Yes, that is our concern Snags – we are urging for a moratorium over this activity until we get better statistics and information. It is all very well to say it can be regulated, but this is going to be difficult if the regulators don’t know what to look for. They tell us it has been going on in the Cooper Basin (tight gas extraction) for about 40 years and since this is one of the most studied areas of Australia (due to desert wildlife etc) we should already know what the outcomes will be. But the Cooper basin is sedimentary and here we have a very deep igneous outflow over the top of these deposits, so the game is not the same. This recent TPP that Abbott is blithely signing under the urging of big business further limits our ability to engage with the issue. Meanwhile Tassies GMO-free, clean green food source market goes down the drain. I guess we should be accustomed to short-sighted policy, but it still irks …
If there is any lobbying etc that you think will help Hillbilly Girl. I have a small property just out of Scottsdale that I am soon to start building on, so happy to add my voice to the issue. Let us know when the meeting in November is and I will try to attend as I will be in Tassie next month.
Thanks Nadjill – fortunately for you you seem to be just outside the zone of the existing exploration permit for Overseas Holdings. Any lobbying of ministers or local politicians, based on sound commonsense and science is welcome!! We need them to recognise the idiocy of such an approach in tasmania of all places (let alone elsewhere). It’s fine if you want to deny climate change (you will learn you’re wrong soon enough) but to perpetuate our dependence on fossil fuels is such short-sighted planning given we have clearly already exceeded Peak Oil.
Well, the company has simply written to objectors advising them their properties have been excised from the exploration area which leaves us with not a leg to stand on in terms of imposing conditions on exploration (which includes fracking at the latter stages as well as seismic exploration in the middle phases). So we are not happy chappies at present. We will continue our education program among the communities and local governments and hopefully gradually close off larger sections of the exploration by community participation. If we ever get a sign printed off, as we are having a bit of a power struggle with the people who are supposed to be our allies.
