It felt like a reunion of people from all those causes which were loud during the pandemic. There were a few anti-vaxxers among the crowd of a few hundred. There were believers in crack-pot conspiracies about plots to take over the world. There was a smattering of global-warming denial.

There were also a few banners of the anti-authority "sovereign citizens" who reject the idea that the government has power to make laws which they should obey (or something like that).

There was a hint of Nimbyism - not in my back yard: "Keep Bendemeer Beautiful"; "No Barossa Wind Farm"; "Pumped hydro doesn't belong in Eungella"; "Stop Gundary Solar Farm".

So it would be easy for nice, metropolitan people to sneer.

But who does want a windfarm in their backyard? And there were bigger, more substantial points being made, like about the case for nuclear power (whether you agree or not).

It felt like a rally of people who feel patronised and left out. It seemed like an unfocused moan of discontent by people from forgotten lands beyond the fashionable parts of cities.

Ignore them at your peril. But populist politicians don't - ask Donald Trump or the backers of Brexit in the UK.

Talking of populists, the former deputy prime minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce did what he does brilliantly: capturing the emotion of a crowd, in this case on the wind farms which dot the awesome landscape of his electorate in New England.

"It's a massive multinational swindle underpinned by your taxpayer dollars," he said.

And then he revved them up more: "You're the army. This is the start, OK."

"I want you to get fired up", he added (coal fired-up presumably).

The protesters lapped it up. This is what they had come for. Many had made a lot of effort.

Ian Menzies boarded his train in Kempsey at eight on Monday morning to arrive in Canberra 15 hours later.

The reason for the effort? "Reckless renewables," he said. He thought it was very foolish to get rid of coal-fired power stations.

And the World Economic Forum irked him. This gathering of the world's most powerful political and business leaders "trains all the world leaders. Even Putin is a graduate of the WEF."

This theme that the WEF has a secret plan to control the world was common amongst the protesters. Politicians could not be trusted because they were puppets.

"Liberal and Labor are about the same - the same policies to keep us as slaves," Mr Menzies said.

Sixteen-year-old Zach Hook from Canberra had bought and brought an Australian flag so big (7.2 metres by 3.7) it couldn't be carried but he laid it on the wet grass because "it showed my patriotism".

He, too, was worried about the World Economic Forum: "I don't like them. They are trying to control countries."

But mixed up with the conspiracy theories were worries closer to home. Isabel Gardiner said that she had transmission lines imposed on her and her 2500-acre property near Gundagai.

"They're putting in transmission lines through our property. They have to bring in the power from the Snowy and from the solar farms out west."

Alan Ritchie from Wollongong objected to a plan for an off-shore windfarm which he said would disrupt the movement of whales.

But he also didn't think global warming was caused by burning coal and oil. "I believe that climate changes. I very much doubt that it's man-made," he said.

So there was a great mixture of belief among the protester outside parliament. It was an expression of different discontents adding up to an anger about government not listening to them.

Senator Ralph Babet caught a mood of the crowd. He revved them up: "Carbon is not a poison."

He pointed back to the Parliament of Australia, elected by the people of Australia: "This place is disgusting. It's rotten to the core."