Residents of the Inner West Sydney community, and many suburbs beyond to Penrith, lost a great activist for social and environmental justice, write Adrienne Shilling and Peter Hehir.
Campaigns against coal seam gas
Pip Hinman writes that a damning report by a New South Wales parliamentary committee into the regulation of the coal seam gas industry has found the state government failed to enforce the Chief Scientist's recommendations to ensure the industry’s practices are made safe.
Green Left Weekly sponsored a public forum on May 28 on the future of the campaign for climate action following the win by the Coalition government in the May 18 federal election.
Marie Flood, from Stop Coal Seam Gas (CSG) Sydney and the Knitting Nannas, denounced the "big push" by the Murdoch press and the fossil fuel lobby for a rapid increase in coal mining and CSG production after the election.
About 60 anti-coal seam gas campaigners gathered outside NSW parliament on May 7 to greet newly-elected MPs with a clear message: stop Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project in the state’s north west.
AGL CEO Andrew Vesey likes to paint himself as a sort of “greenie” who is shifting the company in the right direction in these “carbon constrained” times.
About 200 people protested #DirtyAGL outside its AGM in Sydney on September 28.
AGL claims to be "green" but it is Australia's Number 1 fossil fuel polluter, owning three of Australia's most polluting coal fired power stations. It also runs NSW's major unconventional gas plant in Camden, south west Sydney.
Apex Energy, in a joint venture with Ormil Energy (later Magnum Gas and Power), obtained a licence in 2011 to explore for coal seam gas (CSG) in the Illawarra, south of Sydney.
Almost immediately a group of concerned locals came together to stop the project — and Stop CSG Illawarra was formed.
Five years later, as Apex Energy exits the scene, rather anti-climactically, it is apparent the community has won and the environment and greater Sydney's drinking water are safe from this threat.
Activists from Stop CSG Sydney and the Australian Student Environment Network toured the AGL Camden CSG gasfields on April 17 to see for themselves how close gas wells are to homes. AGL has promised to end gas mining in Camden by 2023. Residents want them shut down now.
The NSW government has said that gas wells cannot be drilled within two kilometres of homes, but it is happy for Landcom, the government's own developer, to sell house and land packages within a few hundred metres of major gasfields.
Anti-coal seam gas (CSG) activists took direct action on March 2 to prevent Transpacific Waste Water from accepting waste water from AGL's coal seam gas operations in Camden.
Members of the Knitting Nannas Against AGL, CSG Free Western Sydney, Stop CSG Sydney, Stop CSG Penrith, Stop CSG Camden, Stop CSG Blue Mountains and Stop CSG Hawkesbury showed their concern about Transpacific's handling of AGL’s waste water by blockading their trucks.
The Labor-dominated Newcastle council has defied pressure from unions and senior ALP figures to rescind moves to investigate moving a $270 million investment portfolio away from banks that fund ‘‘socially and environmentally’’ harmful projects and industry.
Labor’s Cr Declan Clausen, who moved the original motion, said it was not against the coal industry or coal jobs, but a symbolic move in support of ‘‘different jobs for the future’’ and a shift to renewables and a clean energy industry.
A Greens Bill to protect NSW from the invasive coal seam gas industry failed in the Legislative Council by just three votes — 16 to 19 — on August 13.
The Liberal National Coalition and Shooters and Fishers Party voted to protect the unconventional gas industry, while repeating the lie that it could co-exist with agriculture and pristine water catchments.
Activists are hoping that a bill to tighten the rules governing unconventional gas exploration and production in New South Wales will pass the Legislative Council on August 13.
Such is the groundswell of opposition to this part of the fossil fuel industry, a Greens Bill has support from NSW Labor and a couple of small right-wing parties.
Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham told Green Left Weekly that he expects the Bill to pass, with amendments proposed by Labor.
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