It was indeed a passionate anti-mill protest at Beaconsfield on Sunday. People do not want a massive pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, and they resonated this loud and clear!
People are extremely disappointed in the government’s continuous collusion with and support of the Gunns’ project, while deliberately avoiding, ignoring and suppressing the concerns of local constituents.
Consider David Bartlett, who snuck in the back door of the public forum like a coward, blathering crap to the safety of a camera lens, with no guts to face the everyday people outside who are being humiliated by his decisions!
People were arrested because they did not do what was asked of them by police, which was to exit the school grounds. We knew that, through the arrests, the police were carrying out an order decreed elsewhere.
Those 21 people arrested were standing still, near the front door of the school building, silently holding banners.
Their actions did not constitute a blockade, as was described by ABC television news on Sunday night. Anyone who wanted to enter and exit the building did so freely without obstruction.
As the first police car left with arrestees, people outside the grounds momentarily crowded around the paddy wagon.
This is because we did not agree with the decision to arrest the silent protestors! They were standing quietly in front of a public school building, at a public forum, attended by public representatives!
Is this a crime?
No!
We know that, just because someone in authority has made a decision about what will or won’t be deemed legal behaviour on a certain date and place, doesn’t automatically mean that decision is right.
Just because Gunns has decided it is a great plan for them to build a massive pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, to line their own pockets, does not automatically make it the best plan for our region.
And just because the State Government thinks it’s a great idea to support Gunns, at the expense of everyone and everything else, to the point of legislating to suppress constituents’ objections to this harmful decision, does not automatically make it the best project for Tasmania.
(Regarding the arrests for unacceptable behaviour, who else sees the extreme irony here?)
We do not have to follow blindly the decisions of those in authority just because they are in authority. We can use our intelligence to question and object to any decision we do not think is right.
Consider that Hitler was an authority figure. If there was effective conscientious objection against him when he authorised the extermination of Jewish people, then maybe millions of them would not have been so sadly murdered.
Today, so much of our behaviour is controlled – you guessed it – by authority.
And yet, these colluding cronies in authority in Tasmania are beyond control …
… They’re out of control!
Their big heads are so drunk with their illusion of power, they think they have no limits.
But we were there on Sunday to tell them very loudly: “YOU DO HAVE LIMITS!”
And the limit’s been reached with the pulp mill. It is beyond what we will tolerate as an acceptable decision for our region, and it is our politicians’ own shameful behaviour regarding it which is beyond what is appropriate for our public representatives.
—Karen Enkelaar
