10.36 am, Thursday May 24 2012

Protest, blockade against gas miner

16:25 AEDT Sun Mar 6 2011
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Michael Bretherick says he moved to Tara Estates for peace and tranquility, a good place for those with modest means to raise a family, but now finds it threatened by coal seam gas (CSG) exploration.

Mr Bretherick and others living in the rural residential community 250km southwest of Brisbane plan to mount of blockade to prevent the Queensland Gas Corporation (QGC) running a pipeline into the estate ahead of a concentrated drilling program.

Tara residents and their supporters plan to launch their blockade with a demonstration outside the Queensland parliament on Monday.

Mr Bretherick told AAP he and others started to fight back against the British Gas-owned QGC after being "eloquently bullied" and threatened with police action.

He said QGC was drilling for gas under the guise of providing fuel for the domestic market using a "tick the box" approval process when it actually planned to produce gas for export, which has a much more stringent approval process, including consultation with landholders.

Community action was necessary because gas bores would affect the whole community, Mr Bretherick said.

"On 30-acre (12-hectare) blocks which are only 200 metres wide, no matter what you in do in here, you impact everybody," Mr Bretherick said.

"The impacts can't be contained in here. If someone does it next door to here, we cop it."

Mr Bretherick said the Tara Estates protesters would be supported by environmentalists, church and social justice groups, farmers who had already launched their own "Lock the Gate" campaign against coal seam gas miners, property rights advocates, eco-warriors and the Greens.

They will non-violently block a planned QGC pipeline crossing Wieambilla (Wieambilla) Road from its Kenya gas field into the Tara Estates, he says.

The disruption to the lives of owners of small blocks could tip public opinion against the whole CSG industry, he warns.

Other CSG companies were also concerned by the pipeline plan, he said.

"They're going to shoot themselves in the foot with this one.

"For us, losing is just not an option."

He said the gas bores would destroy the area's tranquility, affect residents' health and render their land unsaleable.

"We have nothing to lose whatsoever by standing up to these people and everything to lose by not standing up to them," he said.

"We're stuck here, so we have a choice: we can roll over and let them walk all over us, take away what we've got and pollute us ... or we stand up and fight."

Friends of the Earth organiser Drew Hutton said both city and country people would support the protest and the blockade, starting on March 14 at Tara.

"We're not going to let them on the estate," Mr Hutton said.

"We are going to provide a model of resistance for every other community in the country that's threatened by coal seam gas."

Mr Bretherick said many had called it a David and Goliath fight, but that only gave him confidence.

"Look at who won that one," he said.

Monday's "Hands off Tara" protest will start at midday (AEDT) outside the Queensland Parliament.

 

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