© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Greg Ray’s Writing

Wealth, power and justice

The 12-month jail sentence handed down last month to coal protester Eric Serge Herbert sent a chill of fear through activist circles. As it was intended to do. The sentencing magistrate, Janine Lacy, imposed the severe sentence after Herbert delayed a coal train in Newcastle for a few hours. His action was part of a campaign by Blockade Australia, a protest group to which he belongs. While Blockade Australia sponsored 20 anti-coal protests aimed at the major coal port over a period of 11 days, the state's police and court system responded with equal or greater…

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Read more about the article Adrift on the river of time

Adrift on the river of time

I wrote the column above in The Newcastle Herald back in February 2005. That's nearly 17 years ago, as the crow flies. I use that seemingly odd expression deliberately, since it seems to me that time moves like some rivers: sometimes running pell-mell in a straight line through tight canyons of circumstance, sometimes meandering gently through sun-kissed meadows and sometimes twisting and turning through unexpected rapids and past overhanging branches at such a rate that the only thing to remain in your memory after the hectic passage is a few blurry images and a sense of…

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Read more about the article You are being robbed and you should be angry

You are being robbed and you should be angry

October 31, 2021 Opinion by Greg Ray Pork-barrelling is theft, plain and simple. Every time politicians redirect money from programs meant to benefit people and communities that need it, pushing it instead into projects that benefit their electoral prospects, it is theft. We are used to calling it "pork-barrelling", which makes it sound harmlesss. But it's anything but harmless. It's corrosive, wasteful, dishonest, and unethical and it my opinion it ought to be a criminal offence. They say the term "pork barrelling" originated back in the 1700s when barrels of salted pork were allegedly provided as…

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