Local Tweep Rosemary Nankivell @nocsg at main #leardblockade – profiled dissident Councillor http://t.co/iv5hNbc9Qs pic.twitter.com/MeWN4UOLOw
— Margo Kingston (@margokingston1) January 27, 2014
Rosemary (right) with Cherie Robinson, a farmer from Coonamble amd Ken the Koala at #Santosagm
I live in a country where mining companies are the government.
Mining and gas companies are free to dictate policy and governments merely enforce those policies.
Our politicians have been proven to be corrupt, or if not corrupt to be governing in the knowledge that their colleagues have been engaging in corrupt behaviour.
How disappointing they have become, and how out of touch with we punters that voted for them to represent our interests.
Take the proposed mining and gas projects for the Liverpool Plains. Mining and gas licenses were granted here by now disgraced ALP NSW minister Ian McDonald.
This mighty region produces 40% above the national average for cropping. When the rest of Australia is in the grip of drought, the Liverpool Plains clothes and feeds us.
Suddenly our name has been changed. No longer are we the Liverpool Plains. Our new name is the Gunnedah Basin. We are now seen in terms of tons of coal and millions or billions of petajoules of gas.
The Great Disappointment begins like this.
An Exploration License is granted over your land. Appalling community consultations are conducted. The mining company tells you in the vaguest terms that they will start drilling. But exactly where? What plans for the district? A mining company will tell you of jobs and beads and blankets for your community. They will never tell of the final outcome – the empty voided land and the destroyed water resources and landscape.
Trips through the Hunter Valley give us a glimpse of our future. It should be thought of as our National Shame. A so-called booming economy in these tiny towns has resulted in extraordinarily ugly buildings, young people, overweight and smoking, hanging around the streets while their parents work shifts to pay for these newly acquired levels of affluence.
What does a gas field looks like? The best you can do is google the equivalent in America as surely those photos of holding ponds, compressor stations, dirt roads and endless drill sites in Queensland must be an exaggeration? But no it is all true.
Your stress level goes through the roof. If you speak passionately – you are told you are emotional. If you ask too many questions you are considered irrational.
The mining company descends – an invasion of 4WD drives. It is all about access and blow the owner of the land who really is just another issue to be dealt with.
So you fight.
You write letters. You make endless submissions. You talk to politicians. You think the government is listening but deep down you know where their loyalties lie. And you know for sure that they have no idea what a balanced economy looks like.
You go to public meetings, you demonstrate, you meet like-minded people and are temporarily buoyed. It even turns into a type of macabre entertainment.
You think of selling but by now your land prices have dropped so much you may as well fight it out. You are constantly reminding yourself that there are so many people facing much worse situations than you are somewhere in the world.
But there are similarities. Your life will be changed completely, your home and property devalued. Your health will – and is – be impacted. More than likely, your water resources and your property which you have guarded all your life will be irreparably damaged. One thing is for sure, your life won’t be the same again nor will you ever farm as well ever again.
Meanwhile the governments foolishly continue to delude themselves that there is no such thing as climate change and that food and water resources are infinite.
So what if some of the most progressive farmers farming on the world famous Liverpool Plains are made obsolete?
So what if these magnificent productive floodplains are mined and gassed beyond existence?
Well if they don’t care – we do! Be warned. The multinational companies and both governments are in for a hell of shock. The stakes are too high and we will not fail the next generation.
There is nothing short of a revolution about to occur on the Liverpool Plains.
Postscript: When we are finally victorious I will drive my 4WD into a lovely garden in Mosman owned by someone on the board of a gas or coal company. I will peg out an area, call in all my mates and tell them to start drilling. If the owner objects I will call the police.
I am actually not a Pilliga farmer – my property is in the southern end of the Liverpool Plains where BHP and Shenhua are proposing to mine both above ground and under the floodplain. BHP claims that their mine is going to be the largest underground mine in the world. Santos have also tried to gain access in the past and have met with staunch opposition.
What does this remind you of? A community managing the land and living productive peaceful lives. An invader looks and says-There’s nobody here, we can do and take what we like. Later- Oh alright there is somebody here, but they don’t matter. Then- Well OK they do matter but everybody will be better off if we get to do what we like. The original community degraded and dispossessed without recognition or compensation. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. But now we are ready for them.
This is sensational. I would love an email of this to send to Rob Stokes my local MP. I have a pile if questions I would like answered. Would that be okay?
That’s fine by me if it is ok with nofibs
Absolutely cruel and heartless acts on the owners of their own land.You dont wonder how the government can sleep because ownership means nothing and when all the good earth is gone they will hop in their private jets and head of to a new place to escape the horrors they have made and left for everyone else.Until the wealthy dont govern we havent a chance of our right to protect what is our own,because they dont live in the real world and they have the luxury of feeling safe .
Cannot imagine the horror of trying to live & farm under such circumstances, Rosemary. I admire your grit & resilience.
This post sends shudders down my spine, We have a Federal government which is totally beholden to mining & big business interests without any apparent skerrick of care for the people & the land of Australia. It is just something to be sold off to vested interests.
We wish you all well.
Thanks very much. We need your good wishes.
I’d love to reprint this in Nimbin GoodTimes which is read by many many Bentley supporters. Is this OK with No Fibs? Email us at nimbin.goodtimes@gmail.com
Rosemary’s father put together a farm of substance by sheer hard work. He never took what belonged to others, nor refused to pay his bills.
If he had a fault it was that he supported the National Party, they have ignored all that previous support and now are attracted to the foreign majority shareholding mining companies.
There is another person up here fighting “authority”, I will try to get him to do a piece for no fibs.
good luck Rosemary.
thanks! appreciate ti.
Margo Kingston highlights a coming crisis on the Plains. I studied at the Mitchell Library in my spare time over 25 years of the First European explorers hand written studies of the pluses ad indeed risks in the Liverpool Plains regions. Sturt Mitchell Oxley Cunningham Brothers detailed then open aquifer entries and indeed the tall “wheaten Grass”. In my published paper there was no river system AGSO/CSIRO 1995-99 it details the transpiring rains flowed down across the total catchment. The flow permeated not only open aquifers but indeed what the explorers described as a sinks across the plains. This porosity clearly with all we know today works both ways the fragile nature of the plains any injection of foreign liquids or indeed mining open cut or tunnel / collapse will have compounding impact not only across the entire Plains but indeed add pollutants to the water down flow. What is the assets in 100 yrs time soil or desert Robert Vincin
Can you forward me a copy or link to your paper. That is really interesting. Regards Rosemary
Spend your efforts in spreading the stories in Warren Truss electorate because they are not hearing what is happening in the outside world ( beyond Mayborough and district ) Kick him out like Howard and hopefully the Nat party will start to protect its constituents in rural Aus.
National Party stopped protecting farmers interest many years ago!
For all our sakes LEAVE the Liverpool Plains FREE of all mining. We need this food bowl. Am not a farmer, am a concerned grannie. Sick of seeing valuable resources necessary to keep Australian’s fed & housed being sold off to overseas Asian interests…
Governments …Australia is NOT for Sale.