Fracking Up Penola - Where's The Outrage?

Hello world and welcome to the blog...and whilst I'll cover some other things today just to break it up, I'm sort of sorry to bang on about the Rail Lands yet again (tomorrow)...however, the Rail Lands Retail Agenda is the latest raft of deceits and corruptionings being perpetrated against the people of Mt Gambier by our own Council...and I get it if some people think 'why bother?'...

Feedback: In fact, some days I'm not sure why I bother at all because nobody seems the least bit interested in helping themselves....pardon my language for I cannot think of a polite way of saying this, but Mt Gambier just seems to roll over and take it...time and again, issue after issue...for example, the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up, the Forestry Sale, etc...nobody attends Council meetings...drilling for 'Fracking' at Penola is about to commence, and what? where's the protests? where's the outrage? do people simply not understand what's happening there? please explain...

Ever since I moved to Mt Gambier I've felt like a walking target in a deeply depressed and desperate community completely constrained and compromised by the self-righteous, self-serving 1950s 'ruling class' style corruption of it's elected officials...and I'm absolutely not beyond fleeting moments of  resenting Mt Gambier for what I feel it has done to me, to my life.

But then, when I calm down, I remember that I have met a number of halfway decent people who are suffering under the same yoke of corruption and Pariahtisation that I whinge about, and they too are just trying to live their lives...and the more often I put myself through this cycle of blame and defend, the more it crystallises for me personally that what I do in trying to resist the corruption and devastating social effects it has, is just the way it is...it ain't nuthin' but a thang and a thang that needs to be done and there ain't nuthin' to be done but do it...(unfortunately, that makes perfect sense...I hate it when you do that-Ed)...

But virtually each and every time I engage with an issue, it's the abject failure and/or corruption of the elected and/or salaried officials involved that leaps off the page at me...for example, time and again I hear specific allegations of the bullying, threats and harassment visited on Mt Gambier businesses and residents by a handful of Councillors, Council employees, and associated 'mates'...and not least of all directly related to the Rail Lands Retail Agenda.
 
I've experienced this over and over myself, and covered these events/issues in previous posts, eg, Councillor Ian Von Stanke coming to my home with a letter about 'defamation of Council', and the extraordinary conduct of Council in first ignoring my related complaint, then dismissing it via a 'secret report' released through The Border Watch without me knowing about either the 'report' or the article...

I submit this as an act of absolute corruption and undeniable collusion...(Yeah, I gotta admit, whilst I do have my doubts about some of the crap you 'discuss', that Council Report/article stuff is pretty crook-Ed)...why Ed, that's nearly complimentary...(nearly but not-Ed)...fair enough.

Then of course there's the abuse and ridicule directed at me in the 2013 Public 'Consultation' Budget meetings and attempts by Mayor Perryman to pick fights with me at said meetings, whilst Daryl Sexton repeatedly dodged questions about the Rail Lands Retail/Commercial re-zoning...or the abuse spewed down the phone at me by the ABCs Stuart Stansfield...etc, etc, etc...

The point I'm again trying to make...(what, sorry, the point...are we there already? I told you to wake me up before we got there-Ed)...hilarious...the point is that I don't see how Mt Gambier has any chance of a future worth being part of, without addressing the crippling corruption that is at epidemic levels...I repeat, it's almost like a few choice individuals have been given a green light on corruption from state authorities and/or the Labor government.

Pure Insanity: a story on the ABC/BBC, another story, about a man out on parole (NSW/Victoria? sorry) who attacked, beat, stabbed, and then raped a woman, and he's still not even in gaol now, and they're chewing up valuable and increasingly scarce Court time to argue out that his 'curfew' should be midnight not 9pm because he can't get to Church and/or prayer group properly...apparently the Appeal claims that this violent rapist is having his 'right to attend Church' impinged upon.

What is this? What the shrek is this? Why are women considered with such contempt by lawyers and the legal system? How is this man still allowed to be in the community, let alone with a curfew, let alone wandering about near midnight? This is pure insanity...unmitigated, indefensible insanity...and the ABC/BBC has just run the follow up report stating that the violent "serial rapist" has lost his appeal for midnight curfew, but has confirmed for me what I was really hoping I'd actually imagined, the whole sorry story.    

Slightly Less Depressing: is how Beach Energy continue to misrepresent the reality of what they're doing with their Fricking Fracking at Penola, and the impacts it will have...I completely reject Beach's repeated assertions that 1) they are just drilling an 'exploration hole', or 2) that any actual 'Fracking' will be completely without consequence...(and another classic Mt Gambier ABC 'propaganda interview' with Beach's Reg Nelson, where Stuart Stansfield trotted out the usual stable of Dorothy Dixers for Reg to slam down the line for uncontested winners-Ed)...please explain...

It's Just Not Tennis: (Well, a critical interviewer might be said to push their opponent around the base line with a series of hard-hitting shots to the corners, before rushing the net to hammer home the winning volley, but Stuart was just lobbing the ball to half-court where it sat up perfectly for Reg to hammer back down the line while Stewie stood there applauding and saying 'great shot'-Ed)...you paint a hilarious picture. 

Reg Reckons: they've brought down from Queensland 18 loads of equipment in an elaborate exercise that includes site preparation, eg, covering the site with 'drilling fabric', and there are (will be?) 4 observation wells to monitor water quality. The 2 shafts will be approx 4km deep, much deeper than usual, but are allegedly only to 'assess potential shale gas deposits', quality of the rocks, etc.

Mr Nelson seemed to contradict himself repeatedly in 1) referring to known deposits and then saying that this drilling is about exploration, and 2) saying that there's been gas extraction in the South East for 50 years, proving everything's just fine, no problems, but then explaining how this is completely different because it's "so deep" and a different gas source, etc...he made a point of that fact that local aquifers were relatively shallow and therefore wouldn't be affected, but they've got 4 'monitoring wells'.

And in response to a couple of vague, insipid questions about potential problems? assurances? chemicals in the Aquifer?, etc, Reg did the condescending bullshit thing "lets be quite clear" followed by a whole lot of vacuous waffle and more self contradiction about how this 'isn't coal seam gas' and 'this is much deeper but it's the same as previous gas extraction', and 'I'm very confident there'll be no contamination because of the depth and intervening fields'...not one word about the cocktail of largely untested chemicals that will be forced deep underground to extract that gas.

Reg closed with 'I understand there are misrepresentations' but "don't listen to people who's agenda is different" and "we understand the South East" because 'I have been a farmer so I understand the ground water, etc'...and that Fracking in Penola "will only provide opportunities"...deadset...

And where are our politicians?...(too busy queuing up to get into their spanky new dining room and/or corporate boxes at Adelaide Oval-Ed)...pretty much...not one word of opposition, indeed the Liberals openly support this lunacy...yet again the citizens of South Australia and our environment getting royally screwed over by our politicians who are the lap-dogs of big business...disgraceful. 
  
Dear Penola: If you think that Beach is going to all this effort and cost to drill massively deep shafts purely for 'exploration' then you are stone cold tripping...those shafts are for Fracking, the mining is underway already, starting today, and all this crap about 'exploring' and 'testing' is absolute bunk...these are carefully worded deceits to dilute and hopefully avoid immediate opposition, ie, 'nothing's happening yet so no need to worry yet'.


Fracking in Penola is not a potential future project, it is already happening...right now.

Tomorrow: Maybe A Rail Thingy

(Sheez, you don't sound too confident-Ed)...I'm not...

I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...catch ya' 'ron...