Dominic Feain
A new political party started recently to challenge the coal seam gas (CSG) industry is racing to get 500 members necessary to make today’s registration deadline.
Four months out from the federal election, the Stop CSG Party caused a buzz across social media sites over the weekend as people tried to determine if the party was legitimate.
Organisers responded to inquiries from Echonetdaily this morning confirming the party’s legitimacy and asked people concerned about the spread of the CSG industry to join.
One party organiser, Ahri Tallon, a 21-year-old former Lismore school student who founded the Northern Rivers Youth Environmental Society, said the party still needed 300 members to get over the line today.
Now living in north Queensland, the prominent environmental campaigner has been one of the coordinators of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition in NSW and Queensland, as well as establishing an alliance comprising trade unions and environmental organisations to advocate for sustainability education .
He said the Stop CSG party was being formed by a group of regional, rural and metropolitan Australians concerned about the impacts of unconventional gas mining.
‘I have been inspired while working in north Queensland and seeing the massive destruction of Curtis Island for the LNG gas plant, and the rapid growth of CSG in farming lands,’ he said.
‘We think CSG can be raised as a really big issue this election and hope that the CSG party can help make this happen.’
Mr Tallon said the party was not aligned with any other political party. The group’s website (www.stopcsgparty.org.au) lists the party’s key and only objective as to ‘work to protect communities and farmlands from invasive coal seam gas, tight gas, shale gas and other forms of unconventional gas mining’.
‘We think coal seam and other unconventional gas mining is one of the most important issues facing Australia today, and it should be discussed in this year’s federal election,’ Mr Tallon said.
The party is yet to decide where to direct preferences but will do so after assessment of other parties’ policies on CSG and unconventional gas production.
Mr Tallon said new members didn’t have to do anything after joining and there was no membership fee.
‘CSG is a massive issue in Australia. There are a lot of people out there who are disenfranchised by the major parties and who will vote specifically for a party with a No CSG platform,’ he said.
‘By allowing people to do this we will add to the movement to bring about an end to the expansion of CSG and unconventional gas in Australia.’
The party aims to contest Senate seats and make Coal Seam Gas an election issue.
He added that being a member of a political party had no ramifications for one’s life or life choices.
‘If you ever want to join another political party you simply have to make sure you are not a member of another party when you join the next one’, he said.
Australian Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn, said the process for registering a political party took a minimum of three months.
‘If a party applies after Monday, May 13, their application for registration will not be processed in time for the party to be registered by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) for a 14 September election,’ he said.
The way I understand the preferecial voting system is, the lowest votes from a party means they get cancelled and then the second prefernce of those votes get passed onto that party so if the voter was normaly a liberal voter and they put libs 2nd preference thats where it goes. If they where normally a greens voter then it goes there. No Loss, the greens would just not get 4 cents per vote from a first prefernce vote. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, nothing lost… worth a shot