Chairman Alan Jones addresses the Brisbane CSG protest forum
More than 1100 angry protesters converged on Brisbane yesterday for a vigorous and public engagement over the impact of CSG and coal mining activity on their lives and the 80 percent of Queensland under potential challenge from mine development.
In one of the biggest CSG gatherings yet seen in Brisbane, protesters vented their spleen at CSG and open cut coal miners, as well as State and Federal Governments for allowing miners to progress their developments at breakneck pace, without due concern for local people or the environment.
Busloads of farmers from across Queensland and NSW were joined by a loose alliance of townsfolk living in small rural communities directly affected by mining activity, city-based environmentalists, minor party politicians and others.
A food security forum at Brisbane’s Convention Centre was followed by a march on Parliament House where protesters threw their hats down as a symbolic bushman’s gesture that they were up for a fight.
The group condemned the lack of action or support over the issue from either side of major party politics over what they see as high risk of contamination of underground aquifers and destruction of valuable farming and grazing land.
Farmer Lisa Leatherbarrow, from the Kerry Valley in the Scenic Rim district south of Brisbane, said farmers wanted city folk to listen to their concerns.
"Vote against the major parties, I say," she said. “Coal seam gas is the most important issue facing this State, and they don't want to talk about it."
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