graham’s ability to film, didn’t return until just before sunset. By this time, they were both blind drunk. As they rounded the last bend in the river before arriving back at the wharf, Keith stood, directing Grant, and fell overboard.
Whether or not there were already sharks present is anyone’s guess. It looked to Graham like Grant had accidentally run over his friend after he turned around to pick him up.
SHARK KILLING MISSION TURNS DEADLY
When the sharks did arrive, no doubt attracted by Keith’s wound caused by the propeller, rather than help his friend climb back aboard, Grant shot and killed every shark he could. This created an even bigger feeding frenzy, and Keith was eaten alive, screaming blue murder.
In his crazed effort at revenge, Grant kept killing as many sharks as he could. People watched on in horror as Grant fired rifles, handguns, and even crossbows at the swarming sharks. Then, as he stood, turning to shoot another shark with his crossbow, Grant lost his balance and fell overboard, never surfacing after disappearing underwater.
Alerted by the sound of repeated gunfire, the Berry Manksters became aware of what was going on and upon seeing the bloodbath of death created by and including Keith and Grant, they started smashing the windows of shops and cars and set fire to a Mr Whippy van.
Graham captured everything with his camera, and later that evening in the bar of the Freeport Hotel, made the mistake of boasting to Bill and Pedro from Sky. They got him drunk and he showed and sold his footage to them. Graham signed a deal with Pedro but didn’t specify the footage he allowed Sky to use. Late that evening, when Pedro and Bill saw the behind-the-scenes documentation of the Berry Manksters, they couldn’t help but incorporate it into their story.
The next morning, Sky Morning News ran the incredible story Graham had documented of the Berry Manksters’ preparation for ‘Operation Freeport’ and the catastrophic comedy of errors that led to the death of Keith and Grant, and a whole lot of sharks.
The footage Graham had of the sharks feeding on the men and then one another was simultaneously terrifying and fascinating. The audio of women screaming as they witnessed the carnage made the content even more chilling. What Pedro and Bill didn’t realise was that airing the package they edited, complete with cameraman Graham’s observational mutterings, would incite the battle that followed.
The news story went viral, and short edits of it found their way onto every social media platform, including X and Reddit, and were covered in detail by YouTubers worldwide. It’s thought that this is what led to the influx of progressive protesters flooding Freeport from all over the nation during the next few days.
The ensuing looting and trashing of the community, including many small privately owned shops, restaurants and businesses triggered an invasion of the coast by hundreds of Hillbillies from the inland mountain range, who for some reason blamed the protestors for the deaths of Grant and Keith and sought revenge.
Thankfully, the Hillbillies didn’t use their weapons on their new enemies, but they did rain down on them a physical violence they had hitherto imagined would be perpetrated only on property, not people.
The resulting footage of the day of the clash between the Hippies and the progressives was seen around the world, and news teams from all corners of the globe descended on Freeport, desperate to capture whatever chaos followed.