Sunflowers rule in Gloucester

On six continents groups large and small gathered to creatively celebrate and soothe the earth that we have so grievously wounded by our gung-ho extractive industries.

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In Gloucester, the Knitting Nannas Against Gas had been making sunflowers of every hue and size for months. On the day, sunflowers sprouted all over town, even on the garbage bins.

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Mannequins were found in the most unusual places and positions.

People were extra colourfully dressed for the monthly Walk through town and the mood was more positive than ever.

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Children in golden wings danced about like butterflies but couldn’t bring a smille to Nora the Knitting Nanna’s face; she knows CSG is deadly serious.

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At midday we met again at the AGL frack site gates where so many anxious and sad early morning vigils had been held as the fracking went on behind that high green wall in the distance. 

Now the Halliburton crew and their rigs are gone, AGL still have to vent the gas into the local air and take out the CSG water — then truck all the way to Queensland as no facility in NSW will have it, due to the BTEX it contains.

Today those gates bloomed with sunflowers and people parked and picnicked on the verge where once we were forbidden to stop.

Sunflowers are so much prettier than security guards…

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The security camera watched it all but no burly, poker-faced guards appeared. Clearly sunflowers and Nannas are not considered threatening enough.

AGL should not be fooled.

The Gloucester KNAGS certainly aren’t planning on giving an inch – or a stitch – until AGL are gone from their beautiful valley.

Gypsy farewell

Last week I loaded my much-loved Gypsy camper on to my ute for the last time. 

I have had to sell her due to financial problems.

The first to see bought her, and I had several callers wanting me to gazump them and buy her sight unseen.

I delivered her to her new home base near Inverell, where she is going to be used on a tray back ute and have major additions done to take advantage of the extra external side spaces.

I am now looking for a small 4WD campervan instead.

Here’s a few reflective pics of our time together.

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When she first arrived at my old Mountain home in 2012, she was immediately utilised by the locals for shade. I slept in her for the first night, just to celebrate what seemed my unbelievable good fortune in owning her.

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She was usually parked at the side of the cabin, very soon under a special sail for weather protection.

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Even while stationary there she had quite a few adventures with the local wildlife.

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I used to joke that I should rename her an ‘Activist Camper’, rather than an Active Camper, as she accompanied me to several protectors’ camps. At the original Leard Forest camp, a local frog immediately took up residence.

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We had only one actual ‘holiday’ — for two days — but she was wonderful for getting around to distant book talks, as in Victoria.

We did make it to a few national parks in between commitments in a given area — like Mount Kaputar when I was in the Pilliga, or the amazing Bunya Mountains here, from Toowoomba.

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Towing the final trailer load, she came with me as I passed through my gate for the very last time at the Mountain… a tough day.

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We made it here to our new home on 14th September, almost a year ago.

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Once here, at the Gloucester Protectors’ camp she was a frequent visitor, making the early morning action starts very easy for me.

She also coped with what seemed to be the frequent wild weather we copped there.

I felt guilty as tents ballooned and blew apart.

So my Gypsy has earned her new life and transformation. 

I loved having her, although I always felt she was too good to be true…

Gloucester marches on

The NSW Gloucester Valley is stunningly beautiful. As I drove there on Saturday, I thought yet again how crazy it was to consider a gas field and a coal mine here.

Tourism is what Gloucester is about, for itself and as the gateway to Barrington Tops. Industrialisation and the attendant pollution is the last thing it needs. 

Which is why the chapter in my book, Rich Land, Wasteland on Gloucester and Margaret River is called ‘Allowing the unthinkable’.

The NSW government is blowing its trumpet for buying back PELs (Petroleum Exploration Licences). As in the Blue Mountains, and most recently in the Hunter, where the Broke/Fordwich vineyard area has fought AGL for years, and in Sydney suburbs where the 2km residential exclusion zone would make it impossible for AGL to expand there anyway. Many of the PELs are ones that have been found to offer little CSG.

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However, at Gloucester, because the AGL project there was already approved, albeit hastily and very misguidedly, the 2km exclusion zone was not applied.

Not because Gloucester folk are immune to the harmful health impacts of living in and near gas fields — especially so for children.

Apparently the state government just doesn’t care about them or their children when the interests of AGL dictate otherwise.

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The disastrous record of stuff-ups and cover-ups from AGL’s first four pilot wells at Waukivory here should have been enough to call an end to this project.

AGL would be wise to do that sooner rather than later, because the opposition to it and the bad PR is not going away.

If anything, it will increase, as folk who’ve been fighting to save their own patches from CSG can now focus on helping Gloucester — like Derek Finter (above), who’d left home in the Blue Mountains at 4 am to get here for this Walk.

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Every second Saturday, on the Growers’ Market Day, folk gather in Gloucester’s Billabong Park at 9am to walk peacefully through the streets, dressed in bright colours, especially the yellow and black of Lock the Gate and the Knitting Nannas Against Gas, and carrying placards, mostly handwritten and heartfelt.

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Kids in strollers, dogs on leads, babies in backpacks and the very elderly and not-so-able join in.

Afterwards we have a cuppa, cake and much conversation. This is a great community fighting for survival and healing, given the harm and disunity caused here by the AGL project.

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Usually we chant, but today we walked in silence, in memory of the clever and caring E. V. Phillips, founding member of the Barrington-Gloucester-Stroud-Preservation-Alliance.

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Many people wore tape with ‘Gas field free’ across their mouths, or — less painfully — on their clothing.

The silent walk was very powerful.

The next major event in Gloucester is the No CSG Summit on Saturday 25th July, hosted by Groundswell Gloucester and Manning Clean Water Action Group.

Find out the latest, become involved, contribute to the discussion and so much more. There will be a great line-up of speakers and lots of time for discussion.

Date: Saturday 25th July 2015

Time: 9.30am to 4pm

Place: Gloucester Uniting Church Hall, 7 Cowper Street, Gloucester

Cost: Free

Email enquiries here: 

Bring: Your lunch or purchase from one of Gloucester’s wonderful cafés.

* Morning/afternoon tea available with gold coin donation.

Beeps and bites

Last Sunday, April 19, hundreds of small groups of people parked their vehicles at staggered spots along 2000kms of the Newell and Pacific Highways.

They were forming the longest anti-CSG protest ever. Amazingly, it all came about in three short weeks of Facebook frenzy.

I had made a reconnaissance trip a few days earlier and found a spot just north of Taree, near Moorland, where we would be visible from traffic heading both north and south on this divided four lane highway.

It was also safe, as we could park on a local road just behind.

That’s my ute (above), with a sign painted on an old curtain by my grandchildren and a friend of theirs — all local and all dependent on the Manning water supply that AGL is risking, and already contaminating, with their CSG project at Gloucester.

The blue sign was lent to me by Richard, a fellow Upper Lansdowne resident; almost every gate out there bears a Lock the Gate No Trespass sign.

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It was raining when we started at 10 am, but fined up during the day until it ended with a mighty storm at 2 pm when were due to finish. So there was varying divesting of raincoats and ponchos and furling of brollies, then unfurling them or donning hats to cope with the sun as it set us all to stew and steam.

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About thirteen stalwarts joined me there for the duration, all good-humoured and keen. One very familiar face was Margaret, Knitting Nanna and member of Manning Clean Water Action Group (as were quite a few of the others). She seems to be at any event or action; a real trouper.

And may I add that not one of the thirteen was a ‘paid or professional protester’.

Everyone got a buzz from the huge number of supportive beeps and hoots and waves and thumbs-up from both sides of the road. Very few trucks sped past without blasting their horns. I was greatly enlightened as to the wide variety of horns, not to mention the ingenuity in patterns to be played on them.

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Teresa (left) and Nancy (right) were highly visible, although Teresa’s energetic antics would have attracted attention no matter what she was wearing! It was all part of the goodwill of the day.

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Elizabeth brought her two little dogs along to be part of the action, while Teresa’s partner Brian (left) supported with tea and coffee and biscuits from the rear.

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But it wasn’t just Teresa who was doing a bit of a dance; I hadn’t realised there were lots of small and very bitey ants in residence on this strip of grass.

I was in gum boots and Elizabeth did have closed boots, but others were on constant antwatch, jiggling and slapping and retreating to the road beyond for relief. Talk about suffering for the cause!

Knockout Knitting Nannas

Q. What’s black and yellow, clicks quietly and annoys politicians?
A. A Knitting Nanna Against Gas — a KNAG.

KNAGs also own to being Knitting Nannas Against Greed.

Never heard of the KNAGs? Well you’re about to be introduced, because I’ve just returned from the inaugural Internannanational Conference on the NSW north coast. 
My friend Christa from Kempsey also went, and took the following blog photos for me (except where noted otherwise). That’s Christa second from right, front line, in the group photo above, taken by Louise Somerville.

Imagine 80-odd women of a certain age and beyond, dressed to disarm and amuse, in a riot of Op-shop styles and shades of yellow, but nearly all wearing the trademark knitted KNAG beret, beanie or snood in yellow banded in black, or crocheted accessories like earrings and necklaces and hair or hat decorations.

To quote from their website, ‘KNAG draws on a broad history of knitting used as a tool for non-violent political activism.’ 

…’We sit, knit, plot, have a yarn and a cuppa, and bear witness to the war against those who try to rape our land and divide our communities.’

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I was camping at Camp Liberty at Eltham courtesy of tireless and innovative anti-CSG warrior couple Judi and Gwilym Summers. Here the casual atmosphere, conversations, camp showers and loos, good food and river swimming brought such a great sense of Nanna camaraderie that I was glad I hadn’t chosen to be billeted.

I’d intended to take my own slide-on camper but it was too wet at home to get it on, so the Summers generously offered me their brillant mini-pod teardrop retro caravan that Gwilym had made: VIP accommodation indeed!

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We were bussed everywhere, carefree of getting lost or staying teetotal. The weekend started with dinner at the fabulous and friendly Eltham Pub, where the conference cake bearing the KNAG ‘coat of arms’ was cut.

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Here’s a trio of well-adorned Gloucester Nannas — Kate, Carol and Elizabeth — enjoying the night.

Then a full day Saturday at the Lismore Workers’ Club, where the programme was a well organised mix of facts and farce and KNAG history, as told by founding member Clare Twomey, in between three great speakers, whose presence I consider to be a mark of the respect in which the KNAGs are held.

Read more

Good management at Gloucester

agl-1In mid-December last year, after AGL had fracked the four wells at their Waukivory Pilot CSG project at Gloucester, the Protectors Camp that I was visiting went into recess, but not before one intrepid protector followed the tankers carrying the contaminated wastewater to find out what they were doing with it, as AGL had not replied to questions about this. She followed them to Newcastle, where Hunter Water had forbidden AGL to bring the stuff.

Of course it wasn’t AGL’s fault that it got dumped in the Hunter sewerage system; it was the contractor’s.

Although Hunter Water had directed AGL not to even use a Hunter contractor…

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So began a lovely series of revelations as to how AGL run their show and how low is the standard of what this industry calls ‘world class regulation’.

I have often repeated what the industry admitted in 2011, that ‘good management could minimise the risks of water contamination, but never eliminate them’.

Here’s the latest run of reasons why Groundswell Gloucester’s 2014 pre-fracking 79-page advice to government, ‘Exposing the Risks’, ought to have been heeded. ‘Good management’ is NOT what has happened at Gloucester.

During the fracking, it was discovered that AGL was using a radioactive element, Caesium-137, to measure the density of fracturing fluid. This had not been part of the approval process. Trust us, we’re a gas company??

Then two fracking chemicals, Tolcide and Monoethanolamine, indicators of likely other chemicals, were found in groundwater.

AGL’s licence requires zero presence of these chemicals. AGL knew that zero limit was exceeded in November, yet they kept fracking and didn’t tell the EPA until Jan 15.

Professor Philip Pells has said all along that at Gloucester there is a high risk of an environmental disaster. He considered it likely that fracking would connect the coal seam’s polluted water with the beneficial shallow aquifers. ‘Adaptive management’ is what AGL was approved to use, to ‘suck it and see’; which always meant it would be too late to do anything after the disaster occurs, as it has.

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Then AGL admitted large fluctuations of groundwater levels at its monitoring bores; they don’t admit fracking is the fault but levels at one bore varied as much as 7.8 metres during the fracking and 3.5 metres after it.

Next they found toxic BTEX chemicals in flowback water at two of the wells and an above-ground storage tank. AGL discovered the chemicals on January 15, but only reported them to the EPA almost two weeks later.

Associate Professor Stuart Khan, from the University of NSW, says while the four main BTEX chemicals — benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and three forms of xylene — occur naturally in coal seams no one wants them turning up in drinking water. Benzene is a known carcinogen and Australian drinking water guidelines restrict it to one part per billion. 

AGL denies using BTEX in its fracking. ‘The reported concentration of 555 [parts per billion of BTEX for one AGL sample] is very high and probably the highest concentration I have heard of in environmental water,” Dr Khan said.

After this avalanche of bad PR, AGL suspended the Waukivory Pilot Project, then the government did so too. Division of Resources and Energy investigators will inspect the four CSG wells with their counterparts from the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

Just two months of world class management of four wells. Imagine 110, and then 330 wells?

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But don’t worry, there will be a ‘robust’ investigation and Minister Roberts has appointed Ms Lee Shearer to oversee it; Groundswell Gloucester doesn’t question her abilities, but her past role as a consultant to the mining industry, including ‘managing crisis situations’, does raise concerns about her total independence…

AGL’s new wastewater contractor was taking it to South Windsor; the Hawkesbury area was not too happy about it, and now that treatment plant will not accept AGL wastewater either. So what is their solution?

Local National Party candidate Stephen Bromhead has been saying that “If it is found that AGL cannot demonstrate that they can prevent BTEX escaping from the coal seam their license for the Gloucester Basin will be cancelled and no new applications will be approved.” 

Sadly people cannot hear such promises without looking for the post-election wriggle room. Who could forget O’Farrell’s ‘no ifs, no buts, a guarantee’ re mining in water catchments?

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I joined Gloucester folk on the first 2015 No Stopping Gloucester walk through town: we had about 100 there.

(These are held the second Saturday of each month to coincide with the local Growers’ Market; 9 am at Billabong Park.)

The next Tuesday I returned when Groundswell Gloucester publicly presented a new 600pp document, ‘Exposing the truth’, how AGL has failed to consult or report donations and has misled the community. It asks Minister Roberts to suspend AGL’s Licence and was delivered to him on 5th February.

AGL has now admitted what I was quoting BHP Petroleum as saying several years ago: there’s enough LPG in the Bass Strait reserves to avoid gas shortages in NSW. There goes the doomsday scenario justification for rushing to open up more risky unconventional gas fields for LNG. We don’t need to poison or dewater Gloucester and the Manning — or the Pilliga and the GAB, or anywhere.

AGL wants to start three test wells at Wards River south of Gloucester next. Gloucester Council has withdrawn from the dialogue with AGL and has asked the Minister to cancel its licence.

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Meanwhile, the new CEO of AGL has foreshadowed  a ‘comprehensive review’ of AGL’s upstream gas operations, and Citibank has warned that  ‘negative connotations’ around AGL’s Gloucester coal seam gas project risk harming the company’s brand, and says the company should consider ‘walking away’’ if public perception doesn’t improve.

Citibank said that while the introduction of a new CEO meant it was a ‘good time to try and change public’s perception’ of AGL and Gloucester, ‘given the strength of local opposition, this will be a very difficult task’.

Citibank is spot on there. Take a look at this latest in Groundswell Gloucester’s series of short films of Voices from Gloucester (by David Lowe).

Postcards from Gloucester

I’ve been going to Gloucester twice a week lately, reaching the camp in time for the daily camp meeting and to catch grand sunsets like this one, joining whatever action is decided for the next early morning, helping ‘man’ the vigil info site. 

Since the Halliburton fracking team snuck out at 4 am last week, having done their foul deed on the designated four wells, there’s been a change in tone and focus.

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Some token healing happened last Saturday. We get up early at camp, and the mood was high that day, as were the camp numbers, for the seventh Walk down Fairbairns Road to the frack site gates. That’s my slide-on Gypsy on the right, with her awning rolled up against the previous night’s wind.

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This Walk was different, as about 150 from the centre of the long chain of walkers simply climbed through a fence and reclaimed the site. A mass walk-on!

For once security and police were outnumbered and outstrategised. No harm, no damage, but it did our hearts good after the weeks of feeling helpless with the Halliburton heavies in charge.

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We had more people walking than ever before, of all ages; maybe the fact that actor Michael Caton (the tall one in the hat, towards the left) walked with us attracted some newcomers. Having a celebrity take up the cause is invaluable: thank you, Michael Caton!

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As the Gloucester Protectors camp — but not the campaign! — considers a recess and the next steps, this week we held a small vigil outside the AGL office in town. 

It’s opposite the Country Lodge Motel, where some of their workers have stayed, but there is no sign, front or back, on the AGL HQ to announce their presence. High fences and security warning signs is all. Are they ashamed of of what they are doing here?

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Well, there was one sign on its fence temporarily…

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We had our full array of signs, including a banner that identifies this place as  ‘AGL Fracking HQ’. Here are local longterm battlers, Ed Robinson, Rod Besier, Tina Robinson and Karen from the Herb Farm at the top of Fairbairns Rd. All deserve medals as local heroes – and for AGL to leave forever and let them go back to their lives. 

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But that day we also had a beautiful yellow winged creature in the form of the crinkle-caped Shaz, who I’m sure caught the attention of many in the on-the way to work or school vehicles that passed. 

One driver certainly noticed, as she took the time to open the window and scream abuse of the four-letter kind at us.

Despite this gorgeous addition to the scenery, apparently the owner of the motel was not happy about our silent stance across the road. I wonder why…

Of birds… and an elephant

I’m not allowed on my front verandah at present. Two sets of protective parents say so.

The Welcome Swallows have hatched a second set of babies in the original nest. I have spotted three sets of panting baby beaks so far.

Perhaps being second time parents on my verandah in one season has made them more relaxed around me.

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But the Willy Wagtails frantically circle and flit above me, chittering incessantly, even when I keep my distance or stand inside at my bedroom window to watch the babies. I wish they’d accept my assurances and spend more time feeding and watering the babies.

So I don’t go as close to take the photo as the Swallows permit.

I am feeling anxious myself for all the nestlings as the days heat up; 38 degrees on that verandah yesterday, and their parents have built the nests right up under the tin roof, which is lined but not insulated.

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Conversely, I have just spent a week in icy airconditioning. I’ve been in way-too-crowded Sydney with four bush and bird loving ladies: L to R, Sheena Gillman, Patricia Julien, me, Paola Cassoni and Lee Curtis. We were on the Bimblebox/Protect the Bush Alliance stand at the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) World Parks Congress.

This Congress has been 10 years in the planning. People have whispered to us that the IUCN would never have chosen Australia as the venue for this Congress had they known what our government would be like in 2014: anti-environment and anti-action on climate change. And stupidly pro-coal. There are about 2000 people here but apparently others had opted out in disgust. Everyone knew about the Reef. 

People were actually commiserating with us for having such an embarrassingly regressive prime minister. I offered to swap him several times but there were no takers.

For my part, I have been apologising to all for our coal fuelling their climate chaos pain. 

Unfortunately the IUCN did not acknowledge the current and threatened impacts from coal to our ‘protected’ places like the Reef and Bimblebox. We know Bimblebox is home to 154 bird species… and counting. Worth far more than a coal mine for Clive Palmer.

As the only stand that mentioned mining, we did our best to arouse the very large elephant in the Dome. We made sure overseas delegates knew that our governments put Coal before Conservation every time.

Greg Hunt gave a backpatting closing ceremony talk that made me want to throw up. Conservation starts at home, Mr Hunt.

Later a young Indigenous man dared to let the elephant roar in his speech: extractive industries must not be allowed to harm the Reef any further, any longer.

Camping for Gloucester

I stayed at the Gloucester Protectors Camp for three days last week. Set in farmer Ed Robinson’s mown paddock, with cows grazing beyond the fence and the mountains framing the valley views, it’s a scenic spot.  

The camp is evolving daily; it has portaloos and fresh water and an embryonic kitchen. They need lots of people to help build it … and to help use it for its purpose of stopping AGL from turning this beautiful valley into a CSG industrial pincushion.

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After a wild wet evening arrival, the weather stayed fine but variable, offering hot days, cold nights, damply dewy mornings and some beautiful sunrises as they competed with the fog rising from the valley floor.

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Starts were early, to get to the AGL gate in time to welcome the convoy of the Halliburton fracking crew to start their ‘work’ and to have ‘breakfast with the police’ who were making that start possible. Being legal doesn’t make it right, but the police have no choice here; it’s up to us to get the laws changed.

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We bicycled in our own convoy — ’Tour de Gloucester’ — from the Fairbairns Road corner to the site on two mornings, reminding me how insufficiently padded were both my derriere and the bike seat.

But on the second morning our biking distraction was more than worthwhile when we heard that Ned Haughton had quietly locked on to an unguarded rig further away.  He remained there for almost 5 hours before being freed.

Quite a few of us rode down the narrow dirt road to where he was; I’d have to say I wobbled precariously along the edges as police car after police car passed.

(I cadged a lift back for me and the bike.)

Bill Ryan came too and joked about him being in all the photos, like a ‘Where’s Wally?’ series.

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Saturday morning dawned in dense fog.  A short ‘breakfast with the police’ this day before heading into town for the Gloucester community walk through the main street. Absolutely inspiring, as it was the biggest turnout yet — almost 200. Lots of locals, young and old.

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There were some terrific signs; our PM copped it on some. I had to laugh at the one held by gentle Linda, who greets the frackers each morning by meditating across the road from the gate.

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So please come out to the camp and see what’s on. Gloucester folk are getting very tired from the battle and the daily stretch to fill the rosters; they desperately need — and deserve — our help.

The Protect Gloucester website

Getting up for Gloucester

Last Thursday I got up at 3 am and set out for Gloucester, to join a 5.30 bus heading to the AGL AGM in Sydney.

In case you don’t know, AGL snuck in the first CSG fracking rig last week and have set up a screen to do it in secret in the once-rural paddocks on Fairbairns Road.

This AGL project was hastily approved and inadequately researched, and is inappropriately sited in the beautiful, scenic and historic Vale of Gloucester, gateway to Barrington Tops, from whence their clean rushing rivers come. These waters and the aquifers beneath are also the supply source for the Manning Valley downstream.

Hydrologist Professor Phillip Pells, not an opponent of CSG extraction per se, has said that Gloucester is the wrong place for it. The locals want the project stopped until the proof of this or otherwise is shown; until the fracking chemicals are tested, despite AGL assuring us they’re much like what’s in salad dressing; until the disposal of its wastewater with all its nasties, not ‘just salt’, is sorted; and until the 2-kilometre CSG exclusion zone that applies to Sydney suburbs is bestowed on the people of Gloucester.

Last time I looked, their bodies were the same, so the health impacts will be. Not fair, Minister Roberts.

Outside the AGM, after rallying talks, we cheered in the shareholders and waited to cheer them out, hoping that by then they would have learnt more about the damage their company is about to do from CSG, when it could instead be full on into renewables.

Six or so Groundswell Gloucester and Manning Clean Water Action Group members — respectably suited up — used proxy votes to address the meeting with facts that AGL does not give. In fact, they emerged gobsmacked at ‘the lies’ given out instead. Shareholders were advised by our locals to think about the potential liability from harm caused by this CSG project.

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Here I am resting in the gutter alongside Ken Johnson of the Gloucester Project, which plans for Gloucester as a future regional food bowl. Ken’s 80, I’m 66, and the indefatigable Bill Ryan, only 90, was there too. Back in Gloucester, Ken’s wife Marnie was being cut out of her neck lock on the AGL main access gate as we spoke.

Dan Lanzini, meanwhile, was inside and locked on underneath the actual fracking rig. I’d met Dan up at the first Pilliga camp, when he and Dayne Pratzky visited to help kick things off against Santos.

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My offer to ‘do’ something to show support was accepted, as was that of my bus seatmate and newfound friend, Alison. The bus got back about 7pm and Alison’s friends Brad and Thomas (Brad had been one of those addressing the AGM) generously put us up for the night and we set our alarms for another early start, 4 am.

After the last three days of protest action, there was a large police and security presence in the area and waiting at the main gate. For some reason, the frack rig workers didn’t arrive that day: results already?

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So I had to quickly lock on to the next gate, right under the ‘eye’ of the security camera, but no burly security personnel. My ‘buddy’ Alison and about 14 locals stayed with me in support. The second round of police to visit issued me with a notice to appear in court — and left me to stew — or fry, advising that they would not be sending for the rescue team to cut me off.

After a morning of media — interviews from within the neck lock are pretty effective! — eventually the locals’ opinion was that no more could be achieved there that day.

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If you want to know more and to help this community in any capacity — you don’t have to lock yourself to a gate! — please visit the Groundswell site — One example was the Knitting Nannas’ Lantern Walk (of Shame) on Friday. As you can see, non-nanna blokes and fairies are welcome!

An approved protectors’ camp on farmer Ed Robinson’s property just up the road is at last in operation as of today, Monday 27th, making it easier for visiting supporters like me to help out. (Ed also addressed the AGM.)

Please spend some time there to help swell the numbers and stop the fracking.

All photos courtesy of Groundswell Gloucester.

Sitting for Leard Forest

In the past, I’ve walked in rallies or stood in protest against the threats from coal or gas that continue to bombard our special places.

On 28th January, instead I sat for a day, a small part of the ongoing blockade against Whitehaven Coal’s destruction of Leard Forest near Boggabri. (See my past posts here, here, here and here).

A convoy of us set out at 4 a.m. from camp; the tripod for our intrepid high sitter, Surya McEwen, went up across the gate in the dark under a crescent moon.

A row of nine ‘staunch supporters’ were arranged tightly side by side in front of the tripod, ready to lock arms in our chairs, to protect him and make it more of a problem for him to be removed.

By dawn we were all in place, with even the luxury of a shade tarpaulin.

Maybe because we were all over 50, we were happy to sit, but also willing to be arested if need be, so strongly do we feel about the shortsighted injustice of what is being allowed to happen here — and why we are helping to try to stop it.

Stephen Galilee, CEO of the NSW Minerals Council, calls us ‘green extremists’

Given the range of perfectly respectable elders who made the choice to sit that day, and if necessary defy the law, Mr Galilee is way off base. From the youngest of us, Sharyn Brock (55) next to me, to the oldest, Kokoda veteran Bill Ryan (91), next to her, we were all regular folk, seniors who care deeply enough about this insanity to come from Sydney, Manning Valley and the Hunter to do this.

For it is insane to be digging up a precious remnant habitat like Leard Forest, under misguided approvals using totally discredited offset plans, to pollute and ruin the beautiful Maules Creek farming valley, and wilfully disregard what is sacred to the Gomeroi people, for the sake of product that will add to our global warming debacle.

Mr Galilee says ‘The protestors’ mission is to shut down society to save the planet’. Shutting down a private company’s legalised looting, its plans to destroy this area, is not quite the same thing! And the planet is our only home, Mr Galilee: ‘there is no planet B’. Saving it is not an aim to be dismissed so derogatively.

Indeed it is our concern for our society, for the future of our grandchildren, as our governments place monetary value — ’the significance of resource’ — above all else, like health and water and food production and endangered plants and animals, that drives us.

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And yes, a Greens politician did lend support to the protest that day; Senator Lee Rhiannon (at centre) was with us from the cold dawn start to the hot late afternoon finish. Not just briefly for a media grab, as most politicians would. It was not a case, as Mr Galilee puts it, of ‘The Greens and their extreme supporters’, but the other way around; not that I ever admit to or advocate any extremism; this is just commonsense!
 
Ever since I’ve known her, about 9 years now, Lee has been actively supporting small communities and special places under threat.

She genuinely cares.

As does Julie Lyford (right), ex-mayor of Gloucester and key driver in Groundswell Gloucester, who works so cleverly and so hard, unpaid, to save her community from being over-run and harmed by coal and coal seam gas. (Julie also sent me some of these photos.)

If such people are green extremists, I am proud to be counted amongst them.

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Of course there were younger folk there; after all, it’s their future at stake. How can they be castigated as activists, for acting to save it? They included some from Japan, given that much of our coal is headed for Japanese and Korean power companies, who have an interest in many Australian mines.

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More creative young folk added a touch of theatre with these owl masks and toy koalas. Although as it was pointed out, any self-respecting owl would have quickly had those litle furry critters for breakfast!

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Our uncomplaining tripod sitter was up there all day, under a brolly and later a mini tarp to help bear the heat.

When the police finally got to us, after dealing with the pole and tripod sitters scattered elsewhere in the forest, we were asked to move back as it was dangerous to get him down and dismantle the tripod with us there. OH&S rules, you know.

We decided not to. They went ahead anyway.

Altogether about 30 people have now been arrested at the Leard protests; 120 were there on the 28th. They are to be applauded for standing up — or sitting down — for what is right, not derided, as Mr Galilee does, for ‘their self-righteous claim to the moral high ground’.

He certainly can’t claim it; self-interest rules in the Minerals Council.

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As I drove out next day, the overburden mountains of the Boggabri mine and the fine brown layer of dust and pollution in the sky above gave a portent of what lies ahead in spades if the Whitehaven mine proceeds. It would be good if the investors decide that the delays in its path from the protests are not worth pushing on with a dodo product, of declining acceptability worldwide.

Action to save Leard is ongoing and supporters are needed; go to Frontline Action on Coal for latest news and new camp.

Climate action

Last Sunday 60,000 misguided Australians got together in their towns and cities and rural parks to let Mr Abbott know they wanted action on the climate emergency.

He could have told them that it’s far more urgent to stop the boats than to stop global warming and impacts like super typhoons.

I went to the Port Stephens gathering, which was, surprisingly, admirably organised via GetUp by Maria, a local schoolgirl. It was a grey morning, lightly drizzling the whole time and I hoped her effort would be rewarded by at least 20 turning up.

In the end it was more like 60, all heartened to know that others cared enough to come. From greybeards to kids, some bearing home-made signs, many wearing ‘heatwave’ colours… and most bringing brollies.

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The patient and articulate Maria persevered with getting people to cut out letters to paste on increasingly damp pages.

Trying to assemble the message was harder, but from atop a picnic table, she managed to herd the bedraggled cats and their letters to form the message: ‘Nelson Bay wants climate action’.

You got that, Tony?

Bravo to Maria and the 59,000 others who give me hope we will leave a future for our grandchildren.

But where were the rest of you?