Hundreds of people washed spit from their faces on Saturday evening after an ugly stand-off at Federation Square between supporters of Reclaim Australia, an anti-Islamic movement, and No Room For Racism, a coalition of trade union, community and left-wing groups.

It's been reported that these were competing rallies. Those reports are wrong. What occurred at Federation Square was trench warfare — with police on horseback holding the armies apart.

Because the police had been quick to isolate the core Reclaimer group on the forecourt of the SBS building, hundreds of late-comers were left to mingle with the No Roomers. Mingling often meant one-on-one screaming matches that occasionally broke out into pushing and shoving. Now and then a stray punch or two was thrown.

A Federation Square spokesman estimated 3000 people — many carrying many placards, some of them droll: "You keep your Burqua, I'll keep my clitoris" — went at it noisily for more than three hours.