Woolworths store protest supports Maleny

Jim McIlroy, Brisbane

"Woolworths: I won't shop there", "Save Maleny's platypus" and "Support Maleny residents" were some of the placards held up by protesters outside the Woolworths supermarket in the inner-city suburb of Spring Hill on August 11.

The protest was called in solidarity with fight the by the residents of Maleny, 80 kilometres north of Brisbane, against retail giant Woolworths' plan to build an environmentally destructive supermarket in the town.

The protest, initiated by the Socialist Alliance and the socialist youth organisation Resistance, attracted 30 people in the course of the afternoon. Many passing motorists honked their horns in support.

The supermarket management called the police, who forced some protesters to move further away from the entrance to the store.

The previous Saturday, August 6, several hundred people gathered in Maleny for their weekly protest rally and march through the main street of the town to a park opposite the site of the Woolworths project.

Campaign spokesperson John Woodland, who has been banned by the courts from being within 100 metres of the site, circled the area in a helicopter — at a height of greater than 100 metres!

Opposition by Maleny residents to the project, which threatens the burrows of numerous platypus, has not diminished, even though police are guarding the area from protesters.

From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.

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From GLW issue 638