Media, police harass conference goers

July 23, 1997
Issue 

Media, police harass conference goers

By James Norman

TOWNSVILLE — The organisers of the annual Students and Sustainability Conference, attended by some 500 people, are angry that despite its overwhelming success, the media reports have been negative and sensationalist.

According to Mandy Trueman, statements by local MP Mark Stoneman, reported faithfully by the Townsville Bulletin, were "ill informed" and "ignorant of the human rights and environment issues discussed" at the conference.

The conference was designed to encourage and support student environment campaigns and to network among the wider community.

Stoneman, MP for Burdekin, was quoted in the July 16 Townsville Bulletin as saying, "If you were going to knock a country off, you wouldn't get a better bunch of people". He added that the students were being used by ideologically driven green activists.

"The conference speakers contain a virtual Who's Who of people who have never contributed in a practical or productive way to society ...", Stoneman told the Bulletin. Keynote speakers at the conference included Greens Senator Bob Brown and Aboriginal activists Murrandoo Yanner and Professor Grace Smallwood.

An editorial in the July 15 Bulletin described the opening ceremony as "resembling, in enthusiasm and smell, the anti-Vietnam War hippy protests of the 1960s".

Liberal Senator Ian McDonald cited a workshop on civil disobedience as proof that students are prepared to break the law. He omitted to mention the examples referred to in the workshop: Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Noble Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela.

As well, the police — often wearing batons and threatening arrest — at organised events and at the conference camping ground were front-page news, giving the conference a negative image.

It is unfortunate that local politicians, media and police used the opportunity to voice their own red-necked attitudes rather than accurately report on the deliberations of committed activists seeking to work towards social change and environmental sustainability.

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