Community group Lock the Gate has expressed its deep regret after Western Australia’s McGowan Labor Government lifted the fracking moratorium in the state, and replaced it with very limited protection for a few small areas.

Central Queensland graziers already battling the twin threats of Adani and a crippling drought have been dealt yet another blow with the approval by the Queensland Government of the water hungry mega mine, China Stone.

Copies of more than 500 letters written by Wide Bay farmers, business owners and concerned locals were yesterday (Nov 22) handed to Blue Energy executives and Queensland Government officials as part of a campaign to stop gasfields being developed in the region.

Lock the Gate Alliance has welcomed the NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party's statement that it supports a ban on coal seam gas “anywhere water supply could be threatened” and the party’s promise to support the state opposition’s Coal Seam and Other Unconventional Gas Moratorium Bill 2015 if it is brought forward in parliamentary business tomorrow, the last sitting day before the NSW state election next year.

North West NSW residents already under siege from the twin threats of drought and increased coal mining have been dealt yet another blow, according to community group Lock the Gate.