#59: Engagement Theatre

60 Reasons to Protest: Reason #59 – Engagement Theatre

It’s been now more than 1,000 days (1,005 to be precise) since the new flight path architecture launched and started to inflict misery on families and communities across 226 suburbs of Greater Brisbane who now find themselves stuck in BAC’s noise sewer. Two and a half years of excessive noise pollution, of deceit and lies by corporate executives, of buck passing by sham-regulators who admit in Senate Estimates that they are mere “service providers” to the aviation industry cartel, and a federal transport minister who adds insult to injury.

One key tactic that the national aviation industry cartel uses to win time, make more profits and grind us down is “engagement theatre.” We are being asked to spend our own time and energy (for free) on lodging complaints that go nowhere, writing submissions that get ignored, attending consultation workshops that have no impact, joining sham-forums that have no authority. First we had BACACG, the ANO, then BAPAF, then TRAX, then the PIR workshops, and now AAB. Airservices have also yesterday released the 2023 priorities for their “Brisbane Noise Action Plan,” which come out of their Final PIR Report. We have translated the engagement theatre lingo into plain-speaking for you (see table below) – and the priority actions can be summed up with one word: TALKFEST.

BFPCA has blown the whistle on BAC and Airservices’ engagement theatre since we started: in our submission to the ANO back in 2021 and in subsequent submissions, newsletter articles and social media posts. This one is worth highlighting:

“Schiphol-BAC’s perverted tactics revealed”

Back in August 2021, Rachelle Verdel published her Masters research thesis at Utrecht University. It is worth a read if you want to understand BAC’s doctrine using Schiphol’s playbook of engagement theatre and social engineering to try to break any resistance against their Aerotropolis cult vision. Verdel (2021) argues:

“… at the heart of the efforts of Schiphol’s social engineering techniques is the notion of ‘inclusionary control’ [which] is about creating pseudo-participatory bureaucratic forums that promise reform and influence in decision-making. In the case of Schiphol, this is reflected in the [Schiphol Environmental Council], which was set up by the state and created to allow stakeholders to participate in discussions and decisions about the developments of Schiphol. It is an inclusive path to potential reforms that, although they never materialize … can convince people to wait before taking more radical action.”

Verdel, R. (2021). In the shadow of the corporate state: An ethnographic study of the shifting dynamics of the corporate state in the vicinity of Schiphol Airport (the Netherlands) through the exploration of counter-citizenship [Masters Thesis, Utrecht University].

Sounds familiar? If you had enough of BAC and Airservices’ engagement theatre, register for the BFPCA protest: https://bfpca.org.au/protest/