'No fracking way’ is the message thousands of demonstrators sent to politicans from Knox Park in Murwillumbah on Saturday. Despite invitations, the region’s government MPs did not attend. They are the National Party’s Thomas George in Lismore, Don Page in Ballina, Geoff Provest in Tweed, and federal Richmond MP Justine Elliot. Photo Jeff ‘Frick Frack’ Dawson

More than 3,000 people voiced their outrage against coal-seam gas (CSG) mining in Murwillumbah on Saturday at one of the biggest rallies ever seen in the Northern Rivers.

The controversial ‘fracking’ method used to extract underground gas by the CSG industry has tapped a raw nerve among the many protesters including farmers, families, environmentalists, Aboriginal elders, tourism operators, and blue and white collar workers who have united against what they see as the biggest threat to Australia’s environment.

A long colourful stream of protesters waving placards and chanting anti-CSG slogans stopped traffic as they snaked down the town’s CBD from Knox Park, spilling over onto the road from the pavement.

On return to the park they were addressed by a range of speakers including farmers and residents from the Northern Rivers and Queensland, where CSG mining has already started and sparked a huge campaign against it including a blockade of the construction of a CSG pipeline through a residential estate at Tara in central Queensland.

They heard how almost every council in the region has called for a moratorium on CSG mining which threatens to contaminate the country’s underground water table and its food producing capacity.

One voice, but few pollies

They were also told that evidence is growing in the US where it first began that CSG’s use of ‘fracking’ (fracturing rocks using chemical reactions) to extract gas from underground coal seams is a serious threat to aquifers.

A range of toxic chemicals, including some known carcinogens, are used in this process to release the gas.

The region’s three new government MPs, the National Party’s Thomas George in Lismore, Don Page in Ballina and Geoff Provest in Tweed, as well as federal Richmond MP Justine Elliot did not turn up to the rally despite being invited by organisers.

Their colleague in the seat of Clarence further south, Steve Cansdell, has already come out strongly in favour of CSG.

Organisers of the rally, the Northern Rivers Guardians (NRG) and Caldera Environment Centre, say the huge turnout on Saturday sent a strong and clear message to government and mining companies that the community is dead against this industry.

Spokesman Michael McNamara said the wide variety of community and industry groups ‘speaking with the one voice’ showed clearly the strong community concern with CSG mining.

Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham told the rally that the first thing he did on entering parliament this year was to introduce a Bill in the Upper House calling for a moratorium on all new gas exploration licences pending an inquiry.

Mr Buckingham, the Greens’ mining and resources spokesman, said governments ‘don’t want to know’ about the dangers of CSG to their ‘eternal shame’.

He said the industry has ‘really slipped through the cracks’ and not been dealt with properly in terms of regulation and legislation. The MLC said he would ‘fight tooth and nail’ against CSG mining altogether, ‘otherwise they will turn our most productiuve farmland into a Gasland.’

Countries act on CSG

This week, the French parliament voted to ban hydraulic fracturing or fracking in the shale-coal gas industry, while in South Africa last month, the government also announced a moratorium on fracking.

Byron Shire Council this week joined the other shires of Ballina and Tweed in calling for an immediate moratorium on CGS.

One of the keynote speakers at the rally was Queensland farmer Drew Hutton, the president of the newly-formed national Lock the Gate Alliance which is taking action to stop drilling for CSG in southern Queensland.

Mr Hutton said hundreds of farmers in the area where coal companies were actively exploring for CSG had joined the alliance and ‘locked the gate’ on mining company representatives wanting to explore or negotiate for drilling rights.

‘Tara will go into Australian history because people there will become heroes as they take up the struggle, because the precautionary principle had been totally misapplied with CSG mining.’

Mr Hutton was arrested by police at Tara a few weeks ago after sitting on a bulldozer during the blockade action.

Other speakers that addressed the crowd included Tweed canegrower Robert Quirk,  Tweed Combined Rural Industries Association president Col Brooks and Aboriginal spokesman Robert Williams.