Australia: Climate activists do Banner drops in Boggabri and Melbourne against coal rush

Activists from Quit Coal were able to get a mes­sage across this morn­ing: with a ban­ner drop over the main entrance of the Vic­to­ri­an State par­lia­ment house. The ban­ner said “ ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA.

Activists from Quit Coal were able to get a mes­sage across this morn­ing: with a ban­ner drop over the main entrance of the Vic­to­ri­an State par­lia­ment house. The ban­ner said “ ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA. Why is Bail­lieu fund­ing coal?” At the same time activists in cen­tral NSW at Bog­gabri climbed a coal-crush­er and dropped a ban­ner which said “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”

Relat­ed: Fur­ther sub­si­dies for Vic­to­ri­an coal by Vic­to­ri­an and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments | Quit Coal pho­tos: Par­lia­ment House Ban­ner Drop & Lock On

“Why is Baillieu funding coal?” demand climate activists

Four activists elud­ed secu­ri­ty and were able to climb the scaf­fold­ing at the back of par­lia­ment house to the roof to drop the ban­ner just after 9am. Two chained them­selves on the roof while two more dropped down with the ban­ner on ropes. Nine oth­er peo­ple chained them­selves on the steps of par­lia­ment house. Pro­tes­tor Dominic O’D­wyer said from the roof: “We are plan­ning on stay­ing here until the gov­ern­ment does some­thing recog­nis­ing the threat that cli­mate change pos­es. We would like the gov­ern­ment to take the threat of cli­mate change seri­ous­ly.”

 

The ban­ner was present for a few hours before police peace­ful­ly escort­ed the pro­tes­tors away. Bolt cut­ters had to be brought in to cut the chains of peo­ple on the steps. Accord­ing to a police spkeswoman no charges have been laid at this stage.

MR Bail­lieu when asked about the protest by reporters com­ment­ed “It will be a mat­ter for the pres­i­dent and the speak­er. Those peo­ple have endan­gered them­selves but they have also endan­gered oth­er peo­ple.”

Ener­gy min­is­ter Michael O’Brien called the protest a “stu­pid and dan­ger­ous stunt”.

Dominic O’D­wyer, who chained him­self on the roof, told AAP reporter and report­ed in the Her­ald Sun “We’re dis­ap­point­ed that the gov­ern­ment is not tak­ing action on cli­mate change and they’ve got their head in the sand. That’s why we’re here today, we’re not here today because we enjoy this. We’ve seen record ice melts in the Arc­tic this year, that means more bush­fires, more severe droughts, worse flood­ing, which affects mil­lions of Vic­to­ri­an fam­i­lies.”

Gavin Jen­nings, Deputy Leader of the Oppo­si­tion in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil and Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Health, tweet­ed dur­ing the protest:

 

One of the rea­sons pro­tes­tors iden­ti­fied for the action was the State gov­ern­ment deci­sion to put $45 mil­lion into fund­ing ‘clean coal’ ini­tia­tives along with anoth­er $45 mil­lion from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Mr O’D­wyer said “For a start they should with­draw that mon­ey”.

Protest against coal expansion Gunnedah Basin, NSW

While the protest at the Vic­to­ri­an Par­lia­ment House was occur­ring there was also a protest and ban­ner drop in cen­tral New South Wales, where activists scaled a coal-crush­ing plant at Bog­gabri Coal Mine on the Gunnedah basin.

Accord­ing to the media release the NSW Gov­ern­ment has recent­ly approved a four­fold expan­sion of the Bog­gabri Coal Mine. The two pro­tes­tors dropped a ban­ner say­ing: “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”. After more than 8 hours atop the coal-crush­er two pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion. The men were protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Leard State For­est, in the Gunnedah Basin, for three open-cut coal mines.

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