Mining and corrupt NSW Politics

This art and music blog is once again overtaken by politics. Current NSW twitter feed is astonishing and irresistible.

Geoffrey Watson at ICAC hearing

We are finding out through the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) just how corrupt NSW politicians on both sides of politics are. We heard about the dealings of Labour power broker Eddie Obeid and his colleagues in the last inquiry, and now we are hearing about equally devious and illegal practices in the Liberal Party.  A fourth Liberal MP has just stood down.

 It turns out that mining companies (among others)  have been buying favours.

At the same time as ICAC is sitting citizens are protesting on the farms against the mining companies and trying to prevent them destroying farmland and forests. Over 120 people have been arrested at the Leard Forest site (see blogpost of April 3rd), among them local farmers, doctors and others who have come to support them.

Go Knitting Nannas!

Now police are preparing to break down the Bentley blockade which is a gathering to prevent Coal Seam Gas drilling on a farm in northern NSW.  It has been suggested that the police should arrest the current government instead. The blockade has wide local support, including a group of knitting Nanas from Armidale. They are knitting yellow ties.

The Federal Government is enmeshed in the corruption as well as the State Government. The Federal Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has already had to stand aside and there is an increasing feeling that the stench goes right to the top. The Government is paying spies to track what the population is saying on social media and intimidate them. As I blogged previously, government employees are particularly in the firing line.

When you have corrupt governments licensing corrupting mining companies and citizens being arrested for trying to protect the land that the corrupt politicians have sold off, it is time to change how we are governed.

I read that an increasing number of people are dying trying to protect their land: Study Finds Global Surge in Murders of Environmental Activists.  It makes me wonder how far corporate criminals and the people in their pay are willing to go in Australia.