Farmer George has taken his life

This was terribly sad news to wake up to.  To hear that another farmer has taken his life and the motivation for doing this was the endless bullying from Csg companies. 

Such a sad day in Australia the day George hung up his work boots for good and went to heaven in the name of fighting Csg in Australia, in particular Queensland where this madness has encroached upon so many in such a destructive way.    I am thinking firstly about the destruction of Land and Water and the land of special places for the first people here on this land.  Aboriginal sacred sites have been destroyed forever in the name of mining and now the second wave are feeling the heavy blucher boot of government psychopathy.

The article below is From Dayne Pratzky ... this was so well written I wanted to keep it because it says it all and I agree 100%.  

George Bender - Photo Source Helen Bender

Last week Australia lost a true hero, George Bender.

In 2009 a small rag tag group of people joined forces under the banner of the Western Downs Alliance. The only thing we had in common was our will to stand up for our families and land from being destroyed by the coal seam gas industry.

Many in our own community turned their backs on us, we were shunned by the people in the town of Chinchilla and Tara. They didn’t want to be seen standing by us as we challenged the government and mining companies for the right to live peacefully. There were very few who didn’t criticize and ignore us. One of those who choose to stand by us was George Bender. George would get in his Land Cruiser and drive out to the estates and stand shoulder to shoulder with us as we battled a mining juggernaut.

George put his reputation at risk to try and help us. He didn’t care who we were, what he cared about was our families and the land beneath our feet.

George's family had been a part of the Chinchilla community for 150 years. The Bender family is well respected and well liked with a reputation for being good farmers and good people. Many in country Queensland look at reputation as everything but George threw all that away to help us in our fight for justice.

While George was helping us fight he was also waging a battle against Origin Energy as they wanted to put gas wells on his land. George refused to give Origin access, he told them to take a hike, they were not welcome on his land. The battle raged on for ten years. Slowly George was worn down. The will to keep Origin Energy off his land was as strong as ever but his will to continue the day to day conflict took its toll on George as a person. In the end, instead of being dragged through land court he decided he no longer wanted to watch the potential destruction of the farm which had taken five generations of his family's blood, sweat and tears to build.
On the 14th of October George took his own life. It's really important to note here that George said he was not depressed. He told his daughter, Helen, that he was heart broken.

Today George will be laid to rest in the town he loved until his last days. George leaves behind his wife Pam Bender, his daughter Helen Bender, four sons and many more grandchildren to all those above I extend much love and respect and send strength to you all at this difficult time. I also extend the same feeling to the Nothdurft family who were friends of George Bender and who are also in a battle for their very existence in a district they love.

I ask every person who reads this to keep ‪#‎GeorgeBenders‬ memory alive.

This is not over, not by a long shot. Today we will grieve tomorrow we will wage war! ‪#‎enoughisenough‬

Photo :  Helen Bender

The Project also covered the story.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

FRACKMAN The Trailer ..

This is a film about a bunch of ordinary people caught up in a modern day multinational "Gold Rush" to secure and exploit coal seam gas.   Out in Cinemas on February 15 2015.

Dayne Pratzky loved the quiet life on his rural block in central Queensland. Then the coal seam gas company arrived, and that changed everything. Legally he couldn’t stop them mining his land, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight. And so began a David and Goliath battle against a $200 billion industry. Along the way he found love, tragedy and triumph.

More information from the FRACKMAN Website:

This is a film about a bunch of ordinary people caught up in a modern day multinational “gold rush” to secure and exploit coal seam gas.
Fracking is an issue that is presenting difficult questions for all of Australia’s political parties, but at its heart is a very human drama. What we find is that smouldering resentment has turned conservative country people to civil disobedience. Politicians with their snouts in the trough are caught off-guard not knowing who to support.

Our central character is Dayne Pratzky – a knockabout pig shooter building a simple home on his block of land in Central Queensland. One day the gas company comes calling and demands access to his land for gas mining. Dayne is told he has no right to refuse access to his land, and so begins his journey as a reluctant activist that will take him around the world.

Dayne introduces us to the people drawn into a battle that is crossing the ideological divide, bringing together a peculiar alliance of farmers, conservationists and political conservatives.  Along the way Dayne finds love, tragedy and triumph as he battles to save his community from becoming an industrial wasteland. There are laughs, tears and near death experiences, and a raft of colourful Aussie Bush characters.

But it’s the underlying theme that is critical: Who owns our land? Who owns our future? Can we balance competing claims for our water, food and energy and still preserve the environment?

One thing is certain: the rush to extract Coal Seam Gas is forcing us to ask difficult questions about our way of life and what we value.

 

I will be keen to see the full edition of this story about the battle of ordinary people against the corporate giants ruling all of our lives not just on the Gas Fields of Australia.  I coined the phrase a three stringed cord as describing this make up of people who have been drawn in together in this fight to save the water and the land and for some lifestyle.   I  say it different to Dayne who forgets the first peoples and their very precious and important stake in this fight.  I like to say its the Greenie / Environmentalist, the Farmers and the Aboriginal people who have been drawn together in this fight. 

The aboriginal people have had to battle their own in this fight as mining companies seek to cause even more division within the clans of the first peoples with outrageous wages to pick up artifacts  a lot ending up in the garbage bins of Australia.  All for loss for that mighty dollar.  It would make you sick.

Any way I am grateful we have some sort of film that depicts what the heck is going on in the country at the present with the Big Mining and the Big Gas Corporations here and overseas and the politicians who are feathering their own nests by the Stolenwealth of us all.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography - Dayne Pratzky