The Byron Shire Council will this week discuss urging NSW premier Mike Baird to declare the northern rivers gasfield free.
A motion from councillor Duncan Dey will also call on the premier to revoke all petroleum exploration licences in the region.
Cr Dey will put his motion forward at the Byron council meeting on Thursday.
He said the suspension of mining company Metgasco’s licence to drill at Bentley outside Lismore was only temporary.
‘So it is still very important to show the full strength of community passion and support this motion,’ he said.
The move follows a similar decision by the Ballina Shire Council recently.
Ballina also voted to write to the premier demanding that the area be declared gasfield free.
Metgasco’s licence suspension was announced last month and has resulted in the company initiating legal action against the state government.
The NSW Office of Coal Seam Gas had given the company until last Friday to provide further information on its community consultation process.
Instead, the company said the decision was not authorised by legislation and that it lacked procedural fairness.
It has previously said that the minister’s decision caused the company’s share price to drop by 40 per cent and that the suspension could cost the company $3 million.
Great to see, but I fear that local government’s power will be limited in the face of Big Gas $’s and economics driven state and Federal governments.
They keep fluffing on about the Minister’s announcement of a suspension of Metgasco’s Bentley licence as being pivotal in Metgasco’s share price woes, but those of us who’ve been fighting Metgasco’s rapacious grab for Northern Rivers prime land have noted the shares doing a nose dive for many months prior to Minister Baird’s most welcome announcement, as have Metgasco shareholders.
Metgasco is not welcome here. Whole scale resident surveys demonstrating that were completed so long ago they’re already local history. Metgasco has had its sorry tail drooping behind its rear for a good long while. That the politicians have finally stepped up to the plate, some (thank you to those who actually represent their electorate, you know who you are) having long been supportive of a CSG-Free NR, but others long overdue and only when they see no real alternative for their pitiful electioneering (you know who you are, too, and so do we), is simply a sweetener, which delivers the Northern Rivers’ nail in Metgasco’s coffin that much more decisively.
Bentley stands as a wonderful example of what people power can achieve. The people power of this region has been ignited, and nought that Metgasco can pull out of its suspect bag on tricks will see that company deliver their toxic industry here.
It would be great if Byron Shire joined with Tweed Shire (which is about to install Gasfield Free signs as long as it gets approved by a majority of Councillors) and the wonderfully led Lismore Shire. Greater numbers and voices talk louder.