The video is finally up after long hours of sleepless editing, running on pepita seeds, coffee and dumpstered candy…

High-Res version is available here on Engage Media.

Enjoy

The rumbling of Hazelwood coal fired power station near Melbourne was quietened today when our group of six breached security before dawn and shut down one part of the plant.

The emergency stop was tripped on a massive conveyer belt transporting coal to the western burners, and two activists chained their arms through metal piping and locked onto the machinery.

When local police arrived four of us were escorted out of the complex, one charged with trespass and a video camera confiscated.

The two locked-on remained attached until a Police emergency team arrived to ‘rescue’ the right of big business to spoil our planet for profit.

The lockon lasted four hours, and our air was a little cleaner for each minute of it…

Viva la direct action.

In the midst of the La Trobe valley a monster lies dormant this morning: Hazelwood, the oldest in the region. Two people are currently locked on, holding the monster tight, ensuring its foul breath won’t spill skyward to heat and char the valley.

Hazelwood is one of the dirtiest coal plants in the industrialised world. It was to be decommissioned in 2009 for environmental concerns but the Bracks government chose to expand its operations to 2030, spewing forth another 445 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ashamedly, across Australia another five new coal power stations are either planned or underway, including HRL in the La Trobe Valley.

“The government has shown neither the will nor ability to make the necessary decisions to prevent climate disaster, and has passively succumbed to the will of corporations that need only short-term profits, not a living planet.” says the group spokesperson Emma Russell.

“With direct action against coal infrastructure we wish to break the illusion of corporate control of our environments, creating space for community solutions for change. As this last week has shown with similar actions at Collie and Bayswater power stations, this sentiment is shared right across the country.”

“We need to move on from coal, leaving no one behind. We offer our support to the workers of the Hazelwood power station. We believe it is critical that clean, renewable based industries are set up to provide new livelihoods after coal, such as renewable energy co-operatives and re-localised economies.”

“It is our responsibility to ensure that electricity production is run by those who are interested in long-term sustainability, not those driven by short-term profits. We need to take our power back from privatised industry. This is our future, this is our responsibility; together, we should take action.”