Someone said to me today; "You know they're gonna do it anyway, don't you?"
Despite the question mark (that's just my grammar hand), it was delivered as a statement, and I've heard this statement a few times before today.
The Albany Port Authority, after all the dissent, appeals, blogs, submissions, letters to the newspaper and opposition by the city Council, will probably dredge the Sound and dump the spoils wherever they like, anyway. There's that Grand Vision to take into account - the long term prospective of the port being an axis of commerce over the next century. Jobs. Cash. International Status. Position. Twenty years worth of iron ore.
Opponents of the dredging the Sound are being viewed as a mild case of worms - annoying, expected and easily dealt with. To continue my bad metaphors, the Albany Port Authority has been described as "a prize fighter, just waiting for us to step into the ring."
The vermicide used in this situation to get rid of dissenters of the dredging will be a very simple pill - exhaustion. The Albany Port Authority is depending on the age old rythm of everyone jumping up and down for a year or so, organising petitions, protests, letters, submissions, appeals and outrage; standing in the rain outside festivals and markets, arguing in supermarkets and starting fights in pubs. Then one day, people will just be over the haranguing and being harangued. As soon as everyone is exhausted with the telling and being told, the Albany Port Authority will dredge the Sound.
This is not a fatalistic rant, so much as asking readers to keep a weather eye on these players who, intent on continuing their death of a thousand cuts of our harbour and Sound, are willing to wait. Conserve your energy. This is gonna take a while.
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So true. But I think the Paul Kelly song about how land rights were finally won tell a great story. There is some line in there about how the Aboriginal people were just going to sit - and wait. It still gives me goosebumps when Kelly gets to the bit where Whitlam pours a handful of sand into one of the Elder's hands.
ReplyDeletethankyou michelle. Yes, patience is a virtue! Ultimately the benefits of dredging and dumping are a mere blip compared to the long term environmental vandalism that will occur.
ReplyDeletegood post. It is a question of scale, in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteThe inappropriate scale of the ships (too big)
The short timescale of the first mine's life (there are no guarantees that once we've allowed them to accommodate those Cape class vessels, there won't be all sorts of 'orrible ores needing to be exported from the mighty Albany Port)
The short attention span that many of us have developed due to...
Hang on a minute, I've got a text message coming..
As a friend of mine said many years ago following a small victory in the early days of the campaign to save native forests, " We have to win every time, but they only have to win once."
Bugger. I'll try to stay awake.
Or failing that, I'll stand alongside you. You in your Guantanamo Bay orange jumpsuit, me in my sharp suit and tie, marshalling the mmmedia...