06/11/2020
Work has been halted this morning at Adani’s rail construction site near Belyando, QLD as Barney Jackson, a Magnetic Island resident attached himself to a concrete batching plant.
Jackson used a steel elbow lock to attach himself to the top of the machinery in order to cease operations at the construction site. The elbow lock was painted with a ‘Water Is Life’ message alongside a banner with the same words.
“I grew up on Magnetic Island on the Great Barrier Reef and I’ve seen the damage and pressures that are being put on the reef, something that the Adani coal mine will exacerbate”, says Jackson. “If anything is sacred; it’s water. If there is no water we all die, humans included. Water is life says it all”.
In relation to the water messaging, Jackson said, “Growing up in north QLD where water is often very scarce, Adani having a license to take unlimited amounts of water makes me very concerned”.
Jackson’s action comes approximately a year after the new lock-on laws were implemented by the Queensland Government, an attempt to deter concerned citizens from using a device such as an elbow lock.
In response to these laws, Jackson states, “The most dangerous thing I could do with this [elbow lock] is not use it. The repercussions from the Carmichael mine are far more dangerous than me locking on with a steel tube”.
“I don’t want to be arrested, but I don’t want the mine to go ahead even more, so, here I am.”
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