Some of the seemingly surprising alliances crystallised by the Lock The Gate campaign against the impacts of Coal Seam Gas exploration on land use and communities were on display in today’s media, as Lock The Gate President (and long time Greens activist) Drew Hutton was greeted outside the Dalby Magistrates Court yesterday by Senator Bob Brown and Bob Katter.
In an earlier post on LP, I observed that we would be taking a stab at demystifying the debate around Wild Rivers next year. Also on our agenda is the vexed issue of CSG, which is another one that generates much emotion without necessarily being grounded in fact; that is – in the way in which it’s reported and the way in which it appears on the political agenda. Indeed, CSG is another case study of an issue where scientific claims are bandied around, regulation is at issue, and the state and cultures clash (in a much more meaningful way than in the faux-culture wars).
In this examination, we will be presenting research as well as value judgements.
It’s worth observing, at this stage, that it’s precisely political culture, and the politicisation of culture, at issue here. While I disagree with Guy Rundle’s claim that there is some sort of pre-modernist coalescence of interest between farmers and Greens (though conceding that there is an element of Romanticism at work), I think he is absolutely right to suggest that cultures which have their own relation to patterns of embedded behaviour close to the land clash with an entirely different relation to land, to its use and to its conception as an object of exploitation on the part of corporates, and to a degree, of the state.
There’s also the fact that in an urbanised economy, where political power has shifted to the city (and that includes the ‘burbs and exurbs as well as the dreaded elites), questions of rural land use, of the generation of energy, and of food production become somewhat disconnected from the everyday. Yet, in Australian culture, the deeply embedded cultural preference for a gate of one’s own, combined with – in the mindsets of some – an externalisation of ‘the environment’ as something ‘out there’ also plays into the way these issues are viewed.
So there is much here that really goes to the heart of how postmodern politics plays itself out with reference to life, cultures and communities that is only very bluntly captured by a modernist left-right frame. There’s another trajectory where the forms of protest pioneered by liberation movements in the 1960s, and embraced with gusto by greens in the 1970s and 1980s, meet both social media and older forms of collective and communicative action.
We will have much more to say on this, but I’d be very interested in people’s observations at this moment.
If there is any “premodernist coalition”, it surely derives of the alliance between the Labor right, pastoralists and mining companies that had Anna Bligh up and spinning for deregulated fracking again earlier this week.
Had hoped Bligh’s earlier faux on privatisation was an abherration, but apparently not…
On a micro level, the scuttlebutt out this way is that Drew Hutton is a possibility to run for the KAP in the seat of Warrego in the Qld State election. It is notionally super-safe LNP but an independent in 2001 pushed sitting MP Howard Hobbs to the wire.
That’s very interesting, Derek!
An extended examination of this issue is a very good project, Brian, as it is going to be bigger as people grasp the scale of proposed CSG extraction and the impact on the environment.
Even as you posted this the ‘Lock the Gate’ movement has indeed locked the gate only a few hours drive from where I reside. From yarning and browsing it appears to me that the landowners are entrenched and have gained skills, and some wins, after organising around coal mining and proposed gold and ruby mining in and around the eastern side of the Barrington plateau.
I think that some of the Greens get a bit theoretically over excited about the possibilities of organising with farmers and rural residing environmentalists. The Gloucester landowners are socially conservative and represent a lot of money in the local economy. They oppose fracking for good reasons to do with the environment and their environment but are unlikely, in my view, to take up other elements of the Green political program. Some might, most will not.
That said there are grounds for expecting significant issue specific coalitions to work well together. My daughter, along with a mob of other Sydney Uni greenies, is undertaking a tour of proposed fracking sites in NSW this summer to get an idea of what is at risk and what people’s views are. She’s used to the bush. Most of the others, many of whom I’ve met, aren’t so for them it is an exciting ‘getting to know the bush and people’ project. Goodwill counts.
Pardon me for being long winded. It’ll be a touch and go fight to stop this grindingly awful industry not least because of the money that the CSG companies will pay in royalties to some farmers. Hard to say no to big money. On the other hand anyone with any aesthetic sense at all, and that includes most bushies, reacts with repugnance to aerial photos of an industry that literally imposes itself like an industrial exoskeleton over vast swathes of the landscape. It looks ugly because it is just more rip and leave it extraction. It says ‘this is the end’ because after CSG mining it is the end.
Mark. Doh!
It shouldn’t seem surprising that politicians will find allies where they can on certain issues but party politics have been dominant for a long time.
I think this development is burstingly healthy and don’t forget Alan Jones is on the team too against CSG.
This could bring in a new era of tolerance towards differing ideologies.
Significant that Orica manufactures the very chemicals needed for the explosives used for fracking by the mining industry.
Yes, plenty of opportunity Salient Green. However, wariness re Alan Jones is recommended. He has a track record of strong opposition to certain industries that changes once he’s on the industrial payroll. His opposition to “the Toaster” on Circular Quay was adamant. But now he lives there. No more public protest after he did the corporate tango.
BTW: let me know via the mods if you’re up this way. Happy to act as a guide and provide transport around Barrington. Others can feel that the offer is inclusive. Big wilderness and water so good that I barrel it and bring it home.
My 2 Bobs(hehe) worth,
Practical, strategic and ethically consistant.
Good for them.
Well, all I can say is, this is not a new phenomenon. Enclosure, the drift to the cities and the overall destruction of rural lands and communities to service urban expansion must be a trend that has been observable for at leas 500 years (not here obviously). It has yet to be successfully resisted. I think Braudel has something to say on this …
akn @ 4, he’s Mark, I’m Brian.
Philomena @ 8, Orica’s sins may be many, but this may not be one of them. Gas companies are fond of saying that the gases they use may be found in supermarket products, so Orica may well have legitimate reasons for making them. There are many chemicals found in supermarket products that can kill you. Also you wouldn’t necessarily want them in your drinking water.
Qld has banned the use of BTEX in fracking, but I understand it is found in natural gas and can be released through fracking.
From memory there are 23 chemicals used in fracking but only 2 have been analysed in detail.
While we are on fracking, NSW has banned it for now as has France and some other authorities. At least one gas company says it is unnecessary.
I’m going to produce “Tell them to frack off” T shirts. Should make a fortune.
There are many variations.
“Go and frack yourself”
“CSG? No fracking way!”
Picture of dead cows in the field with the caption, “What the frack happened?”.
The possibilities are endless.
Warning noted re Jones akn and thanks for the offer. Will definitely take you up on that.
@13
How about “Frackly my dear I do give a damn”?
@ Patrickb I just attended the Agrifood Network’s annual conference, and as leading research network there is strong consensus around role of enclose & frequent referencing to Braudel.
What is new – or at least significantly increased – on the global scale is the financialisation of land and water assets; the nexus of energy / food / climate crisis and the resulting increased conflict over use & value of agricultural land and water.
Gah, enclosure (2nd line).
dear friends
i don’t know if you’ve heard of this but “the u.s. environmental protection agency may have linked fracking . . . to groundwater pollution for the first time”:- http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/12/08/bc-fracking-groundwater-epa.html
the agency, cautious, said: “the findings are specific to the pavillion area”
company spokesuit said: “there was much to question about the draft study”.
cbc says: “environmentalists welcomed the news of the epa report, calling it an important turning point in the fracking debate”
and “the finding could have a chilling effect in both canada and the u.s. where various levels of government are trying to determine how to regulate the controversial process”.
neat, eh?
yours sincerely
alfred venison
@ Philomena:
Frakking is bad enough without explosives. The csg crowd don’t use them.
Plenty of other stuff, yes.
Perforating plenty of aquifers, yes.
Spreading very large volumes of contaminated water around the countryside, yes.
Causing leaks of gas to atmosphere, yes.
Explosives… No. You are mistaken.
Lordy, I didn’t notice the word “explosives” @ 8. Orica certainly manufacture explosives for mining. Someone has to do it, and I understand it is their core business.
But John B is right. They don’t use explosives in fracking.
My initial concern about Coal Seam Gas was the depletion or contamination of our unique Artesian Basin, as well as contamination of the surface groundwater; especially pertinent since we are the driest continent on earth. Sitting in on the court case in Dalby on Wednesday against Drew Hutton, the true dimension of the imposition of CSG companies emerged. Not only can trusting individuals or families on blocks or properties be bullied into signing agreements, but the companies have absolute government backing, merely because the windfall of csg represents a unique opportunity for state budget-balancing. Seeing conservative farmers protesting for the first time in their lives, it is clear that they are fighting for survival – and the future of Australia. Let’s not rush the licences, let’s understand the implications of every aspect of csg, and let’s give the Australian farmers a “fair go”.
An alliance of farmers, Katter and the Greens against the miners, Labor and the LIBERALnational party should hardly be surprising. Environmentalism is the ultimate conservative value and something that concerns farmers as well as the Greens. Mining has changed from something that created communities in the bush and provided opportunities for people who lived there to something where most of the miners are fly/drive in and spend little in communities where they are based. In addition, even without the aquifer issues, CSG disturbs a lot of area for little return compared with most other forms of mining.
From a politician’s point of view modern miners no longer registered voters in bush electorates or even the state where the mine is. This means bush politicians no longer have much to gain from supporting miners or their jobs.
While farmers are conservative in many ways they are also more inclined to support government services than city based neoliberal parties.
The growing alliance between country voters, the Greens and Katter is no surprise to me.
Given the absolute stubborness of neo liberals on so many issues, pertaining to real rationality, John D’s post assumes more importance. I seem to recall a report from a couple of weeks ago suggesting that Windsor had vitually to hold a gun at the government’s head to ensure even basic safeguards.
Am I the only person here who has followed labor’s progress (regress)on enviro over thirty or forty years, since Lake Pedder and the Franklin, with bafflement?
the science was already up in basic form on so many issues and the economic ramifications for failure to act were already dimly understood, even back then.
And no, am not a Tory, they were always obsessive grifters. But Labor, with its modernist sensibility, zietgeist and non profit oriented approach to social action, how has it been such a disappointment?
How did the likes of Jack Mundy, let alone 5 million scientists, get duck-shoved aside for dull consciousless factional hacks, careerists and grafters?
The minimum policy requirement that many familiar with the down side of coal seam gas will be looking for in this next Qld election is for a moratorium on any coal seam gas activity & for this new industry to be introduced only after being fully researched.
Both of the major parties in Qld have to this point refused to consider any moratorium. There will be many who will be looking to mark number one beside a party or independent candidate who does offer a moratorium; the parties who at this stage have this as a policy are Katter’s Australian Party, The Greens & The Queensland Party.