Lock the Gate Alliance condemns in the strongest terms possible NSW Chris Minns’ threats to grant coal seam gas company Santos permission to compulsorily acquire properties owned by landholders who oppose the company’s Hunter Gas Pipeline.
Premier Minns made the comment during an AWU conference earlier today.
NSW Unions have been strong supporters of Gomeroi Traditional Owners in their fight against Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project, issuing this scathing rebuke of Chris Minns’ support for the project only last month.
There is staunch opposition to the Hunter Gas Pipeline along huge sections of its route between Narrabri and Newcastle, with more than 100 impacted properties owners in the Hunter Valley alone opposed to its construction. Sixty-six percent of landholders along the entire HGP route have so far not agreed to host the pipeline on their land.
Liverpool Plains farmer John Hamparsum, whose property, including waterways and shallow aquifers, would be directly impacted by Santos’ Hunter Gas Pipeline, said, “It makes me angry to see the state government rubber stamping something just because they want it to go ahead.
“Santos has not even properly undertaken the negotiation process to get access to farms to survey to determine the final route they’d like the pipeline to take, yet Chris Minns is now talking about compulsory acquisition.
“Chris Minns is putting the cart before the horse - he’s not following due process and it’s his government’s own process, it’s the law.”
Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Carmel Flint said, “It's very disappointing to see Premier Chris Minns take the side of gas giant Santos against local farmers and Gomeroi Traditional owners who merely seek to protect land, water, and culture from dangerous gasfields and associated pipelines.
“Santos is the primary cause of Australia’s gas price hike because it has been siphoning our domestic gas and sending it to overseas markets the past ten years. Rewarding this company with more gasfields is contrary to the national interest and will do nothing to reduce energy prices.
“The Narrabri Gas Project and associated high pressure gas pipelines threaten precious groundwater resources that agricultural communities rely on. These projects would damage Gomeroi Cultural Heritage and important ecological sites in the mighty Pilliga Forest, and they would drive dangerous climate change through the extraction and burning of fossil gas.
“Renewable energy, backed up with battery storage, is the solution to NSW’s power needs. Opening new polluting coal seam gasfields is financially reckless and at odds with the need to urgently reduce the burning of fossil fuels.”
ENDS
Background: The process of compulsory acquisition is not straightforward, and would require Santos to explain in detail how it had attempted to convince the landholder to accept the pipeline, at which point the responsible minister would then need to review the information and make a decision.