Beeliar Wetlands Protectors Camp holds firm

December 15, 2016
Issue 
Protectors defending the Beelair Wetlands in Coolbellup, WA, on December 14. Photo: Peter Boyle

On December 14, I paid a visit to the Beeliar Wetlands Protectors Camp in Coolbellup and witnessed the arrests of several young protesters for taking non-violent direct action against the Roe 8 highway project which threatens this precious wetlands area and significant Aboriginal sites.

“People from all around the community have assembled here to stop work on the Roe 8 freeway which is going through the Beeliar wetlands and woodlands,” Sam Wainwright, Socialist Alliance's Fremantle City Councillor told Green Left Weekly at the protest camp.

“We have a state election three months away in March so between now and then we need every bit of momentum to show that this [WA Liberal] government is prepared to waste public money on a freeway that hasn't been properly assessed, is extremely environmentally damaging and is socially destructive.

“We've got to put pressure on the Labor opposition to definitively say that it will terminate contracts for construction of this freeway,” Wainwright said.
 
All around the country we see governments for the 1% blowing billions of public funds on destructive road and tunnel projects which serve no good purpose but are very destructive. The purpose these projects do serve is to further enrich the corporate mates of those in government — at the public expense!

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