Welcome lobby: Palestinian flags, gas tax signs – and another billboard banned at Adelaide Airport
Palestinian flags and free branded stubby holders saying beer is tapped higher than gas exports are the first things Labor delegates are seeing at the Adelaide Convention Centre. No one will see two more billboard protest ads banned by Adelaide Airport.
Thousands of Labour Party faithful are being met by dozens of protesters at Adelaide’s Convention Centre on Thursday morning.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association, Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are among the groups lining the entrance area with corflutes, flyers and stubby holders in their bid to lobby delegates.
However, more signs at Adelaide Airport are being removed after a Stop the Chop billboard was banned this week.
A billboard with two ads saying ‘Save the Murray Darling’ and another to ‘end native forest logging’ was being removed from a Sir Richard Williams Avenue billboard, a prominent spot that those arriving by plane in SA pass on the way to the three-day Labor conference.
The signs were organised by the Bob Brown Foundation and a cohort of the country’s Conservation Councils.
A spokesperson told InDaily “Adelaide Airport had not approved the two ads in question and both will be removed from our digital signage” and they would be removed on Wednesday afternoon.
It comes after airport management this week rejected a billboard from Adelaide Park Lands Association to ‘stop the chop’: referencing the local campaign against trees being removed for a redeveloped golf course and MotoGP track.
“The airport does not allow advertising on billboards or digital signage on its land that is political in nature,” an airport spokesperson said.
Environmental lobbyists from across the country are converging on the city today, as the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace representatives urge Labor to “save Scott Reef” and consider climate impacts from Woodside’s proposed gas project to drill at the WA site.
Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Piper Rollins, who joined protestors in Adelaide today, said 14 Australian environmental groups were behind the cause, and more than 70,000 Australians had made submissions to the federal minister to put a climate microscope on the project.
“In just four weeks, a whopping 70,000 Australians have asked Minister Watt to consider the climate impacts of Woodside’s proposed Browse gas drilling at the Scott Reef,” Rollins said.
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The largest cohort of protestors at the convention centre this morning were the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, scattered at various entry points handing out copies of an open letter to delegates.
The letter called for stronger action against Israel, including sanctions, an end to Australian military trade with Israel and clearer compliance with the International Criminal Court processes.
The group’s organiser said today was a smaller cohort, as they gear up for a larger protest on Saturday, the conference’s final day.
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