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Byron Shire
March 28, 2024

FOI reveals 800 police set for Bentley

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Greens MP David Shoebridge.
Greens MP David Shoebridge. FOI documents he obtained revealed the police force’s plan for Bentley.

Documents released to the NSW Greens under freedom of information laws have revealed that the NSW police force was intending to deploy up to 800 police to crush the peaceful community blockade at a coal seam gas drilling site at Bentley.

Greens MP and police spokesperson David Shoebridge said it was ‘quite extraordinary’ that the NSW government had advanced plans to deploy up to 800 police to ‘crush the peaceful blockade at Bentley’.

‘The coal seam gas industry is so deeply unpopular that it requires overwhelming police force to be able to operate. Any accountable democratic government would take that as a sign the industry has no future,’ Mr Shoebridge said.

‘When a government plans to deliver this level of force against a law abiding regional community then it is only one step away from losing its legitimacy.

‘These documents show advanced plans that would see the NSW Police being used as an exceptionally powerful and expensive private security operation for a resources company.

‘We now also know that long-suffering NSW taxpayers were going to be footing the bill to keep this industry alive, with no plans for Metgasco to be charged a cent for this enormous police deployment.

‘Civil liberties and the right to peaceful protest are essential hallmarks of our democracy, and the government was planning to deliver these rights a crushing blow at Bentley,’ Mr Shoebridge said.

View the full Police Ministry Public Order Briefing and Memorandum on Policing at Bentley here.


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4 COMMENTS

  1. The link to police document is not working – goes to a David Shoebridge website with error msg “you do not have permission to view drafts”

  2. Stand your ground Northern Rivers..the multi-national companies will have to consider investing large sums of money in non-renewables again, next time there will be more people..we will be coming down to stop the CSG project at Bentley and elsewhere in NSW, because we are gonna need your help up here in the Territory..very soon we want to make a convoy out towards the CSG operation here in Roper Bar, out towards Boroloola..

    so lets gather together the most people we canb gather, to build the largest blockade to demand a stop to non-renewable poisoning of our common pool resources, ie: our ground water aquifers..its already happened in Dakota and many parts of the States where the water is unfit for drinking or even for using on agriculture. Not here, no way,..we have to keep up the good fight until they look for another kind of gas reserve

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