S Sorrensen
Bentley. Monday, 9.40am
Mud. Mud everywhere.
The protectors’ camp at Bentley, where more than a thousand people are congregated, is a bog.
The roads are wide mud rivers, while narrower walking paths flow into them.
Beside the main road, a Camry lies half sunk in the mud. A mud man, not from New Guinea (pale skin and red hair pokes through), stares at it. It sinks as he stares.
This paddock is owned by a farmer opposed to government’s desperate support for unconventional gas mining. He has allowed the paddock to be used for the ongoing local resistance to a drilling operation approved for a neighbouring property.
Most people realise that unconventional gas mining is a huge con. It benefits corporations to the detriment of local community. Even though corporations are considered legal persons by the law and have legal rights (bestowed upon them years ago by a government with its pants down and a twinkle in its eye), corporations can’t have children – so they have no idea what is really important.
A big bloke, with tatts filling the spaces not covered with mud and with a beard so wiry you could clean your Subaru’s battery terminals with it, waves goodbye to the poo truck that has just relieved the portaloos of their load. Tatt Man, from Team Toilet, looks to the clouds.
‘It’s gonna clear,’ he says. Optimism grows in mud.
‘You look clean,’ he says to me.
‘I don’t like getting dirty,’ I say.
‘Good luck,’ he laughs.
The poo truck’s tyres squirt mud as it heads towards the gate. I duck behind Tatt Man. (Well, he’s already muddy…) The poo truck sails up the river of mud, past the bogged Camry, the tarpaulin shelters, the soggy tents and the campervans.
‘Not a job I wanted but hey, someone’s got to do it,’ says Tatt Man, a smile flashing from the wire brush.
He’s talking about toilet maintenance but he could just as well be speaking for everyone at the camp. People would rather not have to do what their government should be doing: safeguarding the community against those who would destroy its natural infrastructure and long-term future for a quick buck. But unfortunately, the state government is a pig with its snout in the trough and is as dirty as the industry it supports. (Corporations, though not human, can make political donations.)
Fortunately, citizens do still have some clout if they make a big enough noise. Vestiges of democracy prevail despite our government’s erosion of it. The right to protest is a key element of democracy and a hindrance to total corporate rule.
The mud has almost swallowed the Camry’s wheels and is inching up its doors. The pale mud man is uncertain about what to do. He takes his keys from his pocket…
‘He needs a hand,’ says Tatt Man and strides off, his gumboots squelching. A bloke in a traffic warden’s high-vis vest also heads to the Camry. As do an older man in an Akubra and a woman with a shovel.
This camp is a happy place despite the mud. The people are united by a connection to the land – a connection in danger of being lost in modern society. Rekindling that connection also rekindles our connection to each other. Everywhere in the camp, smiles glisten like puddles in the sun.
‘Nice and steady,’ Tatt Man says to the pale mud man who fires up the Camry. We gather behind the Camry, ready to push.
‘One, two, three!’
Mud spits from the spinning tyres and splatters my clean shirt. The Camry flops across the drain and claws onto the road.
‘Well done,’ Tatt man says. ‘Well done, everybody.’
Yes, well done, everybody.
This is not true for now, today….that was 5 days ago!! It rained…now it is beautiful sunny clear, only remnants of mud……
A good story. Please send to Miranda Devine. I think she is serious need of loving kindness.
Great story, succinct and informative. I will be visiting Bentley on my next day off. Keep up the good work everyone.
Thank you, S. It’s refreshing to hear an accurate report from someone who has actually visited Bentley blockade and has observed, in the flesh, the generosity of spirit of those people who choose to defend this beautiful area from the insatiable greed and infinite myopia of corporations and their governmental puppets.
Pro-CSG types enthusiastically defame protectors, typecasting all who dare defy Metgasco as a bunch of radical, unemployed, hippies. This is far from the truth. There are hippies, of course, who proudly defend this land we share, yet standing right there with them are akubra-wearing, multi-generational farmers, who are equally passionate about the land beneath their feet, and also understand the need to protect the air, food and water we all rely on.
Whilst there is a constant undercurrent of nervousness and stress, CSG being a truly frightening and potentially devastating issue, good-natured camaraderie abounds at the protector site. In that place, all become kindred spirits as everyone is aware that we stand together against a mutual foe, Metgasco.
Well done, everybody, indeed!
You got it S. That’s exactly the feel of the camp. There truly is a firm sense of camaraderie that unites all the community. Everyone pitches in, everyone knows this is the beachhead; the pointy end. I’m heading back out this arvo, mud free hopefully but I’ll still pack the gumboots.
Well done, everybody!
Just home from Bentley, no worries with my little two-wheel drive car. There has been lots of gravel laid for parking, and the camp is clean and orderly. No mud to be seen!