Australians Lock the Gate on mining -- New Internationalist

Australians Lock the Gate on mining -- New Internationalist

The power of the Lock the Gate movement, which has mobilized thousands of people, is no mean feat in a country dominated by the interests of billionaires, who’ve made their fortunes drilling and digging holes. In Australia, mineral resources are legally the property of the state, but the profits are well and truly private.

In 2012, the Country Women’s Association, the largest conservative women’s organization in the country, often stereotyped as ‘great scone-bakers’, broke with 90 years of tradition and took to the streets, joining an anti-CSG rally of around 10,000 people in Sydney.

But until now, the rhetoric of the movement has largely focussed on protecting farmland and water resources, often peppered with nationalistic sentiments. On the surface the potential for a radical challenge to corporate mining interests would seem somewhat blunted. The fight seems to have pitted emerging, cashed-up mining magnates against entrenched agricultural elites. This includes millionaires from Sydney, who own vineyards and breed race-horses in New South Wales’ coal rich Hunter Valley.

In the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, an exciting branch of the campaign has decisively shifted the focus away from protecting patches of private property. Vast numbers of volunteers have been mobilized through town meetings, going door-to-door, sharing information on mining processes and surveying roads and towns.

The results of the survey process have been universally positive, with the overwhelming majority of residents electing to declare their roads and towns free from mining development. Subsequently, large numbers of people have been trained in peaceful civil disobedience, including techniques like blockading access to drilling sites and ‘lock-ons’, where people chain themselves to equipment or strategic locations.

Blockades in Glenugie and Doubtful Creek both lasted around 50 days, costing Metagsco, the company involved, tens of millions of dollars. Groups like the Knitting Nannas Against Gas, made up of retirees willing to be arrested (and knit) for a cause, have made it impossible for the mainstream media, governments and companies to dismiss the resistance as ‘the usual bunch of hippies and ferals’.