This is an Australian track.
Catching up with the Stop Adani Convoy – live phone interview with Councillor Cate Coorey by Mia Armitage
Byron Shire Councillor Cate Coorey says she hasn’t joined the Stop Adani convoy as on official council representative but “certainly has the support of her other councillors “.
“They’re here in spirit,” she says.
This weekend, about 580 cars of protestors are expected to arrive in Claremont, central Queensland, near the Carmichael site of the proposed Adani coalmine.
At least half the convoy is made up of Northern Rivers residents.
Former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown is leading the group, which began in Tasmania and has been traveling north ever since – some of the protestors plan to visit Parliament House in Canberra after the main protest actions in Queensland.
Go Adani supporters “looked like Greens supporters”
“So far we’ve been met by local groups which have been really welcoming,” says Cr Coorey.
“But when we got to Emu Park, which is just near Yeppoon… a few people got a bit mobstered by people yelling and screaming at them,” she says.
“They were interestingly all sort of dressed in hi-vis with very professional looking painted signs that said Go Adani,” says the councillor, adding that the Go Adani supporters were dressed in green and “looked like Greens supporters”.
Cr Coorey says she saw about twelve Go Adani supporters but heard up to fifty had been there earlier. She says there were “several hundred” Stop Adani protestors.
Traveling in “Murdoch Land”
“Some of our people spoke to them,” says Cr Coorey, “a lot of them said ‘look, we need jobs’”.
Cr Coorey says the Stop Adani protestors then argued the benefits of jobs in renewable energy and said Adani’s job figure projections had been proven misleading.
Stop Adani protestors were otherwise welcomed in Emu Park with a lantern parade but Cr Coorey says aggression from Adani supporters is “getting worse as [they] get closer to the frontline”.
When protestors rallied in Airlie Beach, one of the local key speakers had been to India to investigate Adani and Cr Coorey says the story was “uncannily similar”.
“A big mining facility right on the edge of a marine park, all the fish are dying and the promised jobs didn’t eventuate - pretty much what we can expect here,” she says.
The gathering was held in conjunction with a Whitsundays Sailing Club event, where Cr Coorey says tourism operators are worried about the impacts of Adani’s proposed project on the Great Barrier Reef.
Soon after, Cr Coorey says protestors got a warning that people were ripping flags and signs off their cars.
“We’re in Murdoch land,” she says, ““it’s abuse from the media at Murdoch press, saying things like we’re paid protestors, which is weird”.
“It’s kind of a strange bubble up here… we’re getting lots of toots and support, people waving as they drive past and every event has got a lot of locals [but] I have to say, it’s not as big as I thought.”
Traditional landowners to welcome protestors
The Wangan and Jagalingou people have been fighting Adani and the Queensland government over an Indigenous Land Use Agreement on the Carmichael site for more than a year.
So far, the traditional landowners have been respectful but wary of the mainstream Stop Adani movement, not wanting to lose focus on issues of native title.
This Sunday in Claremont will be one of the first major public gatherings between the two anti-Adani protest groups.
“The Murdoch press also reported that Claremont people weren’t welcoming us, that the town was angry,” says Cr Coorey, “and yet the campaign people have spoken to a lot of businesses and 80-90 per cent of them have said ‘totally happy to see you, totally happy to support the protestors’”.
“The police have been really great supporting us along the way,” she says, “but we have heard to expect a big opposition turnout over Saturday and Sunday at Claremont”.