Extinction Rebellion isn’t hurting Santos, only themselves | Caleb Bond

What these brainiacs don’t seem to realise is that Santos’s sponsorship of the TDU is the greatest green ruse of all time, writes Caleb Bond.

Why don’t we just leave these climate change nutters on the road when they decide to glue themselves down?

You made your bed. Lie in it. Or sit, or whatever is most comfortable when you’ve affixed yourself to bitumen.

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) types couldn’t get any more bizarre. Now they’re going to protest the Tour Down Under – a celebration of emission-free, healthy and cardio-intensive transport.

This great South Australian event is, you see, sponsored by the evil gas and oil company that is Santos.

You could argue that no business sponsors anything out of the goodness of its own heart. But Santos doesn’t gain all that much from sponsoring the TDU.

It might create some level of brand recognition, but it’s not like Santos is selling any product directly to the public. You can’t walk into the Santos shop. It sponsors events to give back to the community.

💥 BREAKING 💥

Rebels have glued themselves to a pile of bicycles chained together outside Santos HQ. A trail of fake oil has been poured from the building over the bicycle stack and onto rebels.

Fossil fuels are the new big tobacco. We want them dumped from the #TourDownUnder. pic.twitter.com/7W1qwwe5NF

— Extinction Rebellion Australia (@XRebellionAus) January 12, 2023

Eastbound lane of Flinders St in the CBD blocked off. Extinction Rebellion protesting outside the Santos building ahead of the Tour Down Under. @9NewsAdelpic.twitter.com/YxeJjfNibD

— Sam Mills (@BySamMills) January 12, 2023

But in the eyes of the blue-rinsers who have nothing better to do than protest, Santos money is dirty money.

The TDU should instead be seeking sponsorship from cleaner, greener companies. What these brainiacs don’t seem to realise is that Santos’s sponsorship of the TDU is the greatest green ruse of all time.

A gas and oil company willingly hands over large wads of money to the state government to help promote the biggest celebration of cycling in Australia.

That’s money Santos could have held on to and used to drill for more gas. Surely XR wouldn’t rather they used that money for exploration than advertising fossil-fuel-free transport?

The TDU does more than anything else in this country to promote cycling. Just you watch all the MAMILs getting out and about next week drinking coffees.

It gets people off their bums and on bike saddles. It makes kids want to take up cycling and perhaps ride their bike to school instead of getting mum to fire up the Land Cruiser.

This is seemingly what XR wants to interrupt. First they attached themselves to roads so cars could bank up behind them and needlessly spew emissions as they idled.

Riders at Tanunda during stage one of the Tour Down Under 2020. Picture: Brad Fleet

Now they want to stop people riding their bikes. Good going.

Santos last year pulled its sponsorship of the Darwin Festival – an arts event to which it had given money for some 30 years – because busybody artsy types started a group to lobby against them.

The Mike Cannon-Brookes and Simon Holmes à Courts of the world aren’t short of a dollar and could easily come in and gazump Santos’ sponsorship deal for the TDU if they wanted. And yet, as far as I can tell, they haven’t.

These activists need to be careful because goodwill for their causes is quickly drying up. XR in the UK has declared it will no longer perform disruptive and braindead protests, such as gluing themselves to motorways, because it isn’t working.

It’s just making people angry, which is turning them off the message. What a surprise.

The Australian arm, however, doesn’t seem to have such insight. And long may that continue. The more they carry on like pork chops, the more people will see them for what they are – crazy ideologues divorced from reality.