Lock the Gate Alliance says that today's revelations today that Martin Ferguson has been pushed by the energy industry to increase surveillance of environmental activists, is more evidence that the fossil fuel sector  is really running Australia.

"Once again the federal government has demonstrated it exists for the convenience of the fossil fuel sectors.  It is prepared to criminalise those constituents  standing up for clean air, clean food and clean water because the almighty dollar is deemed more important than the health of well-being of Australian communities," said Jacinta Green, Vice President of Lock the Gate Alliance.

Tough restrictions on wind farms announced by the New South Wales government should also apply to coal seam gas and coal.

The restrictions announced by NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard give a veto to anyone living within a 2 kilometre radius of a proposed wind farm.

Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said it was illogical to apply these restrictions to wind farms when the environmental and health impacts of coal mining and coal seam gas extraction were, potentially, so much greater.

The report by the US Environmental Protection Agency linking the practice of hydraulic fracturing (or 'fracking') will send shivers through the Australian coal seam gas industry.

The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath a Wyoming community where residents say their well water smells of chemicals.

Fracking involves pumping millions of litres of water and sand and thousands of litres of chemicals under very high pressures into the coal seam in order to better release the gas trapped in that seam.

The decision by coal mining company NuCoal to abandon plans to mine on the property of blind Hunter Valley farmer, Ian Moore, is the first major victory for the Lock the Gate campaign.

Mr Moore had locked his gate on the company Doyles Creeks Mining which was later purchased by NuCoal. The company then took Mr Moore to a government-appointed arbitrator who upheld the company's right to drill on the property.

Mr Moore then appealed to the Land and Environment Court which imposed much tougher restrictions on NuCoal but still upheld their right to enter the property.

A spontaneous blockade has been imposed on coal seam gas company AGL outside the Hunter Valley town of Gloucester.

Local residents, alarmed at the entry of trucks carrying heavy equipment onto a local property where a coal seam gas rig was expected in the near future, scrambled to blockade the trucks.

Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said local community groups opposed to coal seam gas development in the Gloucester Valley were mounting the blockade.