On Saturday, June 15, the day the Illawarra’s wind zone was declared, Good for the Gong founder Sean Moran was celebrating a “good thing for the environment” but also focused on healing the rift in the community, possibly over a beer.

Sean has not met anyone from Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter), but he’d like to.

“We have a bit of back and forth online,” he said. “I haven’t met anyone in person. I’d actually like to sit down – you know, at the pub, over a coffee or something – and chat to some of the members.

“I know there’s people opposed to this that are very reasonable and I think we share a lot of the same ideals.

“I care deeply about the environment and everyone I’ve spoken to in Good for the Gong does too. So I think we actually have some common ground around that stuff.

“There’s been a large-scale disinformation campaign, driven by various factors and I think that sitting down and having a face-to-face offline discussion would be good.

“It’s so easy to get behind the keyboard. I found myself doing it a bit too and getting agitated. It’s very different when you meet someone face-to-face.”

On Monday, Responsible Future's media spokesperson, Alex O'Brien, told the Flame that while the group opposed wind turbines in the Illawarra, he did not want to see the “tribalisation of our communities”.

“That's not what the Illawarra is," Alex said. "We're a great group of diverse people that have enjoyed that coastline and, you know, we should be looking at ways to heal the community, not further divide it.”

Sean said he’d be open to meeting Responsible Future’s leaders. “I would actually, because I think one of the big things when we started with Good for the Gong was we were seeing division in the community. It’s a small, tight-knit community and I think one of the things we actively want to avoid, if it’s not too late, is that division.

“Trying to bring people back together, finding common ground would be good.”

Sean spoke to the Flame after a tour of the BlueScope’s steelworks, where Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen called a press conference to officially declare the renewable energy zone (REZ) last Saturday.

“We think this is a great thing,” Sean said. ”We think that the community wants it. We’ve spoken to hundreds and hundreds of people in the community – online, offline – and we think this is a great thing for doing our part on climate change.

“We are really looking forward to holding the government and developers to account through the environmental assessment process, making sure that there’s community benefits and jobs for the region.”

A Bulli local, Sean works as an environmental engineer (in a field entirely unrelated to offshore wind) and volunteers with the Red Cross. He started the Good for the Gong Facebook group in October 2023 and, while running it does take time, he said it’s less work than flying solo.

“Before Good for Gong, I was spending a lot more time just keyboard warrior-ing it up in my own time,” Sean said. “And it was having quite a negative effect on me and my personal life, taking energy. I’m finding I’m enjoying it a lot more and it’s actually taking less energy now than it was before we started.

“We’ve seen a real shift in the narrative around offshore wind in the community since creating the group. And we’ve turned it from what was quite a toxic discussion with a lot of disinformation to something that’s a lot more science and evidence-based … and kind, actually. I think we’ve been able to change the nature of the discussion. We feel good about that.”

Sean created the Facebook group with the support of a core group of friends. “We were probably about 15 or 20 of us who saw what was going on in the community, especially around the disinformation and the toxic nature of the discussion and said, we want to change this and we want to make sure that we’re doing something about climate change, and for the community.”

Like opponents of offshore wind who have stepped off Facebook to start Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter), Good for the Gong has morphed into an association and members also meet in real life.

“We see ourselves as being here for the long haul,” Sean said. “This will be a long, drawn-out process and today’s just one of the first phases of that. We just want to formalise our process and being a legitimate legal entity, it helps us if we are doing the little fundraising that we do.”

Good for the Gong is a public Facebook group with 1.4K members that’s had about 70 posts in the past month. Its no.1 rule is: “Be kind and courteous.” Sean is one of five volunteer admins who all spend a few hours a week keeping an eye on the chats.

“One of the rules of our Facebook group is that that kind and courteous discussion is fundamental. If people aren’t willing to engage on that level, we’ve asked people to leave. We haven’t had to do that to too many people actually, with numbers in the tens of people that we’ve actually banned or blocked from our group.

“We’ve got so many people contributing a lot of good stuff. It sort of just ticks along on its own. I think people know the expectations and understand what’s expected of them when they engage on our page.”

With the Illawarra’s long history of coal mining and difficult years ahead for the ‘sunset industries’, Good for the Gong is not only concerned about safeguarding the sea.

Sean said: “We’d like to see stronger environmental protections across the board for all developments, not just for offshore wind.

“We’d like to see a stronger Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, that would ensure that all developments – like mining, like offshore wind – have stronger environmental standards.”

To wrap up an eventful Saturday on June 21, Good for the Gong supporters gathered at Thirroul Beach for a photo shoot, holding signs including “Clean Energy – Good for the Gong” and “Renewable Energy is Climate Action”.

“It feels like the day of celebration for us,” Sean said.

“We’ve been working really hard to make sure that positive community voices are heard. And I think today’s a reflection of that. I’m looking forward to the area where I live being part of the action on climate change and protecting nature.”

For more views on the Illawarra's final wind zone, read about the federal government's announcement here, why protestors were happy to hear from the Nationals here, an opinion piece by UOW's Michelle Voyer and Ty Christopher here and how Wollongong's young people delivered a symbolic surfboard to the Climate Change Minister here.