“This is going to be the biggest environmental campaign this country has ever seen,” Drew Hutton, acting president of the Lock the Gate Alliance, told a rally of several hundred people outside the Sofitel Hotel on May 31.
He was addressing the crowd outside a major conference of the coal seam gas (CSG) industry.
“The coal seam gas sector and governments are hungry for cash, and are quite willing to tear up our countryside to get it. Every part of the country will be affected,” he said.
“The Lock the Gate campaign has launched a process of non-cooperation. We will not comply with new laws to let the CSG cover up its attack on the environment.”
Libby Connors from the Greens told the rally: “The CSG industry are the real extremists, not us. They want to destroy our water resources on the driest continent on the planet.”
Ewan Saunders from Socialist Alliance said: “This country is run by the big corporations, who have been given a green light by governments to trash our environment.”
He urged protesters to join a new CSG Action Group, being established in Brisbane to support the campaign against CSG mining.
For more information, visit www.lockthegate.org.au.