Victorian Government attacks right to peaceful community protest.

Victorian Government attacks right to peaceful protest.

After the highly successful peaceful community protest at the Hazelwood coal fired power station last month, Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources, Peter Batchelor, has signalled that he intends to come down hard on the communities right to protest at electricity infrastructure such as coal fired power stations.

Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Louise Morris said “Last month we saw over 500 community members take action, calling for a transition to renewable energy. This included 22 people who managed to climb the many fences around the Hazelwood coal station to put a ‘Community Decommission Order’ on the station, knowing they would face arrest through such a peaceful undertaking.”

“The police numbers and resources employed was far beyond what was required. Protest organisers had liaised closely with Victoria Police about expected numbers at the protest, but clearly the state government and owners of Hazelwood decided to use a massive force of police and private security. “

"We are now seeing the Victorian ALP Government continue it’s heavy handed approach to dealing with the many people in our community who care enough to take public action about climate change. Terrorising peaceful community campaigners who may use protest tactics that put them at the chance of a planned, considered and careful arrest is over the top, and inappropriate in a democracy” said Ms Morris.

“Premier Brumby and Minister Batchelor have been lobbied for years on climate change, with petitions, letters, personal visits and rallies, and we have only seen them continue to support the coal industry, while large scale solar power enterprises like the Solar Systems plant in Abbortsford go under. It is for these reasons people are increasingly prepared to take actions of the type we saw at the Hazelwood community protest on September 13, 2009. Threatening draconian jail terms and massive financial penalties is not the way to engage with a community campaign on climate change.”

“We will be talking with legal professionals to see what this could mean for our ability to hold peaceful community protests at the many polluting coal fire power stations in our state,” concluded Louise Morris.

During the historic Switch off Hazelwood, Switch on Renewables day of community protest and civil disobedience twenty two brave souls managed to climb the fences around Hazelwood to hand over their 'Community Decommission Orders.'

In the process of doing this they were arrested and charged with tresspass. While their day in court is bound to be some way off, there is a way we can all support these people...by donating to help cover their pending fines for trespass.

The maximum penalty for tresspass is $1,000.00 not a massive amount of money, but enough to burn a hole in the pockets of many of us who do not have a lot of money - as we have spent much of it campaigning for climate protection.

Help the Hazelwood 22 by donating to cover their legal costs through the Switch off Hazelwood bank account. All proceeds will be evenly distributed to those arrested.

(Age letter to the editor) September 15, 2009

AS ONE of the organisers of the protest at Hazelwood power station on Sunday, I'd like to clarify misconceptions about the action and its message. It is possible to replace coal-fired energy with existing renewable energy technology.

Solar thermal with molten salt storage plants already operate in Spain and the US, providing ''baseload'' power in areas with less sun than we have. We need our Government to start investing in these technologies, rather than wasting money in the fantasy of clean coal. One of our key demands was for a well-planned, democratic transition to alternative industries for the Latrobe Valley so no net jobs are lost. For every job lost in coal-based industries, three equivalent jobs could be created in renewable energy industries, which are more labour intensive.

The Latrobe Valley community will be just as heavily affected by climate change as everyone else, so it's in all our interest to push for a rapid move towards renewable energy. If we don't, we face more deadly heatwaves, fires, droughts and storms.

Pablo Brait, Yarra Climate Action Now, Richmond

A gamble that we will lose

BACK in 2004, environment groups and the renewable energy industry commissioned Dr Mark Diesendorf to prepare a report showing how renewable energy, energy efficiency and gas could more than compensate for closing Hazelwood, and reduce the state's annual emissions by 13.7 million tonnes. Instead, the State Government extended Hazelwood's life until 2030.

The company that runs Hazelwood, International Power Australia, recently flagged that it is open to the prospect of an accelerated closure. It's time for the State Government to begin the process of future-proofing the Latrobe Valley by beginning the transition away from coal. A failure to do so gambles with the Latrobe Valley's, and the planet's, future.

Mark Wakeham, campaigns director, Environment Victoria

It's blowing in the wind

AS I was trying to avoid the hooves of the police horses at Hazelwood, I did a quick calculation of the number of wind turbines necessary to produce the same amount of energy as the dirty power station looming over us. The answer I came to, just as my neighbouring protester leapt the fence into the arms of waiting police officers, was about 1000.

Clyde Scaife put the figure at 20,000, but he is talking about the tiny turbines of the 1980s. Using today's bigger 3.6-megawatt turbines being installed in Europe, we would need 1074, operating 34 per cent of the time (his assumed capacity factor). If, instead, we used the capacity factor of 40 per cent achievable in some parts of Victoria, we'd need only 913 turbines. If we could use the latest six-megawatt turbines, we'd need only 548 of them. Whichever, the area involved would fit many times into the Latrobe Valley. Clearly, wind, solar, biomass and energy conservation, along with increased use of gas as a transitional fuel, would enable us to shut down Hazelwood and other coal-fired generators within a few years.

Neil Barrett, Castlemaine

Talk the talk, walk the walk

RON Howard's movie In the Shadow of the Moon showed Earth as it had never been photographed from the moon before - a beautiful blue planet surrounded by a thin envelope of gas (atmosphere) that sustains life.

As part of our family's efforts to raise awareness of greenhouse gases, we proudly attended Sunday's protest, because it's not so much about you and me, Alan Long (Letters, 14/9), it's about our children and Earth's biodiversity future. I am actively pursuing windmill design and development. I walk the kids to school, I am about to install two kilowatts of solar panels, I rode my bicycle to work for 20 years and I had a cycle shop to encourage others to do the same. We also recycle our grey water, have a vegetable garden and two water tanks.

Technology has moved on and so, too, must governments. Otherwise, Alan, with two degrees and more of warming, the Earth will end up like the moon - no atmosphere, no water and no one left to photograph it. See you at the next protest.

Anthony Barnes, Ferntree Gully
Approximately five hundred people took part in today's historic action at the Hazelwood coal power station, while 22 people managed to get themselves arrested while attempting to slap a 'Community Decommission Order' on Hazelwood.

The feeling throughout the day was fantastic and upbeat, despite a complete over reaction by the Brumby government in its deployment of police force. Over the weekend we had the police helicopter throughout Saturday night and Sunday, mounted police, police in speed boads and jetskis, police on dirt bikes as well as massive numbers of police on foot.

This initially dampened the festive community spirit - but as soon as the first person got across the fence, that all changed.

L

Hundreds of people are currently gathered at the gates of Hazelwood power station preparing to place a `Community Decommission Order’ on the 45 year old polluting dinosaur. A steady drizzle and grey skies were not enough to deter the community activists frustrated by the government’s consistent failure to take real action on climate change.
After a welcome to country from the traditional owners of the land that the dirtiest coal fired power station in the industrialised world sits on, children, Ministers of Energy Resources & Silly Walks, radical cheerleaders, owls, zebras, and power plant ‘Decommissioners’ marched up the road to the gates of the plant.

The crowd heard from Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation, author David Spratt, Melbourne based paedeatricianMerrynRedenbach who all delivered the same message: our planet is facing a very real climate emergency and we must act now to avoid it. A great start would be to switch off coal and switch on renewables.

Stay tuned to this site to catch up on events as they unfold. You can check out photos at www.flicker/photos/hazelwood09 as well as Melbourne Indymedia www.indymedia.org.au/melbourne