Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

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It was a useful blockading technique: non-violent direct wasting of police and construction workers’ time. But for all the community opposition, VicRoads was determined, and the police were on their side, not ours. One by one, they dragged us away. In the end the road went ahead (congestion has long since returned to pre-1994 levels), leaving the effects of the campaign to appear as ripples in unexpected places. CAFE evolved into Streets for People, who did creative bike lane and pedestrian crossing actions ................................................................................................................................................................................................... Blockading road works on Alexandra Parade, November, 1994 where there are now bike lanes and pedestrian crossings and organised the third ever Reclaim the Streets party/ protest to happen outside the UK. As a spin off from CAFE, Critical Mass started in Melbourne - the monthly celebration of bikes as traffic. Some people involved in the campaign got jobs in transport planning, causing green transport ideas to pop up in the cracks in the bitumen. Others started introducing strange ideas like bike-riding and consensus decisionmaking into their workplaces. Lots went on to tackle other social change projects. I found myself travelling the world and running around in silly costumes trying to stop the World Trade Organisation and wondering why I didn’t get a sensible job like my friends from school. The Alexandra Parade campaign didn’t stop the road, but change happens slowly. FoE 30 Years 114
Lee Tan “Let’s chuck in some coins to try our luck in this week’s Tattslotto…”. That was the conclusion of an emergency FoE Strategy meeting to deal with the dwindling finances for the renovation of FoE’s new premises at Smith Street in 1993. At the time I was only several weeks into the part-time Office Co-ordinator cum FoE General finance co-ordination position, after my sea change decision to focus my time and energy into working for the environment and a socially just world. Prior to this, I had been working full-time in the corporate sector and a health institution. That meeting did not leave me feeling helpless but it prompted me to ask what has led us into such desperation and why there were so little resources for good environmental causes. As it turned out, FoE was being gentrified out of Fitzroy into the neighbouring working class suburb, Collingwood. We got a filthy dilapidated building and we were on a warpath with the real estate agent staff assigned to the property. It took another year and a half to have the lease signed and sealed, ................................................................................................................................................................................................... after he was sacked. The cheap lawyer recommended to us by the Fitzroy Legal Service died halfway through his assistance (through causes not related to the case). Finally, Frank, who kindly offered an hour a week (or month) of his time helped us through the rest of the paper work. Frank was a God-send, although I could not recall if we had made a decision at Strategy to pray for an accountant. He turned up at a time when we were really struggling with tightening of legislation and guidelines for community organisations and professional advice was most needed. After FoE was physically moved from its old premises, I returned to work after one week of study leave. The entire upstairs of the building was in mayhem, filled with rubble, building materials and off-cuts. Old furniture and files were stacked up ceiling high. The entire office staff and volunteers had taken leave to recuperate from the move. The phone rang but I could not get to it because it was buried amongst the piles of furniture. And the bank balance was down to 3 digits! I thought to myself then: ”We’ll be in the post capitalist state in no time!” Somehow we managed. We got volunteers to help with the ‘renovation’. All of a sudden I found myself turning into a building site supervisor. It was definitely a case of jumping in the deep end, often beyond the realm of my imagination when I took up the job at FoE. Nevertheless, I learnt to love all of these new experiences, not underestimating the stresses and worries we all went through after the move. The thing I’m most impressed and fascinated about FoE is the resourcefulness and the resilience of its staff. FoE is almost entirely self-funded. FoE adheres to a set of strict environmental and ethical standards, and this is not easy in a society where money is mostly generated through resource exploitation and an insatiable appetite for consumption. For the next few years after the move, as Melbournians prepared for their annual post FoE 30 Years 115
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Up to a few decades ago, many peopl
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It seemed like a simple idea: to pr
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The optimism, courage and creativit
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Over thirty years, FoE has develope
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decades. In Australia, FoE is commi
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This group acted as an inspiration
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In the 1970s, a handful of key issu
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Apart from working on the direct im
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In the mid ‘70s I was studying en
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In 1976, there was a strong campaig
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egan to jostle for access to Antarc
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Keith Suter The future is never as
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I first became aware of FoE via Pet
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I remember the attempts of the nucl
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I grew up with the threat of global
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In late 1980 a couple of people who
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In the 1980s, there was a shift to
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The Australian Mining Journal noted
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sense that these issues formed a pa
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was (and remains to this day) the o
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Ila Marks Dave Sweeney talking at t
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from a community radio background,
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FoE 30 Years 45
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In the early 1990s, the nuclear ind
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With the Gulf War and the Dili mass
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What makes these comments sadder in
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FoE 30 Years 54 ...................
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Action outside the state government
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a month. Perhaps the seminal moment
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FoE 30 Years 60 ...................
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The first meeting of the Dharnya Al
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Page 72 and 73: From 1985 until 1992, undercover of
Page 74 and 75: Kathleen McCann In 1996 I was in Ja
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Page 78 and 79: Dave Sweeney From its earliest days
Page 80 and 81: March at the Jabiluka mine site, NT
Page 82 and 83: The camp’s office was located wit
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Page 90 and 91: Gillian Walker ....................
Page 92 and 93: When it was announced that Melbourn
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Page 98 and 99: Steph Long, Kim Stewart Friends of
Page 100 and 101: Australia has been largely obliviou
Page 102: Fossil fuels have not bought wealth
Page 105 and 106: Roman Orzanski Possibly the first F
Page 107 and 108: Everyone helped make the procession
Page 109 and 110: In 1996, Consolidated Rutile Ltd ga
Page 111 and 112: Melia Bugeja, FoE Melbourne Food Co
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Page 115 and 116: East Gippsland (CROEG) to launch th
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Page 119: 1994. VicRoads was planning to wide
Page 123 and 124: Friends of the Earth in Sydney (FoE
Page 125 and 126: Herald Sun Columnist, Andrew Bolt P
Page 127 and 128: change. Mark Carter, co-founder of
Page 129 and 130: Australia given Indigenous manageme
Page 131 and 132: Their final edition, in the year th
Page 134 and 135: FoEA is a federation rather than an
Page 136 and 137: input to national decision making f
Page 138: are independent. A secretariat base
Page 141 and 142: lead to some form of wisdom: a know
Page 149 and 150: Anon (1987); Know your FoE; the Coe
Page 151 and 152: Page 5 • ‘U Mines’ - Through
Page 153 and 154: 1990s Page 46 • Image from Chain
Page 155 and 156: • The march that followed the ‘
Page 158: Page 116 • FoE ran a food stall a
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Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

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