Steel city becomes anti-gas leader

May 9, 2014
Issue 
Stop CSG Illawarra organised a 3000-strong march across Seacliff Bridge, October 16,2011.

New documentary film Radical Wollongong, produced by Green Left TV, will premiere in Wollongong May 18, followed by screenings in other cities and regional centres.

The film features activists who took part in Wollongong's radical history of strikes and community rallies, from miners’ struggles to Aboriginal justice and environmental protection.

Co-producer John Rainford writes about Wollongong's transition from making steel to looking after the environment.

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By late 2010, Wollongong was no longer the “steel city” — a name that had stuck long ago by virtue of the large part of the region’s workforce employed in the steelworks.

At this point, BHP had spun out its steelmaking business at Port Kembla to a new company, Bluescope. With just 3400 permanent employees, the steelworks was relegated to the third-largest employer in the Illawarra, behind the Illawarra Area Health Service and the University of Wollongong.

The dramatic fall in manufacturing employment across the country was also an important factor in the decline of unionism. In what was once the most unionised country in the world, just 13% of private sector workers now belong to a union.

By 2010, an even bigger challenge than the industrial struggles of the past had emerged. Climate change became a more pressing issue that it had been since 1972 when Limits To Growth, a study by ecologists and economists, predicted ecological and economic collapse by the mid-21st century if overuse of resources continued unchecked.

The fourfold increase in global manufacturing output in the two decades from the 1950s had come with a tripling of carbon dioxide emissions. Governments around the world clung to the always implausible prospect of infinite growth based on finite resources, so it fell to civil society to take up the challenge.

In keeping with its radical past, Wollongong was doing more than its share.

In October 2009, hundreds attended a weekend Climate Camp at Helensburgh, in Wollongong’s northern suburbs, home to Australia’s oldest coalmine. Radical Wollongong features an interview with one of the organisers, Chris Williams, who explains how the camp intended to unite the community over the contentious issue of coalmining and its effects on climate change.

In early 2011, Stop CSG Illawarra was formed at a meeting in Thirroul after the state government granted 16 licences to drill for coal seam gas in the area.

In its three years of existence it has recruited more than 5000 members and organised three mass actions at Austinmer Beach, Seacliff Bridge and Bulli Showgrounds, each of which attracted more than 3000 people.

So far it has managed to prevent CSG mining in the Sydney Basin water catchment area. But the struggle goes on for bans on fracking and CSG development. Locals call for a freeze on CSG exploration and mining and a Royal Commission into the impact of CSG developments. Radical Wollongong interviews Stop CSG Illawarra spokesperson Jess Moore, who tells us how the organising began and why it continues to grow.

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