I am ready to go to jail to stop Adani and save our beloved country. Do you want to stay with me? | Richard Flanagan | Business

I grew up in an isolated mining town. I know the difficulties. I saw the tragedy. One of my first memories is that a whole city stopped for the funeral of a minor, family after family on the main street, a people grieved.

And when politicians talk about worrying about minors, I do not believe a word they say.

If they were concerned, would not they advocate ending black lung disease, an industrial disease of the 19th century is now back, because of dangerous working conditions, to kill minors Australians in the 21st century?

If they do not care, they will not talk about the increasing casualization and stripping of coal mines, supported by the Morrison government?

And if they do not care, do not they wonder if Adani is a suitable company to employ Australian miners? Adani, a friend of the worker who, during the construction of his gigantic Shantigram luxury estate in India, housed workers in conditions so terrible that there had been 15 recorded outbreaks of cholera.

Put a high-visibility jacket on this corpse and say you're still working for miners in Queensland, Scott.

But then, Adani's long-term goal is not to employ minors in pitiful conditions and to grant laws to his released colleagues could legislate.

As the CEO of Adani Mining said in 2016: "When we hang the mine, everything will be autonomous, from mine to port. It is the mine of the future. This is true: Adani's ambition is ultimately that his mine is made up of robots. Not a miner, not a driller, not a driver in sight.

Thus, the 10,000 jobs promised, or 1,462 jobs, will disappear as fog while Adani buys more and more robots.

But that's not all. Wood Mackenzie modeling shows that if coal mining in the Galilee Basin, led by Adani, continues, coal production in older, less efficient Australian coal mines will decrease significantly and many jobs in the coal mining will disappear. The new Adani mine will simply steal jobs from the old mines.

Jabber jobs, jobs, jobs, in a helmet does not change these truths. That does not make a politician just dinkum. This makes him a liar clown who sells each coalmaker for another bite to the fossil fuel industry bosses.

Australian mining communities deserve better. They deserve the truth. They need a responsible transition plan, not lies and deceptions.

Because the Adani mine does not help the miners. This is not to help Clermont, Mackay or Northern Queensland. This is certainly not to help the poor of India.

This happens because of one thing: greed.

And this greed controls our politics. How can Scott Morrison claim to be interested in climate change while his political survival now rests on an agreement with Clive Palmer, a man whose grand coal mine Galilee Basin depends on the lifting of Adani? What did Scott Morrison promise to Palmer? The Liberal platform is nothing more than a pile of smoldering coal.

Forty-one years ago, I had just kayaked in a beautiful gorge of the Franklin River, called Irenabyss. The Franklin had to be contained and, even if there was opposition to these roadblocks, no one I knew thought it was possible to defeat the almighty state and the federal governments, which at the time were resolved to build them.

The throat is open in a small pond. On board, there was a beach. I went there by kayak and a skinny man came out of the rainforest. And there, on the edge of this beautiful, doomed river, I met Bob Brown.

I asked Bob when he really thought the river could be saved. His answer was revealing. I think, he said, that there is hope.

And that's what I learned from Bob Brown. The battle for this river lasted another four years. Governments come and go. At each stage, it seemed like we had lost, and yet we could not see that at each stop we were getting stronger. Thousands of people have gone to jail for the largest act of civil disobedience in Australian history.

In the end, the government spent countless millions of dollars buying heavy machinery in this isolated rainforest to destroy as much as possible to make this dam inevitable. And at the very last moment, the high court ruled that the dam could not go from the front.

I am here today to say that there is hope. Let the Franklin flow and Adani be arrested. These things happen because at one point, enough people say that there are things that matter more than politics or money. There is no power on this earth that can withstand an idea whose time has come.

I will not waste your time today repeating the many facts with which you are already aware, just to say one thing: the IPCC said last October that we had 12 years left to contain climate change, that is, decarbonize our economy so that the temperature drops. does not increase more than half a degree from what it is today. If large-scale measures are not taken now, the IPCC warned that we would face a global warming disaster.

More than six months of these twelve years have already pbaded without significant national or international action. Our emissions continue to increase. And that's why it's an unprecedented crisis. According to current trends, much of Australia will simply become uninhabitable. And what will remain livable, it will be the small groups of our country.

We will not have the means to generate the food we need, the wealth we are used to. The most recent science suggests that up to a million species in the world where we depend for our food and clean water are being destroyed, that the vital systems of the planet are entering a danger zone. This is not science fiction. This is not a Netflix series. This is what the greatest scientists in the world tell us.

The moment to believe that it is a problem that can be solved by stealing less or not eating meat has long pbaded. The solution will not be about personal choices. It will be a political change – and can only concern this one.

And this change will not happen because of a messianic leader. It will not happen because of this party or that party. This will only happen if we wish and if we realize it. We only have to blame ourselves and we only have to turn ourselves to save ourselves.

It is very important to know who you are voting for this election. And after May 18, it is even more important to put pressure on the winner to recognize that this crisis is not a problem. It is the problem.

The drying out of Australia is the problem. The problem is that of the collapse of our fisheries. The probability of not having enough water to support our population is the problem. The threat of more and more mega-fires is the problem. The decline of our agriculture is the issue. The inability of our infrastructure to cope with ever larger floods and more frequent cyclones is the problem. The sea arises. The death of our rivers, the death of the Great Barrier Reef, the death of the tropical rainforests of Tasmania is the question. The problem is the dry wheat belt. If our destiny as a species is not the problem, what is it then?

And that's why Adani has become the symbol of why our country is broken. That is why the fight against Adani is a struggle for the soul of our country.

I know that many of you may feel that you do not have the power, skills, or abilities you need. In the face of the climate change crisis, it's all too easy to feel helpless, to feel that the problem is beyond your powers or perhaps that no one can influence.

Perhaps the most serious problem we face is not climate change, but the myth of our own powerlessness. We believe that only the most powerful – politicians, businesses – can change our world. As a result, we are very desperate about our future because we see no hope for any politician or business.

But this is not the case.

Because the only thing that will save us is us. Half of the carbon in the atmosphere has been put in place by us over the past 30 years. And now we have 11 years and a half to reverse this disastrous act.

It is the moment to act and it is up to us to act. Because there is nobody else there and there is no other time.

And if our politicians continue to err and deceive us, if after May 18 we end up with a government that does not want to act, and if we have more than our bodies to oppose this mine, s & We have to put our flesh between past and future, between the bulldozers and the earth, if it is a blockade of the Adani site, then I will be one. And if it means being arrested and going to jail, I will go to jail.

And my question for you today is: are you going?

Will you stay with me, will you go to jail with me to stop this mine and save our future? Because if you want, I ask you to raise your hand.

I tell you this: we will win.

The Franklin was more than a river. Adani is more than a mine. This gathering, you are part of the river of hope that crosses our country, our beloved country, and it is a river that can not be bought, which can neither be barred nor poisoned, which can not be bought or sold. And every day, this river becomes bigger and stronger.

And I have hope. Why? Because 41 years ago, I met a man who refused to give up hope and directed a movement with such moral clarity that the river is still flowing. And 41 years later, I stand before you, with this same man, to say that hope is never lost.

Never. Never. Never.

This is a revised version of a speech delivered at the anti-Adani rally in Canberra on May 5