Canberra has a thriving new hobby: watching the cookers.
Remnants of the big anti-vaccination protests do still remain in the city, though their heyday of thousands camping at Exhibition Park and forcing the cancellation of book fairs and farmers markets is long behind them.
The remnants of these "cookers" (as the conspiracists are disparagingly called) stubbornly remain, engaging in various antics each day, making speeches to empty buildings, calling across the lake to Government House to try to get elite paedophiles exposed, that kind of thing.
While by now their voice is having a negligible impact on anything, it seems, they still have the ability to provoke and annoy police enough to be arrested on a fairly regular basis. Just this past weekend a One Nation candidate for the Canberra electorate of Fenner (who ordinarily lives in outer Brisbane, incidentally) was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest.
And their watchers monitor these mini sagas, putting the more ridiculous elements online as some sort of antidote to the lunacy.
Twitter users such as "Ken Behren", "Cooker Watch" and "SOS" all give regular bulletins to an audience of Canberrans who just can't seem to look away.
"I'm just an everyday Canberran," Ken Behren said, not giving away his identity beyond saying he is a retired public servant who has lived in the city for 30 years.
He was galvanised into cooker watching when he saw anti-vaxx protesters picketing a children's vaccination centre at the Australian Institute of Sport.
"That really got to me. I thought, 'To hell with it', I'm going to have my say," 'Ken' told The Canberra Times. "I just wanted them out. I love this city."
He was also annoyed when protesters announced on social media they were heading for the department where he used to work - so he rang the public servants there up and told them to lock the doors.
The protesters seem to announce everything on social media. "This is how stupid they are: they livestream everything," he said.
Ken feels like he knows them. He can rattle off their names "Guru", "Johnny Q", "Tony Ant", "Wally from Wally's Freedom Ride" and the rest of the conspiracist crew.
For some, he has sympathy. A man known as "River Table" struck him as a rather sad figure who had found friendship and belonging in the protests. "The movement became like his family," Ken said. "He was a bit of a lost soul."
And then, Mr Table left, and the cooker watchers shared their relief on his behalf. They felt he might have left to get back to a healthier reality. But then he came back. Table had turned, as it were.
The high-water mark of cookerism in Canberra was the Convoy to Canberra in early February when about 10,000 people rallied outside Parliament House.
But the numbers have now dwindled. A few stragglers remain outside Parliament House and, according to Rob of "Cooker Watch", there are a few in camps around the ACT, adding up, he reckons, to something like 100 to 150 people in total.
"The ones left behind are the hard core. They seem to be disadvantaged. They are not all dumb. They have just fallen into this rabbit hole of a conspiracy cult," he said.
"They come from a diverse background. A lot of them are hippies, but not all."
Their presence is not cheap. ACT Policing said there had been 42 arrests of members of "issues-motivated groups" since February, with more than 40,500 hours of policing taken away from customary police work. They put the cost at $3.5 million.
The remnants believe in the wilder conspiracy theories (the government caused the floods by manipulating the weather, snake venom in the water, tinfoil hats as a protection against mind control and electromagnetic waves).
They are not all stupid, according to Ken. He cites one seemingly permanent activist: "He is intelligent but I think he has been brainwashed. He presents himself really well. He could be a manager. He gets on well with everyone. He is not violent."
"It's a bit of a comedy show," he said. "There are a couple of younger ones who are quite mouthy, but I think it's all lip."
Rob from Cooker Watch thinks that, even though the remnants aren't engaged in any credible conspiracy to take over the country, their views remain dangerous, if only because some sad, lone individual might be emboldened to do something heinous.
"They can't be reasoned with. They are essentially a cult," he said.
"They are a fascinating group of people but also dangerous. It's a rich tapestry of craziness."
At least a million today. pic.twitter.com/sH98k20wfr
— Cooker Watch 🇺🇦 🇦🇺 (@cookerwatch) May 4, 2022
The derivation of the word "cooker", by the way, is unclear, and may have been around before the current wave of cookers came along.
The urban dictionary defines a "cooker" as: "Someone that spins your wheels. Is out to ruin your day. Frustrates you. Makes you mad. Makes you hot. Wastes your time. Or just plain doesn't know what they're talking about."
Some surmise it might have come from the idea cooking crystal meth can cook the cooker's mind.
Cooker watchers have set up a website, "Cookerpedia". It is tongue-in-cheek when it's not out-and-out scornful. For example, it says: "Convoy to Canberra really heated up (the meth pipes). The convoy saw all flavours of cookers come to Canberra, including sovereign citizens, anti-vaxxers, tinfoil hat-wearers and right-wing nut jobs."
Rob thinks the usual left-right labels don't really fit. The cookers are universally anti-government, indicating a libertarian viewpoint, but also have time for Putin (in common with the very hard left).
Whatever the detail, conspiracy is at the core.
"They believe the government is involved in child trafficking to extract adrenochrome," he said.
The "idea" behind this is the blood of children is being extracted by "liberal elites" from kidnapped children to get this substance (adrenochrome). Under this conspiracy theory, the substance can be used to gain immortality.
Suffice to say, scientific consensus does not support this theory.
