Empty Roads, Empty Promises: The Forgotten Blockade of Razorback Mountain takes us back to the 1970s: a decade of ‘mutton chop’ sideburns, Skyhooks songs, protests and trucks rolling along the Hume Highway over Razorback Mountain. Truckies hauled food, livestock, fuel and everything else that kept Australia running. Even during the economically unsustainable times, owner-drivers kept rolling. That was until 5 pm on April 2nd, 1979 when five truck drivers barricaded the road, forcing all others to stop in what was labelled ‘an act of civil insurrection’. Like the Eureka Stockade of 1854 and the Shearers’ Strike of 1891, it was not a rebellion for privileges, rather a stand for fairness. It was a demand for the removal of unfair, biased rules & regulations which discriminated against and forced honest truck drivers to pay a road user tax. It was a battle to stop the unjust incarceration of hard-working truckies.
