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Foreign gas companies extract and send all of our gas offshore leaving none for us
Labor and Liberal ignore creating a Reserve Resource Policy
In media reports today, the Prime Minister said the revelations are “very concerning” and he’ll be holding an urgent meeting of chief executives of east coast gas companies to find out, “how they plan to address this threat to their customers.”
Katter prepares Resource Reserve policy bill to keep gas for domestic use
KAP Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter will be introducing into Parliament a Bill to enact a Reserve Resource Policy, (a policy where some of the gas is kept for Australians).
Mr Katter said, “We’ve already instructed the Parliamentary Draftsman to move on the Bill.
“We will be having discussions with a number of key players in the industry. We feel that there are at least three Government Members who will stand up on this issue.
“Almost every fertiliser producing country on earth (di-ammonium phosphate) has a Reserve Resource Policy. They get the ammonia (natural gas) for three or four dollars but Australian fertiliser companies are paying nearly 15 dollars.
“We have a steel industry with threatened closure, copper refineries closing, aluminium expansions abandoned, nickel refineries closed.
“And the Government’s answer is to call a meeting with Mr Foreign Gas Corporation? ‘Oh please, can you please give us some of our gas?’ We won’t be asking – we will be telling them!
“We will see if any of the LNP Members have the guts to stand up for Australian industry and Australian workers or if they’re going to be a bunch of cowards.
“The PM’s bleating is humiliating for all of ‘we Australians’ putting the begging-bowl out to giant foreign gas corporations who are not there to provide security of supply. They are there to maximise profits from the gas that we gave them for virtually nothing.
“It sure would be nice if an LNP person stood up on Economic Sovereignty where some of them will die in the ditches on social policy. It sure would be nice if they would show the same commitment on Economic Sovereignty and the morality of selling all of our resources to foreign corporations so that the southern states are left shivering in winter and the north swelters in summer. Neither can afford to pay the prices that gas owners (all foreign corporations) are charging Australians for their own gas.
“Huey Long, the 40th Governor of Louisiana was the most popular politician in human history. He introduced a Reserve Resource Policy on Louisiana’s gas so the people of the Louisiana were entitled to that gas for no more than the cost of production.
“In Qld under the much maligned Bjelke-Petersen Government, we had a Reserve Resource Policy. The bulk of Qld’s electricity came from overburdened coal which the Government took for free under a Reserve Resource Policy. Qld had the cheapest electricity in the world and we were the biggest mineral processing state on earth: aluminium, nickel, zinc, copper…
“Now Qld is on the National Grid and pays National Competition Policy prices and so we suffer the second highest electricity prices in the world.
“Successive governments have brought us to this impasse: no manufacturing, no mineral processing, and some of the highest electricity prices in the world.
“Pensioners can have a feed or turn the lights on; but they can’t do both. That’s of course when you can get the electricity to turn on. It will become increasingly unreliable.
“As Minister (in the QLD Government), we kept a 30 per cent spending reserve in electricity. We had transmission lines that enabled the 30 per cent reserve in almost every part of the state. We had absolute security of supply. We could lose six of our 22 major generating units and not a have single light out in Qld.
“Under national competition policy there is no guarantee of supply on the grid. Prices have gone up 300 per cent in 15 years. In the 30 years prior to that, prices only went up a little over 30.”
Protect your water and property from the ravages of Coal Seam Gas mining
Ignore the NSW Liberal/National Party policies that will put you in jail for seven years if you protest against any mining activity even on your own freehold land(Deed of Grant in fee simple). This policy of the NSW Liberal/National Party Corporation only applies to a ‘’thing’. Their corporate policies are gender neutral and do not apply to a living human being. Toss out the NSW party duopoly at the election and replace them with independents and smaller parties. It is working extremely well in Queensland where two Katters Australia Party members and an independent control the excesses of the Labor Government. Bob Katter is the only Australian politician who has ever stood up to the foreign owned CSG mining companies. He has a bill on the table in Federal Parliament for an immediate moratorium on CSG, awaiting support from other members. Unfortunately the CSG companies own the Australian Liberal/National Party, ‘lock, stock and barrel.’ Do not be misled by the lies of the Labor Party. They too wholly support CSG companies, particularly in Queensland where it is a policy platform. The Greens have been in the senate for a decade or more and have not introduced a bill to stop CSG. They too are false prophets with their noses in the trough.
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Local Communities Fight Back!A social movement is sweeping the nation.
Communities are coming together to fight for their way of life and protect their health, their environment and their future… And they’re having FUN!
All around Australia people are getting involved in the fight against gas mining at the local level. Some communities are even achieving big wins against these mining giants! People are going door to door and surveying their own communities in a grassroots democracy process. More than 360 communities have declared themselves Gasfield Free. They’re not waiting for their governments, they’re doing it for themselves! And don’t believe for a moment that this only applies to rural communities – Sydney’s Drinking Water Catchment is also under coal and gas licenses. Nothing is safe. So – do you know what could happen to your local community?
I hope to see you at future events. Thanks for standing with us, Annie Kia – Community Engagement Coordinator p.s. We can’t do this alone – we’d love to have your help! |
| Lock the Gate Alliance · PO Box 6285, Sth Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia |
Study finds waste water from CSG fracking causes cancer
Here’s The New Study The Fracking Industry Doesn’t Want You To See
TOPICS: Claire BernishFrackingToxins – FEBRUARY 17, 2016
Though fracking industry proponents scoff at any intimation their so-called vital industry poses even scant risks to the public, a new study published in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology just proved those critics right — fracking wastewater causes cancer.
Using human bronchial epithelial cells, which are commonly used to measure the carcinogenesis of toxicants, researchers confirmed fracking flowback water from the Marcellus Shale caused the formation of malignancies.
After conducting further tests on live mammalian subjects, researchers found five of six mice “injected with cells transformed from well water treatments developed tumors as early as 3 months after injection,” including a tumor in one mouse that grew to over 1 cm in size in just five months. A control group did not develop any tumors for the six months of the study period.
According to the study, performed by scientists from the Department of Environmental Medicine, as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmaceutical at New York University, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers, and esteemed partners from universities in China — results indicate fracking flowback water causes cancer.
Implications of the report’s findings would be difficult to overstate considering how fracking wastewater is generated, stored, and treated, and how often spills, leaks — and even the wastewater injection process, itself — can lead to contamination of the potable supply. A concise but thorough explanation of the fracking process can be found in the introduction to the report, “Malignant human cell transformation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling flow back water,” which states:
Natural gas is believed to possibly be a bridge to transitioning from coal dependence. Currently natural gas fuels nearly 40% of the U.S. electricity generation, and the Marcellus Shale formation in the Appalachian Basin is on the forefront of gas-shale drilling for natural gas production in the United States. Mining natural gas is not new, but the volume has soared in recent years because the new technique of high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF). The concern surrounding the environmental, public health, and social impacts of this method has increased accordingly. HVHHF is an advanced technology that injects water, sand, and other ingredients at very high pressure vertically into a well about 6000 to 10,000 feet deep. The high pressure creates fractures in the rock that extend out as far as 1000 ft away from the well. The pressure is reduced after the fractures are created, which allows water from the well to return to the surface, also known as flow back water [or flowback]. The flow back water contains complex proprietary chemical mixtures, but also naturally occurring toxins such as metals, volatile organics, and radioactive compounds that are destabilized during gas extraction. On average, 5.5 million gallons of water is used … to hydraulically fracture each shale gas well, and 30% to 70% of the volume returns as flow back water.
Read this full story [HERE]
AGL gas company, the LNP’s major financial backer pulls out of Australia
CSG opponents claim a scalp, but battle far from over, says Katter
6 February 2016: Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter said today that coal seam gas opponents had claimed a ‘scalp’ in their ongoing war against CSG – as AGL Energy this week made a decision to cease its coal seam gas operations in Australia.
Mr Katter paid tribute to the tireless individuals who had fought against coal seam gas projects – from radio personalities, to Lock the Gate, to farmers, to knitting Nannas – but said the battle was far from over.
“Just this week I had a meeting with Dr David Pascoe and his wife Heather about this very issue – as early as four or five years ago they told me the issue of coal seam gas was so serious and so frightening it had the potential to redefine the political landscape of Australia.
“So we pay tribute to all of these people in having a very small win, but a win nonetheless.
“The CSG industry has treated land owners – and I don’t just mean farmers – but land owners of Queensland with absolute contempt.
“They have jeopardised the water supply for vast areas of Queensland – and all for an industry that does not give two bob to the Australian economy.
“We have always been proudly a mining state but coal seam gas has, and is, seriously damaging the mining industry.
“When the construction and development phase is over the industry comes back to 2500 jobs, and almost its entire $25,000 million a year income will then line the pockets of rich foreign CSG giants,” Mr Katter said.
Mr Katter has constantly warned of the potentially catastrophic social and economic costs of coal seam gas aquifer drilling which threatens to contaminate our waters and the lifeblood of Australia’s agricultural industries.
In 2013 Mr Katter introduced laws to place a temporary suspension on aquifer drilling for coal seam gas extraction.
Lock The Gate and residents campaign a win for NSW and Gloucester
Many people in the Gloucester community had been campaigning for years to stop the proposed 330-well development AGL had proposed.
Panoramic view of Gloucester to be riddled with 300 CSG wells now defunct
Gloucester Mayor John Rosenbaum said he believed the company had made the right decision.
“Our community overwhelmingly will be ecstatic about this,” he said.
“The uncertainty around this industry has always been frightening to us.”
AGL had previously said its Gloucester Gas Project had the potential to supply more than 15 per cent of NSW’s gas needs.
It was proposing up to 110 gas wells and associated infrastructure for the first stage of its gas field development, and a 15 megawatt gas-fired electricity plant. ABC News
Lock The Gate member celebrate ALG withdrawal
Huge unstoppable methane gas leak in storage facility creates state of emergency for California
By Claire Bernish, Activist Post
81,000 metric tonnes of methane released since October 23 and growing by the hour
Attempts to plug the 1000 feet deep well leak failed
What contingency plans do Australian gas companies have for a similar catastrophe?
https://www.edf.org/embed/methane-counters
California Governor Jerry Brown finally declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, concerning the ongoing, currently unstoppable methane gas leak spewing from Aliso Canyon that has created a nightmare for residents of Porter Ranch.
“I will tell you, this goes well beyond Porter Ranch. We’ve had complaints from as far as Chatsworth, Northridge, and Granada Hills,” emphasized Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander during a Porter Ranch town hall meeting on December 28. “Apparently this plume of toxic chemicals and whatever it might be, doesn’t know zip codes […] This is the equivalent of the BP oil spill on land, in a populated community.”
Aliso Canyon sits less than two and a half miles from Porter Ranch and less than 30 miles from the city of Los Angeles — the second most populous city in the United States — whose outlying total statistical area includes nearly 18 million residents, as of 2013.
Brown has been widely criticized for lack of decisive action on the leak, which is erupting from its underground storage area with all the force “of a volcano.” Under Wednesday’s declaration, “all state agencies will utilize state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough state response to this incident.”
Porter Ranch residents have been evacuating the area for some time, though SoCalGas’ rather maladroit handling of the relocation procedure has been a nightmare — and the cause for a mounting number of lawsuits, including one from the L.A. city attorney’s office.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a civil lawsuit last month concerning the massive methane leak’s impact on area residents’ health and damage to the environment — which alleged failure by SoCalGas to prevent the leak and further exacerbation of “the effects of that failure by allowing acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than a month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future.”
Pediatrician Dr. Richard Kang gave an ominous warning during the Porter Ranch meeting, saying, “Unfortunately, the only real way to get away from the symptoms is… you have to relocate — you have to get away from the environment.” Health complaints include severe headaches, nosebleeds, respiratory issues including increasing cases of asthma, and a number of other issues.
SoCalGas, in the meantime, stated they were “providing air filters for people’s homes,” but though “the odor added to the leaking gas can cause symptoms for some, the gas is not toxic and county health officials have said the leak does not pose a long-term health risk.”
But, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported on December 25, “Los Angeles County health officials said prolonged exposure to trace chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens, can cause long-term health effects.” Nevertheless, they also “cautioned that levels examined so far here are not believed to be associated with long-term health problems.”
The gas company says, ‘This is just the smell you’re reacting to, it’s just temporary, it’s not a problem, it’s not serious’ — these people aren’t stupid,” said attorney Rex Paris. “How could somebody possibly say that? We have children whose noses are bleeding every day, we have people who suffer from chronic headaches [and] are nauseous every, single day. How does that not become a serious issue? Why are they saying something nobody here believes? […] They’re trying to convince everybody that it’s all in our heads. It’s a trick.
In fact, as Erin Brockovich pointed out, “no one really knows the long-term side effects of benzene and radon, the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.”
Additionally, area house pets seem particularly vulnerable — possibly acting the part of unwitting canaries — as veterinarian Dr. David Smith described in the town hall meeting. Noting he has seen dozens of sickened animals, Smith said, “I’ve seen dogs, cats, birds, pocket pets… the primary symptoms I’ve seen are gastrointestinal vomiting […]These are not things you should be inhaling.” He added, “We have seen dermatological issues as well, some very unusual bacterial infections in dogs,” including one case in which a dog had such an infection on its face, and “the client developed almost the exact same kind of symptoms soon after that […] their physician thinks it’s related [to exposure from the gas leak] and so I tend to think these correlations are real.”
Though the declaration of emergency states “the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources shall continue its prohibition against Southern California Gas Company injecting any gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility,” it does not make that moratorium dependent on stoppage of the leak; rather, only “until a comprehensive review, utilizing independent experts […] is completed.”
Physician Dr. Brooks Michaels, addressing the town hall meeting, gave the sternest advice to those still in the area surrounding the unprecedented leak:
If you have a chance to leave, if you’re able to leave… if you have a chance to relocate, do it now. I’m telling you, it’s really critical.
Understandably, Brown’s state of emergency seems almost too little, too late for many.
You can watch the Porter Ranch town hall meeting here:
Is Nathan Tinkler digging Malcolm Turnbull’s political grave?
Malcolm Turnbull PM
by Harry Palmer
Ignoring a decade of Hunter Valley farmers in their plight to halt coal mining and gas fracking of prime agricultural land, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull now is at the coal face himself.
His family farm lies under clouds of dust driven by prevailing winds 5 kilometres from Nathan Tinkler’s open cut venture at the underground Dartbrook coal mine, which is of great concern to the township of Aberdeen, next door to the mine.
Malcolm advocates the mining of prime food bowl agricultural lands, but those driving the opposition are wealthy horse stud breeders also backed by our ever arrogant Prime Minister.
We will be following this battle front with interest comparing the plight of neighbouring Liverpool Plains farmers under siege from coal mining operations protected by government legislation. Many of those farmers have been prosecuted for trying to protect their properties.
Election now looms through a contrived fog of media polls, drowning out that distinct stench of political corruption and previously tolerated arrogance, now being challenged.
‘King Malcolm’ now sits upon a throne of thorns. Will he legislate or will he capitulate?
Death and disaster has befallen farmers as a result of government support of invasive coal and gas mining.
Independent internet outlets are now dwarfing establishment media, and have presented the Vaucluse farming PM with a political cross roads.
What do you think he will do?
Senator Nash a national disgrace
A NATIONAL DISGRACE: FIONA NASH SHOWS US EXACTLY HOW MUCH THE NATIONS POLITICIANS RESPECT OUR FARMERS
Senator Fiona Nash – a national disgrace
In this video clip below you can clearly see the Rural Health Minister Senator Fiona Nash laughing and talking with total disrespect while Senator Glen Lazarus makes his heartbreaking statement of condolences about George Bender in Federal Parliament.
So we would like to ask Senator Nash a couple of hard questions.
“Rest In Peace George Bender” picture by Anne Thompson
Why were you laughing and chatting, socialising and generally sucking your teeth at a solemn moment like this, Senator Nash? You obviously didn’t care a damn for George Bender, or anything he stood for – or anything he had suffered in his dreadful death.””
Secondly, we would like to ask you why you deliberately and carefully voted against Glen Lazarus’s Motion to have a Royal Commission into CSG?
Apart from behaving like a total disgrace, you are the Rural Health Minister, for God’s sake. Don’t you have a shred of compassion or care for the people you are supposed to represent?
This video show it all Senator – you are a disgrace
Clearly, you are another ambitious political flake without a shred of human decency. Nobody – and we repeat, nobody – has the right to behave with such disrespect when so many people right across rural Australia are grieving for a giant of a man who died of a broken heart, tortured to his own death by the cruel brutality of coal seam gas companies.
We hereby call for the immediate resignation of Senator Fiona Nash
by Dr David Pascoe BVSc PhD
Published by www.sosnews.org
Katter calls on Dick Smith to lead third force in Australian politics
Dick Smith and Bob Katter
Dick Smith is considering leading an informal alliance of the Federal Cross-Benchers consisting of independent members of the House of Representatives and Senate after being approach by Federal Member for Kennedy and KAP Leader Bob Katter this week.
Why would even rusted-on, brainless Liberal, Labor and National voters support this?
Some of Australia’s best black soil farming country soon to be mined by a foreign mining company – compliments of the ALP/LNP oil and gas company nexus.
No Nationals left anywhere, just Liberals in Akubras
Cattle producers protest against coal seam gas with cow manure at Lismore
Katters Australia Party presents CSG Moratorium Bills to State and Federal parliament, but the not-so-bright farmers of the Condamine, Toowoomba and Nanango electorates still voted for the LNP
They are beyond help!
By Kim Honan
Updated yesterday at 10:10amFri 13 Mar 2015, 10:10am
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Farmers dump cow manure on the footpath outside the office of Lismore MP Thomas George. (Kim Honan)
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A group of farmers in northern New South Wales have dumped manure outside the office of their local Nationals’ MP.
They wanted to express to the Member for Lismore Thomas George their outrage about the coal seam gas industry.
Iron Pot Creek vegetable and cattle producer Peter Stackhouse was one of the farmers that joined the protest.
“There’s 85 to 98 per cent of people who don’t like coal seam gas or don’t want to be industrialised but the Nationals just plan to roll it out on top of everyone.”
“I’m concerned that the Nationals plan to go full steam ahead and turn the whole place into a gas field,” he said.
“I don’t like that where I am and most of the region don’t like it.
“We’re sick of the total disregard for everyone in the Northern Rivers.”
I strongly feel that the Nationals’ have abandoned the country people. I’m not voting for them anymore.
Anne Thompson, cattle producer, Eltham
Eltham cattle producer Anne Thompson is very familiar with the footpath she is protesting on, every Thursday afternoon she joins a group called ‘Knitting Nannas’ there.
“But today I’m wearing my farming hat, my akubra, because we farmers are strongly protesting with a bag of bullshit actually,” she laughed.
“We’re sick and tired of the bullshit that we’re getting.”
Ms Thompson said that she had voted for the National Party for the last 35 years.
“But now I strongly feel that the Nationals have abandoned the country people. I’m not voting for them anymore,” she said.
“Certainly while they hold this policy of fracking the countryside and forgetting about the food producing areas.”
Bentley cattle farmer Gordon Serone said he does not believe the National Party is doing anything to support rural Australia.
“We really don’t want a gas field in our backyard,” he said.
He said he was concerned about the amount of processed food Australia imported.
“We don’t package beetroot, apricots, pineapple, a whole lot of things that we used to package that are packaged overseas,” he said.
“The berries that come from Chile to China to New Zealand to Australia that brought hepatitis A, why aren’t we producing all those things in Australia?
This whole issue has been a concern with me… Everyone’s yelling in this debate, but no-one has been listening.
Thomas George, State Member for Lismore
“They’re supporting big multi-national companies that just want to exploit the country and pack it up and ship it off to China as coal and iron ore and gas.”
The Member for Lismore Thomas George was not in his office at the time of the protest but gave an interview to local media later in the day where he said he was listening to the community.
“This whole issue has been a concern with me,” he said.
Audio: Member for Lismore Thomas George responds to cow manure protest (ABC Rural)
“I’ve lived here all my life, and if people don’t believe that I’ve had a concern about this issue, (they) have not lived and understood and heard what I’ve been saying, and that is the trouble.
“Everyone’s yelling in this debate, but no-one has been listening.”
Cairns News 