News briefs

Fish farm protested

BRISBANE — Around 500 people took to the water on August 14 in the biggest protest yet against plans to build a fish farm the size of four football fields in Moreton Bay. The protesters, representing 50 environment, community and industry groups, boarded more than a dozen vessels and converged on the planned site north of Tangalooma on Moreton Island.

Queensland Conservation Council executive officer Simon Baltais said the farm was a "marine-based feed lot" that would pump damaging nutrients and disease into the bay.

"After millions of dollars have been spent we know we have to clean up the nutrients in the bay, and here we have an industry being put in the most pristine part of the bay that generates lots of nutrients from feeding the fish", Baltais said.

Rally to defend civil liberties

PERTH — Despite heavy rain, 75 people gathered in Perth on August 10 to protest the "anti-terrorist" legislation. The protest, part of actions that occurred around the country on August 8, began early in the morning as small groups of people participated in street theatre and stalls before coming together.

The march took the form of a funeral procession for "civil liberties", whose coffin was carried from the city to the federal police headquarters.

From Green Left Weekly, August 21, 2002.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 505