Today's announcement of the state government's strategic cropping land legislation has no good news for most farmers.

The legislation has all the weaknesses of previous discussion papers. These include:

• failure to include coal seam gas a an activity prohibited on cropping land criteria like a maximum slope that will exclude much good cropping land as well as excellent beef cattle country like Wandoan
• no mention of buffers so that we could be left with a patchwork of paddocks surrounded by open cut coal mines failure to stop projects that are already well into the planning stage.

"This legislation is aimed at persuading the people of Queensland that the government actually cares about protecting good agricultural land when actually, it will be lucky to stop more than one coal mine.

There has been a major gas blowout at Arrow Energy's Daandine field 25 kilometres west of Dalby, The incident occurred yesterday at about 9 a.m. but was not reported to the landowner until 2 p.m.

The gas and water spewed 100 metres into the air and is currently at 40 metres.

This is the fourth time such an incident has happened on Tom O'Connor's property and he is reportedly very angry.

3,000 people marched through the streets at Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales on Saturday 14 May calling for the gate to be locked on the coal and coal seam gas industries right around the country.

The Lock the Gate Alliance has renewed calls to ban hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') in the coal seam gas industry in the light of a recent study in the US into the quality of drinking water that is in close proximity to gas wells.

The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that the methane, which was the same type as that being extracted from hundreds of metres underground, was present at dangerous levels in nearby tap water. They concluded that this gas was finding its way into aquifers from which drinking water supplies were obtained.

The Acting President of the national Lock the Gate Alliance Drew Hutton has given warning that the direct action seen in Queensland in recent weeks against the coal seam gas industry will be used in New South Wales if the O'Farrell Government maintains its support for coal and coal seam gas mining in the Gloucester region.

Mr Hutton, has been visiting parts of New South Wales in the last few days, including Gloucester where he met with representatives of local community groups and explained that a number of communities in Queensland had "locked the gate" on mining companies – Felton, Gowrie Junction, Scenic Rim, Kingaroy and Drillham, just to name a few – and the Western Downs Alliance had recently blockaded an attempt by QGC to bring a gas pipeline onto a residential estate near Tara to connect up several gas wells.

"This is the sort of action communities take when governments fail them," Mr Hutton said.