Sunday, 13 April 2025
In the gentle green folds of Reedy Marsh, something far more powerful than a planning dispute is quietly taking root. Beneath the misty paddocks and beside the winding creeks, a deeper reckoning is unfolding—a firm, united stand by everyday people who’ve had enough.
This isn’t just a protest against a bauxite mine. It’s a protest against a pattern—a system that consistently favours corporate influence over community voice, where the rights of those who live and work the land are quietly displaced by those who seek to extract from it.
At the centre of it all is an age-old question:
Who decides what happens to the places we call home?
The people of Reedy Marsh aren’t agitators or career campaigners. They’re farmers, families, artists, business owners—people who have shaped their lives in tune with the land. But lately, that life has been disrupted not by drought or flood, but by paperwork, permits, approvals, and conditions, issued from distant offices under legislation few of us ever asked for.
As ABx eyes the land for extraction, locals are facing more than the physical impact of a mine. They’re facing the crushing weight of being sidelined. They’re losing trust in systems meant to safeguard them. Because when corporations appear to enjoy more effective rights than the people living beside their operations, something has gone very wrong.
Let’s call it what it is: a distortion of common sense.
While companies navigate environmental approvals and present themselves as “good corporate citizens,” residents prepare for dust in their rainwater tanks, noise before sunrise, and the daily grind of truck traffic on rural roads never designed for it. The anxiety is real. So is the grief. Because when you’ve built a life in harmony with the land, what’s threatened isn’t just amenity—it’s identity.
For those unfamiliar with the world of planning permits, environmental assessments, and legislative frameworks, the system is deeply confusing and disorienting. If you’ve never lodged an objection, never questioned a mine, never stood up in a council meeting, you’re already behind the eight ball. The EPA’s assessment processes are unstandardised and the community has no say in the level of the EPA Assessment, council processes are inconsistent, and state legislation is layered with complexity. All the while, you're still trying to work, care for your family, and hold your life together. The process doesn’t just favour the well-resourced—it actively excludes those without the time, tools, or training to decode it. And that’s exactly how communities lose their voice: not through silence, but through systems designed without them in mind.
And yet, amid the frustration, something stronger is stirring.
Through strong leadership, clear communication, grassroots organisation, and growing legal and regulatory awareness, a powerful campaign has emerged. It’s been months in the making—but at the April Meander Valley Council Meeting, something shifted. The room filled with unity, intelligence, and resolve. Some spoke for the first time. Others came armed with research, personal stories, and the weight of lived experience.
There was clarity. There was courage. And there was purpose.
This was never just about saying “no” to a mine. It was about saying “yes” to values that matter: fairness, stewardship, respect, and the right to be heard.
It was a collective reminder that the Meander Valley Community Strategic Plan—so carefully crafted with public input—must not be bulldozed by short-term profit or corporate convenience.
Reedy Marsh is standing to protect its own and the Meander Valley has their backs.
This valley speaks. And her words carry its voice.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read "A Valley That Won’t Be Silenced," written by a woman I love, admire, and support with all that I am, something stirred deep within me. Not just a flicker of emotion, but a tremor in the soul—the kind that tells you you’re reading not just the truth, but your truth, spoken aloud by another.
This is more than an article. It’s a call from the land itself, channelled through someone who listens deeply—to people, to place, to the quiet warnings and wild grief that most of us are too busy to hear. In her words, I hear the pulse of Reedy Marsh, yes—but also the ache of every community that’s ever been told they don’t count. The voice of every person who has stood up, uncertain and afraid, only to discover their courage was waiting for them all along.
She writes with clarity, with strength, and with a fierce gentleness that makes you want to rise, not just in protest, but in protection. Of the land. Of what matters. Of each other.
Read this. Let it shake something loose. Let it plant a seed.
And if, like me, it resonates in that place where love for land and justice live side by side—don’t let that feeling pass. Let it become something.
A valley won’t be silenced. And neither should we.