M4 protest takes to the road

Kathleen Scott, Sydney

More than 500 local community groups, activists, councillors and state members of parliament marched along the City West Link on May 23 to protest the planned M4 East tunnel options. The protest was organised by the pro-public transport group EcoTransit.

Alice Murphy, newly elected mayor of Leichhardt, spoke on behalf of Leichhardt and Ashfield councils, which both supported the protest. Council trucks blocked the City West Link for part of the day.

"Green bans" legend Jack Mundy recalled the thirty-year anniversary of a similar anti-road campaign led by Nick Origlass, former Leichhardt mayor and lifelong socialist, in which progressive unions imposed a green ban on the area. "It was people's action that brought about change then and likewise will stop the Carr government today."

Two "long" and "short" tunnel options have been proposed, but concerns were raised that neither would resolve congestion and pollution. Speakers pointed out that previous road construction has dramatically increased traffic on Sydney's roads, at the expense of creating a fully funded, integrated public transport system.

The state minister for roads, Carl Scully, is said to be in support of the short tunnel option. NSW Labor MP Angela D'Amore was booed when she told the crowd that she would raise the community's dissatisfaction with the proposals directly with the minister.

The Greens' Lee Rhiannon called on ALP members to go back to the state government and give a resounding "No" to the two tunnel option deal. She called for a light-rail track instead, which would dramatically reduce pollution and childhood asthma rates.

[Kathleen Scott is a member of the Socialist Alliance.]

From Green Left Weekly, June 2, 2004.

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From GLW issue 584