Murray ‘Muzz’ Drechsler left his home in the Northern Rivers a few years ago to try to prevent the Leard State Forest from being turned into a massive coal pit: a black hole.
Currently Muzz is getting ready to screen a film called Black Hole to raise awareness of the plight of the Leard State Forest at the hands of the Whitehaven coal mine at Maules Creek.
Drechsler was doing tours around the Pilliga state forest looking at CSG mining when he heard about the Leard state forest and the coal mine. ‘After I got to the Leard, all I knew was there was going to be a bloody great hole in a state forest’, says Muzz.
‘That was really when I started to get to know the enemy. Over time the corruption was unbelievable. What they where getting away with, the government and the mining industry. We are run by the mining industry.’
Muzz has been fighting in one way or another for the safety of the land since 2011. ‘I went to Broome to help fight at James Price Point. I drove there from Mullumbimby, about 10,000 or so kms round trip and stayed two weeks.
‘That two weeks changed my life. Over the years I had picked up many many skills, many tools in the tool box and did not use many of them and certainly never all at once.
‘Then in Broome I found myself using everything I had learned in my entire life at the blockade. My life made sense. I thought “This why I was put on earth”.’
The film Black Hole shows the long, agonising fight to slow and publicise the destruction associated with the Maules Creek mine. It covers the Jono Moylan hoax which temporarily caused a dip in Whitehaven’s share price, the spies who infiltrated the camp and the emotional toll on all concerned as the forest fell around them.
In less than two weeks time Whitehaven, who have so far cleared almost 30 percent of the firest, will commence clearing the other 70 percent.
Muzz says this film is a reminder that we have run out of time, we need to change our habits and stand up for the land. ‘We all now must make a stand and turn off your bloody lights if you are not in the room. Unplug anything on stand-by.
‘You save money and you shut down power stations. Stop being so obedient. We are not slaves or convicts. The law is unjust or made up for the companies. Obedience is going to kill us and life on this earth.’
Byron Bay sold out last time the film was screened here.
Black Hole screens next Wednesday, February 10 at 6.30pm at the Pighouse Flicks Lounge Cinema.
The deadline for numbers to get the screening is 6.30pm today.
Tickets for this event can be booked in advance at: www.tugg.com/events/85841.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
