Murwillumbah rally against coal and gas seam mining

3,000 people marched through the streets at Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales on Saturday 14 May calling for the gate to be locked on the coal and coal seam gas industries right around the country.

In Kingaroy several days ago and down the road from where that doughty old Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen lies buried, 150 farmers voted to lock the gate on a proposed mine. Two days ago a little Italian-Australian woman - the owner of the Bimblebox nature refuge at Alpha in central Queensland - locked the gate on Clive Palmer whose company, Waratah Coal wants to put an open cut coal mine right across her 8,000 hectare property. The farmers at Felton near Toowoomba - all 100 of them - have locked their gates on a coal mine and a petrochemical plant and 500 farmers and landholders at Gowrie Junction to the west of Toowoomba have done the same. At Drillham, west of Miles in Queensland, farmers have locked their gates under the banner "Gas companies bugger off!" and, of course, the Tara blockade has now entered its third month.

To these Queensland examples can be added the New South Wales regions that have also locked their gates - the Hunter Valley, the Liverpool Plains, the Southern Highlands and now, of course, the Northern Rivers. Environmentalists are discussing how they will block coal seam gas companies coming onto the Pilliga Scrub, the largest continuous semi-arid woodland in New South Wales. Even in and near Sydney, communities are mobilising to get rid of coal seam gas.

All around the country landholders and environmentalists are imposing their own moratorium on a CSG industry that has had too little scrutiny prior to getting approvals from government and a coal industry which should be phased out, not expanded. Communities are no longer naive enough to wait for the official environmental assessment process, knowing that this process that originally began as an expansion of democratic practices has become corrupt and serves only the interests of the big developers. Communities all around the country are withdrawing the social licence from industries which have had far too easy a ride from governments.

Reposted from Lock the Gate campaign page

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Comments

These are the type of issues that Aboriginals People should be having conversations about and be involved in.
Is it necessary for Every Aboriginal "So-Called"
"Spokes-People" "Leaders" and "Elders" in Australia
to be Concerned and Involved in Only Aboriginal Issues !? We are also, "Australians" !
Hey !! Oi ! Oi ! Oi, Aussie !! Aussie !! Aussie !!
Five thousand ( 5.000 ) Aboriginal activists, including thousands of academics
Do we really need the whole Fucken lot
focused on one Fucken Issue !?
Total Fucken Saturation !!
Most endeavouring to "Force" and to "Impose"
"Their", mostly "Misguided" and "Out of Touch" "Personal Agendas" on the Whole Fucken Country !!
Sovereignty !? Who gives a Fuck about Sovereignty !?
Most of us Black-fellas don't even know what it Fucken means ! Don't want to Fucken know !
We just want to get on with our lives !
Like the rest of our "Fellow-Aussies" !
Haven't these people heard that there are Hundreds of thousands of drill sites with gas pissing out everywhere !!
This Country could Fucken Explode !!
Valuable crop growing land being laid waste !!
As the Black-fella that came down from up North to protest the Wild Rivers issue pointed out,
“the whole Country is an open ( Fucken ) Quarry" !!
The Whole Fucken Country is being Sold Off !!
All the Gas, All the Coal and Minerals !!
Fucked Up Anna Bligh is Selling Every Fucking Thing !!
Gillard giving the front door keys to Fucken China ! !
We could make a massive impact on this and related issues. !!
But No !! The” Aboriginal Victim Industry” with their
Fucken “Historical Navel Gazing” seek to keep us
“Blind” and “Ignorant” to everything except their Fucked-Up “One-Dimensional Agendas” Living in the “Romanticism of the Past”
( c. 12/2011 alb ) extract from www.whitc.info

Well ?
You certainly have your own agenda evidently.
The context of the article above is about open slather mining, is it necessary to attack things you do not like by adding to the argument?

In one breath you applaud other native people for their skills in building their communities and at the same time deride any aboriginal of this land for seeking something similar however culturally different.

The difference is obvious, those people are predominantly natives of their land where as here they are now a small minority. see settlers/immigration but many see 'invasion' and as for any place that is/was invaded the dominant culture is imposed, including grog !

Anyway I am now also getting away from the point of the initial article.

I do believe all these issues are related , to one thing , greed and the love of money, the root of evil.

Does not matter whether you are black or white nor rich or poor , greed can consume all.

We need to take away the reigns of 'Government' from the greedy and rule for the needy to stop this slide into the abyss or quarry as we like to call it here in Austria - oops Australia .

signing off with an oi oi oi or should that be a 6 6 6