PROTESTER GRAFFITI THE ART OF HYPOCRISY

OPPONENTS of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine blundered into a public relations black hole when they decided to deface Bruce Highway landmarks with crude, spray- painted, antiAdani graffiti this week.

Artist James Ellis from Bowen took it upon himself to cover the graffiti up with murals of his own design.

He painted a kangaroo over a defaced boulder near Euri Creek just north of Bowen and a laid- back figure over a water tank on Salisbury Plans Station near the Abbot Point turn- off that had been given the spray- paint treatment.

The Guthalungra toilet block also got sprayed by protesters.

Most people are tolerant and will usually put up with a lot of stuff they don’t necessarily agree with.

The right to peacefully protest in this country is sacrosanct, but when you start defacing the natural landscape and highway landmarks with spray- painted slogans that are ugly and badly drawn, you cross an invisible line.

Isn’t this the direct opposite of what people who profess to love the environment should be doing?

Protesters from Canberra and Sydney who are in Bowen are so precious about pointing out to police and the Adani people that they are “trespassing” on Juru tribal land, but then they go and spray paint over the Juru’s boulders.

I don’t get it. Juru elder Aunty Carol Prior, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the protesters on the Abbot Point road last week, should be publicly denouncing this sort of vandalism.

After all, this is the country of her ancestors. The boulders give the Bowen landscape its harshness and its wild beauty.

Defacing them is a no- no.