NEWS FLASH: Glenugie Update
7th January 2012
From: Chris Aitchison, Secretary Caldera Environment Centre
For over 50 days, a contingent of brave, caring, and representative people from across the Northern Rivers region successfully hindered Metgasco’s attempts to access a Glenugie property, where it plans to undertake exploratory drilling for coal seam gas (CSG).
The blockade was reportedly broken this afternoon, whereupon police escorted a drilling rig on to the property. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/
This is sad news, not only for the blockaders and their enormous network of supporters, but for the Northern Rivers communities generally, for progressive government, for the environment and the climate, and for democracy.
Metgasco has asserted that it has the right to enter and drill upon the Glenugie property, having obtained permission from both the landowner and the NSW Government. While this may be correct in fact, it is clear that the communities of the Northern Rivers region do not want Metgasco, CSG, or any other form of unconventional gas mining. Recent polls, including a poll in Lismore Shire Council (overseen by the Australian Electoral Commission) (http://www.abc.
Evidently, we can no longer expect that our democratically-elected state government will heed the views of its constituency and assert the interests and rights of the people for whom it governs over those of corporations such as Metgasco. In fact, the NSW State Government appears to have effectively discarded its obligation to govern democratically and humanely; in its ruthless pursuit of mining royalties, it now resorts to sending police officers from the Tactical Response Unit to break peaceful, community-backed blockades. The current NSW Government needs to think carefully about its methods. Australians definitely do not want to live in a police state.
The fight is far from over: the people of the Northern Rivers do not want the social and environmental devastation that almost invariably accompanies CSG production. They, the Caldera Environment Centre, and the many other regional community-based groups that stand in opposition to the miners, will continue to lobby an indifferent government for an end to this madness, and non violent direct action will attend all future attempts by miners to pursue their agenda in the Northern Rivers. For those in and near Murwillumbah, however, that fight just got a whole lot closer to home.
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