Rally organisers and police have praised protestors for their peaceful demonstrations outside Kyogle.
The previous day, rock-throwers forced the cancellation of some stages of the World Rally Championship.
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Rally organisers and police have praised protestors for their peaceful demonstrations outside Kyogle.
The previous day, rock-throwers forced the cancellation of some stages of the World Rally Championship.
For 8 mths, we have exposed the fraudulence and lies of Rally organisers, and they just keep coming folks!
We said, there would be no big cash falls in our area…..have to live in France to reap the benefits.
The little township of Kyogle planned to cash up with a festival during rally period…sadly its streets were near empty yesterday, with all the commotion just passing through town.
Only one protestor charged…..for painting slogans on the road…
We reported 2 cars yesterday to police for over taking on dbl lines, in front of on coming traffic with photoes as evidence…one a racing car, …will that make it into the media?
Media hype alll centred on rocks being thrown, yet no evidence of it, not even rally drivers believe it happened.
Congratulations NBN!! At last some coverage giving a more balanced perspective about the repco rally protestors and their concerns. The media coverage has in general been so skewed with a focus on an alleged rock throwing incident overshadowing the hundreds of peaceful protestors as well as their very real concerns. Claims of huge economic benefit have been touted up to $100 million dollars in some reports. They neglect to mention this is over the whole contract period (10 events) or the $millions subsidy to the rally paid for by taxpayer funds – I for one would rather see the money go to health or the farmers, or any number of causes that would actually benefit the taxpayers not simply the organisers of a sports event. Ian MacDonald himself is on record saying they had to change the law to minimise the risk to the event so that opponents could not use the court system to stop it. Hello? To me that is an affirmation that if the courts could stop it due to laws in place then it should be stopped!! They forget to mention that the biodiversity value of the area is equal to Kakadu and that under normal laws you can’t even ride a horse through some of the areas the cars raced through. Please note: we are not against the rally drivers (protestors who met them said they were friendly and understanding of our right to protest and supportive of the environment). we are not against the rally spectators, they are normal people like us, we are against the rally being held in an inappropriate area, our rights being stripped, inappropriate use of public funds and we are advocates for the environment.
Oh and to those whose favourite war cries were “get a job” or “get a life” we have jobs, we are teachers, nurses, lawyers, artists, farmers, yoga teachers, retirees, grannies and more, and we have a very nice life, thank you!!
Go NBN – except for you and the Echo – we have had to go to Europe (the National) or the US (NY Times) for even remotely balanced reporting until now.
Suzanne Gray Chinderah
There was no rock throwing. For a start, where is the photographic evidence? Why did the 3 drivers who made it through the stage that had been closed act so friendly to the protesters at the other end and deny that there were any rocks thrown at them? Suddenly the media changed the rocks to boulders! Unbelievable. I spoke to one riot policeman who claimed to have seen rocks fly out of the bush. I asked him why he didn’t stop the stage and go after them immediately. His reply: because there were cars racing on the road. Hello, there are several minutes before the next one comes and he would have had time to dash across the road. This is an area worth protecting and there is nothing environmentally friendly about rally driving! It’s fast, its noisy, it terrorises the animals who either die or stop breeding, it’s polluting and frankly, it’s boring. People need to learn to appreciate the beauty of nature before it’s all gone ….
I was at Byrrill Creek on Friday to film the rally from the road bank near my driveway. After the rally was stopped I was told by the marshal that someone was lying on the road in the forest. Within half an hour at least five more rumours went around; rocks on road, cattle on road, logs on road, stones thrown at cars, fence across road.
I don’t believe any of these events actually happened, but officials were concerned that they were all possibilities considering there were a number of unknown people scattered along the stage through the forest. I believe that it was fear of the possibility of such an event that caused the stage to be cancelled.
The Repco organizers decided to run with the stone throwing story as it was likely to cause the most damage to the credibility of the protesters and would help distract attention from the bully-boy approach adopted by the promoters in the planning of this event. Their marketing team should be sacked for ‘incompetence in community relations’ for the community division they have left behind them.
In the words of Sebastian Loeb ‘What were they thinking sending us there’.
John Morrison
Byrrill Creek, NSW.
so far i have seen no reports about violence from rally supporters so here are three incidents, two i observed. A peaceful chai tent camp set up on the murwillumbah rd at sphinx rock was attacked by four men, there were two older peaceful men manning the tent, fortunately a police officer happened to be driving past, he stopped to assist and observed that the attackers were influenced by alcohol. Later that evening the same site was attacked by three men in a car, it was dark and the attackers were very surprised to have their attack repelled by five adult males (self included). Fortunately no-one was injured. The third incident was at the horseshoe creek protest on saturday afternoon where an intoxicated young man verbally abused myself and two women who were the only ptotesters present. We were unaware that protest organisers had negotiated with police liason officers to cancel that protest due to earlier violence from the same fellow.seamier tech