Many regions of the country are now facing one of the worst droughts on record.

Due to climate change we face more variable rainfall and more frequent, severe fires. Our agricultural productivity is under increasing pressure.

But coal and gas mines are still targeting many of our best food growing areas and precious water supplies.

Tell all your friends they should join you in choosing clean energy, clean water and clean air for New South Wales!

Join communities around Australia who are working to protect our land, water and air from risky coal and gas development.

Thank you for joining the Ballot Blitz! We'll be in touch soon on how you can collect votes from friends and colleagues in person, using hard copy forms.

But you can also get started right now, by joining the challenge online. Use the share buttons below to invite all your friends and family to cast their vote today.

If you want the online votes that you generate to be attributed to you in our public leaderboard, then you must click the ‘Share and Tally’ button below.

By using that button, you’ll be in the running for all our great prizes!

If you want to share the referendum, but don’t want to be part of the public challenge and leaderboard, and don’t want to be in the running for prizes, then just click ‘Share Only’.

Carving up food lands for coal transport in Central Queensland.

In March 2014, Lock the Gate Alliance released a new report that reveals a Queensland Government proposal to declare a State Development Area (GBSDA) across 2 million hectares in Central Queensland, to facilitate coal rail developments, would lead to major flooding and significant loss of food-producing land.

The declaration of a State Development area will mean that the Queensland Coordinator General can compulsorily acquire any farmers land, against their wishes, across 2 million hectares of land. 

Our drinking water, our rivers and even our World Heritage areas are threatened by longwall coal mining in the greater Sydney region.

The agency that manages Sydney’s drinking water catchment sees longwall coal mining as one of the biggest threats to our water supply.

NSW’s Chief Scientist said that our catchment is the only publicly owned drinking water catchment in the world where coal mining is allowed.

A 2016 poll found that 84% of people in NSW want farmland, water and environment protected from coal mining and CSG.

But the Government is still giving the tick to coal mining in Sydney’s water catchment.

It’s time that Premier Berejiklian declared Sydney's drinking water catchment a no-go zone for coal and coal seam gas mining.

The map of coal mines beneath Sydney’s water...

Surrounding our vital reservoirs, are the Special Areas, usually kept clean and untouched, to act as natural filtration systems - except for longwall coal mining.

These dams shown above provide 20% of Sydney’s water. Swamps and rivulets currently provide water even during dry times to these dams - until they’re cracked forever from below.

#1. APPIN COAL MINE
Flammable methane leaking through Nepean River due to riverbed cracks caused by nearby longwall coal mining.

#2. METROPOLITAN COAL (PEABODY) MINE
Undermining Woronora Catchment
The once pristine waterway, Waratah Rivulet, in the Woronora Catchment Special Area which flows into Woronora Dam, was cracked and drained by mining in 2006.

#3. RUSSELL VALE COAL MINE
Undermining Cataract Catchment
WaterNSW was scathing about Wollongong Coal’s Russell Vale expansion plan: “The estimated water loss of 7.3 million litres per day is unacceptable, particularly during dry periods.”

#4. DENDROBRIUM COAL MINE
Undermining Cordeaux Catchment
Sept 2016 catchment inspection revealed newly cracked and drained creeks and dry wetlands. WaterNSW objected to a proposal lodged by Illawarra Coal, saying the risks to the Sydney water supply are “unacceptably high.” Recently, Professor Jim Galvin has warned of “potential permanent consequences for the Sydney Drinking Water Catchment Metropolitan Special Area.” A Department of Planning report has revealed that precious rainfall that should be feeding Sydney's dams and drinking water supply is being drawn into polluted mining voids underground.

New South Wales CSG - Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project
Posted by Danny Adams · May 02, 2018 10:30 AM

Queensland Shale Gas Fracking - Fraser Coast
Posted by Danny Adams · May 02, 2018 9:30 AM

South Australia - Limestone Coast Gas Fracking
Posted by Boudicca Cerese · May 02, 2018 9:00 AM

Australia Under Threat from Coal and Gas
Posted by Danny Adams ·

Switch your power away from CSG and fracking
Posted by Boudicca Cerese · August 22, 2017 12:00 PM

MINING'S TOXIC LEGACY
Posted by Danny Adams · May 06, 2016 11:21 AM

QLD: South East Queensland Coal Mines
Posted by Boudicca Cerese · May 01, 2018 1:36 PM

New South Wales: Namoi Valley Coal Mines
Posted by Boudicca Cerese · April 30, 2018 12:00 PM

NSW: Coal mining in Sydney's water catchment
Posted by Boudicca Cerese · April 30, 2018 11:57 AM

Check out these pages for more detailed information about coal and gas campaigns right around Australia:

Gasfields- State and regional unconventional gas campaigns

Coalmines- Local and regional coal campaigns in NSW and Queensland

Statewide campaigns to protect land and water

National- Australia-wide mining and gas campaigns

Australia’s electricity sector is the nation’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Gas power generation is promoted by the gas industry as a transition fuel, yet research is putting that myth to rest. Rapid advances and falling costs in renewable power and storage technologies means that a secure, dependable, cost effective power system can now be achieved without gas.

Download PDF version of fact sheet here

During unconventional gas production, methane is released into the atmosphere from leakage and venting.

This methane leakage and venting is often referred to as fugitive emissions and occurs as a result of leakage from well heads, pipelines and infrastructure, and through deliberate venting and flaring of gas.

Download PDF version of fact sheet here.

Groundwater impacts of coal mining in the Galilee Basin

The Draining the Lifeblood report [PDF 4MB], and updated estimates of cumulative water impacts, raise alarm bells about the potentially devastating impacts on groundwater resources from 9 proposed new 'mega' coal mines in the Galilee Basin, Central Queensland.  This report is the first to attempt an assessment of the likely cumulative impacts of all 9 mine proposals.

The report was released in September 2013 and new estimates of groundwater impacts have since been provided to the regulator. 

The coal seam gas (CSG) export industry in Australia is causing gas prices to rise.

The construction of three CSG export plants in Queensland will allow CSG miners to export their gas and obtain much higher prices paid by the world market[1].

This means domestic prices will rise to match the world price[2]. The increase in your gas bill in 2015 as a result of CSG exports will be up up to $162 per year for a household and $625 per year for a small business[3]. Further increases are likely beyond 2016. 

Right now in Australia, power companies such as AGL, Origin and Energy Australia are all investing their money in coal seam gas mining and unconventional gas fracking.

However, you don’t have to get your power from these suppliers!

There are other energy retailers who provide low cost alternatives and are stronger supporters of renewable energy. Switching to one of these will mean you're  supporting a company who invests in renewable energy sources. 

Bishops, wine-makers, livestock producers and conservationists have penned a joint letter to NSW Premier Mike Baird calling on him to protect our common home from a coal mining industry that is out of control.  You can read the full text of the joint letter here

Our common home, our farmland, rivers, villages and bushland are being torn up or ruined for coal mining. How long are coal affected communities expected to wait for the Government to do something to fix up coal mining? 

We've put an ad in Mike Baird's local paper, the Manly Daily, and want all of you to give him a call and add your voice to the push to reform coal mining and save our communities, landscapes and rural industries. Can you call him?