Telling It Like It Is: Metgasco at Glenugie on the NSW North Coast

 

Henderson’s Allegations Baseless

Barry Fletcher, Glenugie

 

I write regarding the item ‘Lawless vigilantes delay CSG drilling at Glenugie’ featured in an ABC North Coast news item of 5 December, 2012, and available at http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/12/05/3648111.htm?site=northcoast.

These are the reported words of one Peter Henderson, identified as the CEO of Metgasco.

He was described as not mincing his words and while he may not have been mincing his words he was effectively mincing the truth in so far as he spoke of ‘lawless vigilantes’ taking unjustified action.

I was the ‘police liaison person’ on that day. I am not a lawless vigilante. I am a retired Probation and Parole Office now working peacefully as a Tea Tree Farmer within the small water catchment where Metgasco have begun their ‘activities’. My wife and I are long-term residents here and live just 1300 metres from the drilling site.

To describe me, or the gathering of people, of whom Deb Whitely was one, as ‘lawless vigilantes’ is simply wrong and offensive as well. In using these words Mr Henderson should realise that he is not endearing himself or Metgasco to the general public. While his non-mincing of words may appeal to some, it is a losing strategy among those who give genuine thought to the implications of Metgasco’s activities in this area and elsewhere.

Mr Henderson was not an eye-witness to the events of that day. He was not in the vicinity. He has relied on hearsay and that hearsay is wrong.

I also take issue with these words in the news report:

‘… while frustrated contractors looked on in disgust’.

An interview with the contractor who drove the truck to which Deb Whitely locked on may well give a different picture. May I suggest that someone from the media actually ask him. Ask him also if he intends to continue doing contract work for Metgasco after his experience on that day, which included meeting in a friendly atmosphere with some of the ‘lawless vigilante’ ladies who brought him a cup of tea while he sat for three and more hours in his truck. I believe that they were some of the ‘Knitting Nannas’ from Grafton. Hardly lawless vigilantes!

I spoke to the police a number of times on that day as ‘liaison person’. Every police officer was courteous to the people present in the difficult circumstances of such a gathering. The people too were co-operative with police yet stood their ground within the law. There were no arrests of ‘lawless vigilantes’.

Mr Henderson’s ill-chosen words do him no credit and are offensive to the people present on that day including Deb Whitley and by implication represents a serious criticism of the police for failing to deal with ‘lawless vigilantes’.

Let Deb Whitley’s words be heard:

‘It’s an extreme measure and I don’t know if it would be the best way but it seems like we have no choice, because we don’t seem to be heard by the government, or by Metgasco, or by mining companies about our fears in the area.’

I have expressed my views on the above to the ABC but I think it is an important enough issue to be brought to the attention of your readers, many of whom, I expect, take notice of the ABC. I believe that the general public should be informed of facts in relation to the happenings of that day and the activities of coal-seam gas companies in general.

The 10 Pound Pom too busy "doing very important things" to read Rares judgment

Lord luv a duck! Australia’s most infamous assisted immigrant is at it again.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has admitted he is supporting friend and former colleague Mal Brough even though he has not read the damming Rares judgement.

The reason he hasn’t bothered to look at this judgement?

Why he’s been too busy “doing very important things” back in his mother country.

Presumably it’s been taking all his energy to brush up on his “Oxford cast of mind”.

Pic from The Suite World

The pain is not over for Brough, McArdle, Pyne, Entsch & the rest of Abbott's merry men

Ashby and his backers get an early and unwelcome Christmas present.

In the matter of James Asby v Commonwealth of Australia and Peter Slipper:

Knit happens! Clarence Valley loop of the Knitting Nannas Against (Coal Seam) Gas have a blog

 

http://knaggrafton.blogspot.com.au/

 

Along with other community members from the Clarence Valley and supporters from elsewhere in the Northern Rivers, the Grafton Loop of Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG), has been in regular attendance at the Glenugie site where coal seam gas miner Metgasco plans a test drill.

Australia and the Internet in 2012

 

 

 

Google's search engine is probably still the most popular method to look for information on the Internet and Google Trends is often a window into what Australians are searching for.

Here are four graphs created in December 2012 broadly covering general interests, selected Australian identities and terms covering some of this year's topical subjects:

 

In the last graph the term racism had too few searches to register

 

And one more for the Northern Rivers....  

 

 



Google’s Zeitgeist 2012 gives a global view of  the most popular search terms.

How we see our public hospitals on the NSW North Coast

 

Even though Hospital Performance 2012 shows New South Wales has some of the longest emergency department waiting times in the country and the Healthcare in Focus 2012 report indicates that we are more likely to die than our metropolitan cousins within a month of public hospital treatment for heart attack or stroke in regional NSW, it appears that the majority of patients are relatively satisfied with the care they received as outpatients.

 

Comparisons of standardised ratings of outpatients’ overall ratings of care in NSW public hospitals, February 2010*

 

 

*Outpatient care module of the NSW Health Patient Survey 2010

 

 

Patient Care Experiences: Outpatient services in NSW public hospitals  August 2011

 

Inquiry into Closure or Downsizing of Corrective Services NSW Facilities: attempting to politicize or bluntly telling it like it was?

A political decision was made by the O’Farrell Government to use the NSW public service as a cost cutting measure in the face of a 2011-12 budget deficit that wasn’t.

 

One of the local casualties was Grafton Gaol and its staff.

 

The Daily Examiner has taken a disapproving tone towards unspecified politicizing during NSW Legislative Council Select Committee into the Closure or Downsizing of Corrective Services NSW Facilities hearings:

 

SIX Grafton witnesses called to give evidence into jail downsizing and closures shrugged off attempts to politicise the debate during yesterday's hearing at the South Grafton Ex-Servicemen's Club.

The Select Committee into the Closure or Downsizing of Corrective Services NSW Facilities called six witnesses: Mayor Richie Williamson, Clarence Valley Community Union representatives Tony King and Kassie Packwood, and Sandy Stewart, James Paterson and Jeremy Challacombe, from the Chamber of Commerce, to give evidence and answer its questions…..

 

I didn’t attend any of the Inquiry hearings to date so I have no idea how many speakers giving evidence mentioned the political background and, as the Grafton hearing transcript has still not been posted online I remain unenlightened.

However, what the Sydney hearing transcript shows is that one member of the select committee, Liberal Party MP David Clarke, appears to be more inclined to put the O'Farrell Government's case for the gaol closure than to seek to understand how this closure unfolded.

One has to wonder if this attitude continued once the Select Committee came to the Clarence Valley.

 

I do have a transcript of this speech from the 10 December 2012 Grafton public forum which accompanied that day’s hearing and readers can make up their own minds as to the legitimacy or otherwise of addressing the politics behind the gaol closure:

 

Firstly, I would like to thank the NSW Legislative Council for holding this Inquiry and for coming to the City of Grafton today to get an on-the-ground appreciation of how important an institution Grafton Gaol has been to the local economy and social fabric of the Clarence Valley.

 

A little over a year ago, I was fighting a by-election as the Country Labor candidate for Clarence, and one of my campaign issues was to warn of the possible privatisation or closure of Grafton Gaol.

 

My submission to this inquiry, written on behalf of Country Labor’s Grafton and Lower Clarence branches, outlines how this wasn’t hot air; we ended up with an effective closure, forced through without consultation.

 

This inquiry hopefully will put the downsizing of Grafton Gaol into some Statewide context and give Graftonians some answers to their questions about why this most political of decisions was made.

 

The people never accepted this decision and instinctively rallied to protest against it, in a way seldom witnessed in such a traditionally conservative rural area.

 

I pay tribute to the real heroes of the six-day picket outside the gates of the gaol -- those folk of all ages and backgrounds who came out of their homes and camped out to defy the powers that be, and keep a vigil over their gaol.

 

This decision came from Sydney; Corrective Services senior management had wanted to break up the culture of Grafton Gaol (whatever that meant), and this was a convenient fit with the Liberals ideological slashing of State public service jobs.

 

What would Grafton-born Sir Earle Christmas Grafton Page – founder of the old Country Party and Australia’s 11th Prime Minister – have  thought of the National Party’s weak capitulation to the Sydney Liberals’ agenda?

 

Sir Earle was a conviction politician; he harboured the northerners' resentment of the 'Sydney octopus' and the Page family had been active in calls for a new State.

 

In January 1915, Sir Earle launched what became the Northern New South Wales Separation League in Grafton and in a grassroots network, formed more than 20 local branches.

 

He argued that metropolitan interests had stunted northern growth. The New State movement did not prevail, but its spirit lives on from time to time. It did in the people’s picket line.

 

The State Member for Clarence's evidence to this inquiry in Sydney and his recent comments to The Daily Examiner are unconvincing and smack of revisionism.

 

Regardless of when the MP was told of the plan to axe ‘x’ number of local jobs, he should have instinctively known that the right thing to do was to fight for those jobs.

 

Instead, he was quite prepared to sell out Grafton. Remember when this fellow was Mayor of Maclean Shire Council, he denigrated Grafton City Council when it suited his political campaign against council amalgamation.

 

And what can one make of the State Member for Clarence’s quote: “I was in the middle of an accident. It was an exceptional set of circumstances and everyone was on holidays, including the Premier.”

 

The electorate was looking for exceptional leadership, but it wasn’t to be found.

 

And the leaders of the Nationals, the party that so many of the electorate voted for in March 2011, were absent and silent as this betrayal of the bush was played out.  

 

Peter Ellem