Saving the Reef by Rohan Lloyd

Author:Rohan Lloyd [Lloyd, Rohan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

8

The Black Ban

On 5 January 1970, as the oil rig the Navigator approached Reef waters, Labor senator George Georges announced that the Transport Workers Union and affiliates would impose a black ban on any ship or rig intending to drill in Repulse Bay.1 The Repulse Bay plans had been foiled.

The black ban was celebrated in the media. The Australian published Georges’s telegram to JAPEX, Ampol and the owners of the Navigator, which warned: ‘I intend to launch a campaign to declare the vessel black and to withhold service of labor [sic] and essential goods for its operation.’2 Georges announced that ‘militant action’ was necessitated by the failure of both governments ‘to take action to ban drilling’. According to Patricia Clare, ‘people of all political opinions came together to cheer’.3 Queensland Labor politician Doug Sherrington declared that ‘anything that will save the reef will have my whole-hearted support, particularly if it comes from the trade union movement’.4

In its editorial about the ban, The Australian stated:

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