Adani project faces another hurdle – another groundwater review
Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine project is facing another hurdle, with the Queensland government seeking a further review of their groundwater plans.
Adani Mining’s chief executive Lucas Dow said the new request came from the Department of Environment and Science last Friday.
“It appears this process will again go beyond the scope of what our project is required to deliver under regulatory conditions – and, put simply, is another fishing expedition,” he said in a statement.
Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price signed off the company’s groundwater plans just before the start of the election campaign. ….
The new review means Adani can’t start construction on the mine which has been stuck in the courts and approval process for almost a decade.
The mine, to be developed in central Queensland’s Galilee Basin, has been a political football, with the country divided on the value of the $2 billion project.
It has dogged the federal election campaign and the coalition believes the Queensland Labor government is putting up road blocks to win over Green preferences in inner-city seats.
This is the second road block for the mine in less than two weeks, with the government recently rejecting Adani’s plans for managing the endangered Black-Throated Finch on the site………..https://www.sbs.com.au/news/adani-project-faces-another-hurdle
Bill Shorten urged to declare climate emergency if Labor wins
Peter Garrett urges Bill Shorten to declare climate emergency if Labor wins
Former environment minister calls for creation of ‘war’ cabinet committee to plot transition to zero carbon, Guardian, Katharine Murphy Political editor@murpharoo 9 May 2019 The former environment minister Peter Garrett has urged an incoming Labor government to convene a climate emergency summit to plot a transition to zero carbon, and create a super department aligned to Treasury, like the Department of Post War Reconstruction after the second world war, to implement the transition…….
$571 billion loss by 2030 estimated for Australian property values due to climate change
Climate change could slash $571b from property values, study warns, ABC, 10 May 19,
Key points:
- The Climate Council estimates Australian real estate will lose $571b, or almost 9pc, of its value by 2030
- The losses will be concentrated amongst 5-6pc of property owners, with many properties virtually uninsurable
- The report estimates $4 trillion could be wiped off economic growth over the next 80 years if carbon emissions do not fall
The research estimates residential property value losses of $571 billion by 2030 related to increased extreme weather events, inundation of some low-lying coastal properties and higher insurance premiums.
That would wipe approximately 9 per cent of the nation’s total residential property value — about as much as has been lost so far in the current property downturn, which is on track to be the worst in Australia’s recent history.
However, these losses would not be evenly spread, as an estimated 5-6 per cent of property owners bear the brunt of climate change risks.
As insurance companies reshape their risk strategies to manage extreme weather events, the report predicts, the cost of insuring properties — particularly those on the coast — could become unaffordable for one in 19 owners, who would have to pay annual premiums equivalent to 1 per cent of their property value.
A recent study by the Actuaries Institute — actuaries are the statisticians who calculate risk for insurers — warns that as many as one in 10 properties could become uninsurable by the end of this century due to climate change.
Climate risk expert and report author Karl Mallon warned insurance companies were constantly updating their risk strategies, and could hike premiums to deal with extreme events such as rising sea levels, heatwaves and floods.
“Increasingly, Australians are also going to struggle to pay for home insurance. On current trends, by 2030 one in every 19 property owners faces the prospect of insurance premiums that will be effectively unaffordable,” Dr Mallon said.
Even for Australians who can afford to pay, general insurance currently does not cover damage from coastal inundation and erosion — events which are likely to become more common because of climate change.”
‘There are real costs of failing to act’
The report also warns $4 trillion could be wiped off economic growth over the next 80 years if carbon emissions do not fall.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie told The World Today both major parties needed to confront climate change with policies that showed political will……..
The new report, Compound Costs, says coastal areas are likely to be hit hardest, and highly populated areas such as the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast and Melbourne are all vulnerable. ……
Climate an election issue…..
The Climate Council research follows warnings from the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority that climate change poses serious economic risks and that companies need to disclose their exposures to investors.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-09/climate-change-could-wipe-571b-off-property-values/11096768
Scott Morrison and climate leadership ?
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Fijian PM to call for climate leadership SBS, 8 May 19 Prime Minister Scott Morrison has admitted Australia’s emissions have increased, as a new report warns major change is needed to protect the environment. Scott Morrison has admitted Australia’s emissions have been rising, as a new international report shows climate change is a key factor driving species to extinction.”Yeah they have lifted,” the prime minister told ABC’s 730 program on Monday night, when asked about carbon emissions……
A new report warns that major change is needed globally to prevent further environmental destruction, with one million species currently at risk of extinction. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services global assessment reveals nature is declining at rates previously unseen in human history. Frogs, big cats and birds are at great risk of extinction and change is needed now, co-chair of the report Sandra Diaz says. “When nature is in trouble we, and our wellbeing, are in trouble,” Prof Diaz told ABC Radio National on Tuesday. “Our style of consumption and production and trade and general lifestyles are costing us the earth, literally.” The report, which is based on 15,000 scientific and government sources, says the biggest drivers of environmental destruction are changes in land and sea use, exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. “Climate change is going to become an increasingly important driver,” Prof Diaz said. “We will be seeing an accelerated decrease in biodiversity … unless we change dramatically the way we trade, we consume, we produce, we do business.” Reducing the amount of meat we eat is an easy start, she added. Findings from the report will be used at a global conference next year in China, where leaders are expected to agree to a “Paris agreement for nature”. Labor leader Bill Shorten says climate change is one of the top four issues of the election. “The government just gets itself tied up in knots over doing anything, and in the meantime businesses and community and young people, they all just want real action on climate change.” Mr Shorten has come under pressure to explain the cost of his climate policies, which includes a 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, but he says the cost of not acting is far greater.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/fijian-pm-to-call-for-climate-leadership |
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Zali Steggall, Independent candidate for Warringah, aims to tackle the health impacts of climate change
Zali Steggall promises action to stem health impact of climate change https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/06/zali-steggall-promises-action-to-stem-health-impact-of-climate-change 6 May 19,
The Warringah independent signs up to strategy to tackle problems of increased asthma, mental illness and heat-related deaths
Independent candidate for Warringah, Zali Steggall, has pledged to address the health impacts of climate change if she wins Warringah as an independent.
Like her fellow independent, Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth, Steggall signed up on Monday to the strategy developed by the Climate Health Alliance, which has more than one million health professionals behind it through their representative groups. It is pushing governments to start factoring climate change into their thinking about health policy, warning that a rise of 3C in world temperatures would have catastrophic consequences for the health of Australians.
Among the health impacts of climate change are an expected jump in severe asthma attacks, more disease due to severe weather events such as flooding, increased mental illness due to prolonged droughts and higher death rates among the elderly and chronically ill due to more frequent very hot days.
On 21 November 2016 thousands of people were taken ill and 10 people died in Melbourne due to thunderstorm asthma. High temperatures, thunderstorms and windy conditions blew rye grass pollen into the city causing the mass incident.
Melbourne has now implemented an alert system for epidemic asthma which operates during October and December each year when pollen levels are at their highest.
Mary Chiarella, professor of nursing at Sydney university, said increasingly warm weather meant there would be more out-of-season pollen that would extend the asthma risk season.
More hot days would drive hospital admissions putting additional stress – and costs – on the health system.
“[Economist] Warwick McKibbon says no action is not a zero sum game. Just because you don’t spend the money taking action, doesn’t mean it will deliver a zero cost,” said Steggall.
“We are in one of the most exposed regions to climate change,” she said.
Steggall said she would be pushing for the expert panel to look into the climate change impacts on health outcomes and to advise the government on its response.
“My point of difference [with Tony Abbott] is I do like facts and data,” she said, a reference to the criticism that Abbott has made of her expert panel proposal.
At a debate last week, Abbott said Steggall would be shirking her responsibilities as a parliamentarian when she said she would be “led by experts” on climate change policy and what emissions cuts the nation should commit to.
She also criticised Abbott’s focus on power costs due to measures to address climate change.
“The more people understand the other impacts on them personally, the more the case for action,” she said.
Australian Greens will push Australian Parliament to declare a “climate emergency”, as Britain has done
Greens urge climate emergency declaration, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/greens-urge-climate-emergency-declaration 4 May 19, The Greens will push the Australian parliament to declare a “climate emergency” after the federal election, party leader Richard Di Natale says.The federal Greens will push for Australia to declare a national “climate emergency”, following in the footsteps of the UK.
With Britain’s parliament becoming the first in the world to make such a declaration, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale says it’s time to do the same at home.
With Britain’s parliament becoming the first in the world to make such a declaration, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale says it’s time to do the same at home.
“We’ve put forward proposals to the parliament already. We’ll be doing that again when we return to the parliament,” he told AAP on Saturday.
“We’re calling on both the Liberal and the Labor party to support what the conservative party in the UK have now adopted.”
Senator Di Natale says the push isn’t a lost cause in Australia’s political environment because “the pressure (to act) is building and it’s building very fast”.
“The major parties ignore the community at their own peril.”
The Greens leader also said he wanted environmental laws to be changed so projects had to specifically take into account their effect on climate change.
Senator Di Natale also backed Labor’s $1 billion pledge for environmental initiatives, including a native species protection fund and protecting beaches from erosion.
But the Greens want a “climate trigger” put into environment laws.
“Quite simply when any proposal is being put forward and the environment impact is being considered, what we have to do is make sure climate change is the first thing that’s considered as part of environmental impact,” Senator Di Natale said.
Adani coal mine expansion is the critical test for Australia’s climate action. We must stop it – Bob Brown
‘It is up to us,’ to stop Adani: Bob Brown’s dire warning on coal mine, SBS, 5 May 19, The stop Adani convoy has ended its long j
ourney in Canberra with a rally on the lawns of Parliament House where Paul Kelly performed.
Veteran environmental activist Bob Brown has told thousands of climate action supporters they can’t rely on divine intervention to prevent the Adani coal mine. “It is up to us”.
The former federal Greens leader led the stop-Adani convoy that began in Hobart just before Easter and travelled to Clermont in central Queensland before reaching its final destination in Canberra on Sunday where a rally was held on the lawns of Parliament House.
Organisers estimated there were 2,500 people at the rally – “a bigger crowd than Bill Shorten will face today and a bigger crowd than Scott Morrison will ever face”, Dr Brown said.
He told the crowd that neither of the big parties were willing to stop the Adani mine to secure the planet for Australia’s kids……..
Dr Brown told reporters the convoy had been peaceful and law abiding but participants had endured hardships along the route.
“We had rocks thrown at us, we had people spat on, some people were actually physically absued.”…..
Greens leader Richard Di Natale told reporters Australia was in the midst of a climate election.
“Right now the Adani coal mine is a test of whether Liberal or Labor are serious about stopping climate change and right now,” he said,
“Liberal and Labor have failed the test.”……. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/it-is-up-to-us-to-stop-adani-bob-brown-s-dire-warning-on-coal-mine
Young climate activist’s letter to Australia
‘I want my childhood back’: young climate activist’s letter to Australia, SMH ,By Bella Burgemeister, May 4, 2019, My name is Bella, I’m 13 years old and I’m a climate change activist and organiser……
My book – Bella’s Challenge – was published in 2017 and now all the schools in the South West region of WA have a copy! But there’s so much more to be done.
For most of my life, the major parties have done as little as they can get away with when it comes to climate change. Are we really that greedy that we can’t see the bigger, global picture?
Young people like me are the ones who will live with the consequences of inaction on climate
change.
So, when I see our Prime Minister tossing around a lump of coal in the Parliament, I know I have to fight back. When I hear both future potential future prime ministers say they support the Adani coal mine, I know I have to fight back.
When the state government here in WA opens up an area two-thirds the size of Tasmania to gas fracking, I know that I have to fight back. And I’m not the only one.
I’m just one of tens of thousands of kids across Australiagiving up part of their childhood to fight for our future because we have so little time to turn around this human made disaster.
We’ve got until 2030 to get serious – that’s just three more elections – so we can’t waste another term of government.
The School Strike for Climate youth have three simple demands:
2. No new fossil fuel projects, especially drilling in the bight and fracking
3. 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030
The last action, which I was so proud to help organise, saw almost 200,000 young people around
Australia march in over 100 towns and cities.
The Prime Minister used the Parliament to tell us to stay in school, and the opposition leader told us we should have done it on the weekend – surely, he knows, as a former union boss, what the point of a strike is. This time we want to send an even bigger message!
This Friday, May 3, was a national day of action to remind the major parties that this is a climate change election.
Our demands aren’t radical, they’re the very least that needs to be done. They will take effort, but aren’t our futures worth it?
I want to stop worrying about my future and I want my childhood back.
Bella Burgemeister is a WA high school student and one of the key organisers of the WA ‘Schools Strike 4 Climate’ actions. https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-want-my-childhood-back-young-climate-activist-s-letter-to-australia-20190504-p51k2i.html
Schoolkids take their climate message to the politicians. Abbott pooh poohs it.
The earth has survived many things’, Abbott tells children protesting against climate change inaction, SMH, By Laura Chung and Jenny Noyes May 4, 2019 Dark clouds threatened rain as schoolkids gathered outside the Sydney electorate offices of both Labor and Liberal politicians on Friday, but it didn’t dampen their message on climate change.Prime Minister Scott Morrison, former prime minister Tony Abbott and Labor infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese were among those targeted as part of the nationwide protest against climate change inaction by federal MPs.
The protest held extra potency in Manly, where Mr Abbott’s 25-year grip on the seat of Warringah is under threat from independent candidate Zali Steggall in a campaign centred on climate change.
Armed with homemade signs, about a hundred students, parents and grandparents marched on Mr Abbott’s Manly office, chanting the slogan favoured by Steggall supporters: “Time’s up Tony”……..
A group of students tracked Mr Abbott down in a local cafe after the protest and voiced their concerns to him.
He also told them he didn’t believe the “environmental catastrophe” predicted by scientists would come about.
“I’m not saying that there isn’t going to be some time in the future when, for whatever reason, things come to an end, but I don’t believe that modest increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the next few decades are bound to bring about the kind of environmental catastrophe that you seem to fear.”……
Another protester dressed up in costume as Scott Morrison and a blackened piece of ‘coal’.
Another protester dressed up in costume as Scott Morrison and a blackened piece of ‘coal’.
Labor wasn’t let off the hook either.
Students also took their climate message to infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese’s Marrickville electorate office too, with a focus on urging Labor to pull the plug on the Adani coal mine. A Bill Shorten costume also made an appearance. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-earth-has-survived-many-things-abbott-tells-children-protesting-against-climate-change-inaction-20190503-p51jts.html
Australia’s Liberal and Labor Parties on Climate Change – politics theme for May 2019
Federal Election: Whose climate change plan is better?
Shorten’s climate policy and why we don’t need to fear the Coalition’s ‘big scary numbers’ Guardian, Katharine Murphy, 2 May 2019
Scott Morrison wants voters to think that Bill Shorten is risky and reckless …
What’s the cost of not acting?
what Labor is saying is correct. It’s factual for this reason. Labor has set out the framework of its climate policies: the emissions reduction target, which is 45% (compared to the government’s 26%), and the various policy mechanisms to deliver that result.
But there is a fair bit of fine print missing because Labor wants to consult with stakeholders on final design before attempting to legislate the policy. …..
until we know the proportion of permits and a bunch of other things we don’t yet know – including what the Senate does to the policy if Labor wins – any number produced would be a guess. ….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/02/shortens-climate-policy-and-why-we-dont-need-to-fear-the-coalitions-big-scary-numbers
Climate change costings that don’t count the cost of inaction are worthless, Guardian, Greg Jericho 5 May 19 We must demand better of our political parties – and there is no excuse for the media either,Just seven months ago the United Nations told the world that we have 12 years to limit the climate change catastrophe. It means that to keep global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels we need to cut carbon pollution by 45% by 2030 and down to zero by 2050. Twelve years. Actually scratch that – now it is 11 years.
Now ask yourself how often that has been raised during this election campaign?
At the start of the 2019 federal election campaign Scott Morrison put out a video where he was all dewy-eyed about the future, saying “the next 10 years are important to everybody at every stage of life”.
And yet not once – NOT ONCE – did he mention that the UN has given us 11 years to do something about a global catastrophe.
No, instead it’s all standard of living and nothingness statements that would get shot down by any decent advertising firm 
in the first meeting……..
Tony Abbott and his ilk – your time is done….
We need at a minimum a 45% reduction by 2030 and to get to zero net emission by 2050. So parties need to explain what they are going to do to get there and argue why their way is best.
Most people now realise that the Adani coal mine expansion is not likely to go ahead
Adani plays a crucial symbolic role in all this. If the Carmichael project went ahead, it would open up the entire Galilee Basin, with catastrophic consequences for the global climate. Conversely, a clear-cut victory over Adani would signal the end of new thermal coalmines in Australia and, before too long, globally.Yet a recent Newspoll conducted in Herbert estimates the two-party preferred vote unchanged from the knife-edge result of 50-50 in 2016, which saw Labor’s Cathy O’Toole returned with a margin of 37 votes. What is happening here?
The answer is that, whatever happens on 18 May, the Carmichael mine is unlikely to go ahead, and most people know this. Continue reading
A new political force in Australia- YOUNG PEOPLE WHO WANT ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Young people won’t accept inaction on climate change, and they’ll be voting in droves,
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PhD Researcher in Science Communication, Australian National UniversityToday young Australians will hit the streets for the second Climate Strike of 2019. Youths are often brushed off as being politically disengaged, but the Australian Electoral Commission has reported record high numbers of youth enrolment, and climate change will be at the forefront of their minds when many take to the polls for the first time. Today young Australians will hit the streets for the second Climate Strike of 2019. Youths are often brushed off as being politically disengaged, but the Australian Electoral Commission has reported record high numbers of youth enrolment, and climate change will be at the forefront of their minds when many take to the polls for the first time……. While protests are an ancient tradition, Climate Strike is being led entirely by school students. Greta Thunberg, now aged 16, began the School Strike for Climate movement after attracting press to a then solitary protest at Swedish parliament in 2018. By March 15, 2019, the movement had grown to over 1.4 million studentsin more than 300 cities worldwide. This movement forces adults to acknowledge climate change is not only impacting the futures of an unknown, unborn generation, but also of those protesting here and now. Climate change, then, is not only an important issue for under 24-year-olds, but also a deeply personal one. Discussion of climate change often elicits intense emotions like fear and anxiety for their futures. In a speech earlier this year in Davos, Switzerland, Thunberg said:
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The black-throated finch – a species threatened with extinction, if Adani coal project goes ahead
Key points:
- The range of the black-throated finch has contracted by 80 per cent
- Birdlife Australia says it is already extinct in NSW
- The Carmichael mine proposal would consume one of the finch’s key habitats
Last night, the proposed coal mine was dealt a massive blow when the Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) rejected Adani’s current management plan for the southern black-throated finch.
It told the Indian miner the management plan “does not meet the requirements of the company’s environmental authority”.
The Carmichael mine would take up one of the last remaining healthy habitats for the black-throated finch.
A DES web page on the endangered bird explains that the black-throated finch (southern subspecies) once extended from Inverell in north-east New South Wales, through eastern Queensland, to the Atherton Tablelands and west to central Queensland.
It said the finch (southern subspecies) range had “contracted by approximately 80 per cent of its former extent over the last 20 years and is now restricted to the northern part of its former range”.
“The black-throated finch (southern subspecies) inhabits grassy woodland dominated by eucalypts, paperbarks or acacias where there is accessibility to seeding grasses,” DES said.
“Recent records from Queensland suggest that riparian habitat is particularly important as it seems to provide shelter within a highly fragmented and modified environment.”
Sean Dooley from Birdlife Australia said the finch was already extinct in New South Wales and that there were now only two small populations left in the world, both in Queensland.
There are believed to be fewer than 1,000 black-throated finches still alive.
There is a small population west of Townsville, but the main population is on the footprint of the Adani mine lease in the Galilee Basin. “Carmichael coal mine is ground zero for this bird,” Mr Dooley said………
Mr Dooley congratulated the Queensland Government for rejecting the company’s environmental management plan for the finch.
“Obviously the Queensland Government would have been under a lot of political pressure and pressure from interest groups to allow this to go through,” he said…….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-03/how-is-a-tiny-bird-such-a-big-problem-for-adani/11076386
The long climate change trend gathering speed
Climate change link to global droughts goes back a century, study finds, https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-link-to-global-droughts-goes-back-a-century-study-finds-20190501-p51j2n.html, by Peter Hannam, May 2, 2019 Humans have contributed to increased global risks of drought for more than a century, scientists say, in findings that also point to “severe” consequences ahead with climate change.
The research by US-based scientists and published in Nature journal on Thursday comes as the latest Bureau of Meteorology data showed the first four months of 2019 were the hottest on record for Australia as drought tightened its grip on the country’s south-east.
The scientists, led by Kate Marvel at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, used so-called drought atlases derived from tree-ring data combined with satellite observations and climate models to identify how soil moisture has changed.
They found drought increased during the first half of the 20th century, eased in the quarter century to 1975 and worsened again. The pause in the trend coincided with increased aerosol pollution.
Models project and observations show a re-emerging greenhouse gas signal towards the end of the 20th century, and this signal is likely to grow stronger in the next several decades,” the paper concluded. “The human consequences of this, particularly drying over large parts of North America and Eurasia, are likely to be severe.”
Paul Durack, a research scientist and an author of the paper, said the study was the first to show global-scale droughts to be impacted by human activities.
“This is potentially bad news for Australia, and similar climate regions such as California,” he said in a statement. “These regions have experienced devastating recent droughts, and if the model projected changes continue, such droughts will become more commonplace into the future.”
Andrew King, climate extremes research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, said while heat extremes caused by climate change have been clear, “droughts are very complicated”, with natural variability masking the trends, Dr King said.
Hot start to 2019
The Bureau of Meteorology said the first four months of the year were Australia’s hottest on record for maximum, mean and minimum temperatures.
Day-time readings, for instance, beat the previous record set only a year earlier by almost half a degree, coming in at 1.93 degrees above the 1961-90 average.
Regions such as the Murray-Darling Basin were also the hottest on record for mean temperatures, with rainfall this year slightly below half the norm – although rains later this week should help.
Sydney is tracking the hottest on record for daytime temperatures – averaging 27.2 degrees so far in 2019, or 2.4 degrees above average. Rainfall is about a 22 per cent below the norm.
NSW is also enduring its hottest start to any year for mean temperatures. The 2.79-degree anomaly eclipsed the previous record departure of 2.51 degrees from the 1961-90 average set only in 2018, the bureau said. Rainfall is running at 55 per cent below the average for the fourth-driest start to a year.
Most Melbourne sites have also been tracking their hottest starts to any year, while many locations are also having their driest January-April periods, the bureau said.
The progress of the Stop Adani convoy
The Stop Adani convoy so far – on to Canberra, Echo Net Daily, April 30, 2019 | by Eve Jeffery, On Wednesday April 17, Bob Brown and a few hundred of his closest friends, began a journey from Hobart to the Gallilee Basin in Queensland, to highlight the devastation that will be caused if the Adani Carmichal Mine goes ahead……
We look forward to people joining us. Almost 2000 have inquired about joining the convoy.
The group of beginners left Hobart for Devonport, then Melbourne for a rally on Parliament Lawns.
As the convoy came off the Spirit of Tasmania for the rally in Melbourne, Brown said that from the outset that the convoy, involving hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people, was about the May 18 election being a national referendum on the climate emergency and Adani…….
From Melbourne the growing group visited Albury-Wodonga before a rally in Sydney on April 20.
With flags flying, the cavalcade gave colour and contention to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s press conference in Parramatta.
The convoy, now 200 cars, including a dozen electric cars, left a rally of nearly 1000 people in Parramatta Park to drive north, passing Morrison’s conference outside Westmead Hospital. Mr Morrison was diverted by cries of ‘Stop Adani’ as the convoy slowly passed.
At the rally an Aboriginal leader from the Adani mine site region in central Queensland, Adrian Burragubba, said he, his father, and grandfather were born at Clermont where the convoy arrives next week. He described the Adani mining company as ‘thieves’…..
Next was the north coast on Easter Sunday with stops in Coffs Harbour and Mullumbimby on the way to Brisbane.
The Bob Brown Foundation were stunned and delighted by the massive crowd in Mullum
‘This is the biggest turn out anywhere in Australia,’ Brown said.
From there it was a trip across the border into Queensland……..
Murdoch newspapers throughout Queensland, including Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, all ran the same article by journalist Renee Viellaris.
Ms Viellaris wrote a very disparaging description of the convoy including that participants were ‘blow-ins’.
‘As ever, I absolutely repudiate offensive comments such as those headlined in today’s Murdoch press,’ said Brown.
‘Offensive comments are taken down by our foundation just as they are taken down off Murdoch media sites………
Brown said that a number of Clermont business owners had expressed regret at the hostility the convoy received the previous day when cars were stoned, and an older women travelling alone, along with young families in cars, were abused and threatened and had flags ripped from their vehicles. Brown praised the Queensland Police for keeping the peace in trying conditions…….
Tensions mounted between opposing ideas in Clermont over the weekend – pro-Adani violence appalled other locals and failed to halt the convoy’s progress.
‘Everyone is concerned for our friend knocked down by the out-of-control horse,’ said Brown.
‘We hope she has a speedy recovery. The incident came after a much-publicised publican friend of Matt Canavan was refused entry to the Wangan and Jangilingou Council’s Karmoo Dreaming celebration which the convoy was enjoying at the Clermont Showground.
‘The horse rider charged between the crowd and the stage where Neil Murray was singing. Children had been dancing in that area.
Both the publican and Minister Canavan have verbally abused the convoy people……..
A witness said a second group of pro-Adani cars at the gate cheered the horse rider as he charged back out after the woman was knocked down in the arena……..
From the Gallile, the convoy will now visit Toowoomba, Armidale, Bathurst and Orange, and drive in Canberra on May 4 for a Rally for Climate on Sunday May 5.
Fo more details, visit the Bob Brown Foundation website. more https://www.echo.net.au/2019/04/stop-adani-convoy-far-canberra/
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
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