Story Chris Dobney Photo Jeff Dawson
CSG Free Community members paid a visit to federal Richmond MP Justine Elliot yesterday as part of their campaign to put CSG on the agenda in the federal election campaign.
But although she congratulated Lock the Gate ‘for all the great work they’ve done in highlighting our community’s concerns about harmful coal seam gas mining’ and said she would ‘continue to work… to make the north coast CSG free’, Ms Elliot drew the line at federal intervention.
‘I still believe that the quickest way for this to happen is for the NSW state government to immediately declare our region CSG free,’ she said.
‘It is the NSW state government that regulates and licenses the CSG industry and they have the power to fix this today.’
CSG activists have pointed out that there are precedents, such as the Fraser Island sand mining campaign, for the federal government to intervene over the heads of state governments. But neither major party at a federal level has agreed to do so.