Headline: It’s time to Get Free
It is time to get reinspired as a nation.
To feel proud again of those things that have made our country the coolest little country on earth.
And to remember how it was that we got our country that way. It wasn’t by sitting on our arses!
A Call to Action was mooted amongst groups working to defend our country from risky fossil fuel expansion. Then some people loved and respected were asked if they might be part of that call.
They were phoned and emailed and one after another – people said yes and often with great enthusiasm.
We asked doctors, academics, musicians, activists and entrepreneurs.
When we thanked writer/poet Albert Wendt for his participation he said “I feel honoured to be a small part of something I believe in.”
Maria Tyrrell, the daughter of Captain Alan Tyrrell of the frigate Otago which sailed in protest against French nuclear testing at Mururoa in 1973, joined the call. She said of the right to protest that she understood how important it was, and that her father was very proud of his role in the Mururoa mission.
Dr George Laking – Oncologist at Auckland hospital – made a powerful statement about the need to speak up given that “climate change was now the greatest threat to human health this century”.
Like many of us, Sam Neill was outraged at the ban on protest at sea and found his way to a studio in Sydney to record his section of the TV clip and call to action. Lady Blake and Lucy Lawless similarly sent their parts from afar.
Singer Warren Maxwell both joined the statement and when we asked if he would contribute his song Home Land and Sea, to the clip, he said, “this is the kind of thing that song was written for, so yes.”
These are the stores of but a few of those 24 participants in the call. All of whom went out of their way to stand up for the values and integrity of this country.
Here is what they said….
—
