CSG action goes with the flow

Protestors and media outside the Sofitel Hotel where a mining conference was being held last week.

Four activists from the Nimbin Environment Centre (NEC) were involved with the action at the Sofitel Hotel in Sydney last week, protesting about coal seam gas mining at the NSW Minerals Exploration and Investment conference.

Sixteen activists managed to gain entry to the $900 a head conference and took to the stage and asked for five minutes of the delegates’ time. Each person spoke for about 30 seconds on their concerns about water, food, agricultural land and pollution.

Alan Roberts from NEC said it was “the most fluid action” he’d ever been involved in.

“We discussed tactics in a Pitt Street meeting room before we just flowed out along Pitt Street to Hunter Street then Philip Street where a fire door at the bottom of the Sofitel just peeped open as we arrived, then up two flights of stairs, past kitchens to a door that led us straight in front of the conference stage where we lined up,” he said.

Eventually the protestors were bundled outside to where another group of protestors were gathered just before two men abseiled down the Sofitel building to unfurl a banner that said ‘Enough is enough. Stop coal seam gas mining.’

“Nimbin Environment Centre welcomes the Mines and Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher’s offer at the conference to debate mining ‘based on reason and science, rather than on simple emotion’,” Mr Roberts said.