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- If nothing changes nothing will change: the Voice referendum
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- We could be non-binary
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- Left wing, right wing? What just happened to politics?
- Covid, class and the addiction to certainty
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- Democracy is about our bodies, not just our minds
- What’s your motivation: is it yourself or the change you’re making?
- Mind over matter: The world of abstraction is driving us to destruction
- The real threats to our liberty and survival
- Avoiding the abyss of conspiracy theories
- The difference between a legal system and a fantasy novel
- What’s a conspiracy and what’s just common garden variety corruption?
- Unpredictability, humility and an emerging anthropandemic
- The trilemma – climate change, economic collapse, and rising fascism
- Happy New Normal for the decade ahead
- The race to the bottom in australian politics
- Fires, liars and climate deniers
- Talking about lock-on devices – an article in ‘The Conversation’
- The Ponzi scheme is teetering
- Regenerative culture a key part of the blockade experience
- Staying sane in the late Anthropocene
- Extinction Rebellion
- Major parties have failed on climate, it’s time to rebel.
- Elections In The Late Anthropocene
- It is the Greens that are defeating the Nats and it’s all about your preferences
- Australia’s powerhouse of democracy and innovation is in the Northern Rivers
- Is identity politics a problem for the left?
- The climate emergency and the awful state of Australian politics
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- The forest wars are back, time to mobilise
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- “They blinked first”
- Colin Barnett quick to protest against ‘activism degrees’ – The Australian, 16/10/2014
- ‘Degrees in activism’ put brake on growth – The Australian, 15/10/2014
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The nightmare returns, but the solution is simple
Enough of the nightmare, what of the reality? The really disturbing outcome of the Court’s decision is the confirmation that the Petroleum Onshore Act 1991 is a toothless instrument that fails to equip government with effective control of the gas industry. We headed into an election with reassurances from all government politicians that the Northern Rivers licences would be bought back and that we were just waiting for the Metgasco decision to move forward on that front. Instead we see the gas plan in tatters as the government loses control.
Metgasco’s threats to return to battlefield Bentley have an air of vengeance about them, the good folk of the region would of course resist them but there are other more reasonable options to explore first. It is wrong that a single speculative gas company could bludgeon their way forward against the wishes of the local community, local government and even state government, and it need not be that way, the government has the power to stop Metgasco still.
The current mess is of the government’s own making, and the government can fix it. In the months leading up to the Bentley Blockade the government removed s24A Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991. That section alone provided the government with the power it needed to cancel or suspend any aspect of a petroleum operation where it was in the public interest to do so. It took a single afternoon in parliament to remove this section, it would take no longer to bring it back. The return of this one section would enable the state government to negotiate with Metgasco from a position of strength and to avoid the trauma of Metgasco returning to Bentley. It’s time for the government to use its power and legislate in the public interest.
This article was originally published in the Northern Rivers Echo on 29 April, 2015.