Summary
An extended version of the campaign video highlighting the impact of mining giant Glencore Xstrata’s drive in and drive out policy on the local community of Collinsville in North Queensland, which impacts on local employment, schools, business and retail.
This version starts with punters on the street saying they’ve never heard of Glencore, when in fact it is one of the world’s richest mining companies. Over shots of Glencore’s corporate offices, the presenter tells us that for 40 years the company has operated in some of the world’s most unstable and corrupt countries to exploit their resources. Accompanied by library footage, the voice over highlights the company’s breaching of the UN Apartheid embargo in South Africa, its alliance with para-military units in Colombia who executed villagers standing in the way of the company’s zinc-copper mines, to which a jailed para-military hitman attests to in an interview clip.
In Zambia the company poisoned the drinking water and avoided taxes, which is followed by an interview in which Glencore CEO Ivan Glasonberg declines to wash his hands with some bottled contaminated water. In the Congo, the company has been accused of profiting from child labour. And now Glencore is targeting an Australian mining community, where 400 local miners have been sacked and replaced by drive in drive out workers. The same punters on the street voice their disagreement with such tactics. The presenter states, “Glencore Xstrata has picked Collinsville as the first major industrial showdown under Tony Abbott, the Patrick’s of the outback. They know if they can pick off the 400 workers in Collinsville, it will roll back community standards across the country, destroying the civilized industrial relations that Australians have always been proud of.”
Special Notes/Achievements
Author: J Bird, 2023