On the first day I visited the Kerry Blockade I met a local man who was standing beside me, leaning on the fence in shock after the arrest of a few local people, and told me his name was Rod Andersen. We both stared straight ahead at the drill rig maybe 10 metres away. I had an impulse to climb the drill rig, so I turned to Rod and said: “Can you hold these?” I handed him my hat and glasses and, before he could reply, I jumped over the gate and hit the ground running, until I got to the drill rig unchallenged.
I climbed up on to the rig and climbed to the top. As I sat there, there was a long silence. I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing. I hadn’t run this idea by anyone. I looked down at the police and workers scratching their heads. Rod was at the gate - still in shock.
Prior to this decision, I toured Queensland CSG fields. I visited north Queensland and saw where the gas was being processed and exported and saw the damage the industry had done to Gladstone Harbour and Curtis Island. I went to Toowoomba and visited cattle farmer Anne Bridle to see the destruction the gas industry had caused on her property. I visited Dayne Pratzky in Tara, near Chinchilla Queensland to see the air and noise pollution created by a full-scale gas field. It was horrendous.
People at the Kerry Blockade were telling us we had to stop this drilling or the ground water would be irreversibly damaged. I was thinking of all the destruction I had just witnessed in Gladstone, Toowoomba, and Tara.
The idea that this beautiful valley of green rolling hills and creeks was going to be fracked, drilled and contaminated was too much to take.
I found myself atop a gas drill rig with only a steel frame for me to hold on to. I stayed up there all day and night in the January Queensland heat. The police were constantly trying to talk me down, and refused to give me food or water. I was determined to stay until someone from Arrow Energy could assure us that this drilling would not contaminate the ground water.
Being several metres above ground I was able to call various media outlets - ABC, Channel 9, and Josh Fox (US film director of Gasland). I even talked to Bob Irwin.
As darkness fell, I became tired. The police asked me to put a harness on and I agreed. Then, late at night, the police directed a powerful floodlight directly into my eyes to wake me up. It was very powerful. I still struggle with bright lights to this day. I asked the police to turn off the light or I would throw off their harness. They agreed and largely left me alone for the rest of the night.
By mid-morning, the media had arrived and people started to assemble at the gate. Around midday Bob Irwin arrived, and helped negotiate my safe descent, into a waiting police van.
I was taken back to Beenleigh remand centre to stay overnight. The next day I was taken upstairs to a court room. The magistrate, who was also a local landowner, seemed angered that I had been locked up for so long.
He ordered that I be set free immediately.
I then went back to work as a high school teacher in country New South Wales, and also set up some local groups against gas. Sometimes I took leave without pay to work for Lock The Gate Alliance. I spoke at the international Anti-Fracking Conference in Paris in 2015. The stories of how we had stopped gas companies in Queensland inspired others around the world.
In recent years I decided to study environmental law and will complete my studies in 2023.
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