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Fracking fracas a test for SA Libs

Mar 30, 2015
People from the South East took their anti-fracking protest to Parliament last August.

People from the South East took their anti-fracking protest to Parliament last August.

As the Prime Minister’s plane skidded onto the runway of Mount Gambier’s airport earlier this month, he might have taken comfort in the fact that he had just touched down in what is nominally some of the safest Liberal territory in the nation.

But during his brief visit to the South East, Mr Abbott came face-to-face with local protestors who oppose unconventional gas extraction or ‘fracking’ ever taking place in the region. Notably, among those who have been protesting are farmers who are worried that fracking poses a threat to the region’s prime agricultural land and significant underground water supplies.

Politically, fracking came to prominence in the 2014 state election campaign, when Beach Energy started exploration to determine the feasibility of extracting natural gas deposits in the Otway Basin. Even though most of the activity has been around Penola in the state seat of MacKillop, it has been first-term MP Troy Bell in the southern seat of Mount Gambier who has been most vocal on the issue.

A perceptive Bell recognised very early on in his campaign that to be seen as actively pro-fracking or even neutral in the debate would have likely killed his political career before it had started. To Bell’s credit, he has stood firm when challenged on his position and, as such, has quickly earned a reputation in the South East for being a fierce advocate for the region.

A sticking point in the debate is that the Adelaide-based mining lobby, led by the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy, seems to believe that airing any questions on fracking amounts to playing into the hands of “hardcore greens activists”. But that argument just doesn’t stack up.

For example, Kalangadoo livestock farmer David Smith is so worried about fracking that he has organised a study tour to the United States this year to look at the impact of the practice in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. He is hardly a hardcore green.

Nor is Kingston SE grazier Jack England who, as vice president of Livestock SA, has argued that experimentation with the relatively new extraction process on agricultural land should not be permitted. Livestock SA, which represents more than 500 family-owned farm businesses in the South East, opposes any fracking if there are “known, unquantifiable risks to a significant water resource that underpins some of the state’s most valuable agricultural land”.

Similarly, grape growers and vignerons in the famous Coonawarra wine region have also protested against fracking, while all seven local councils in the South East have made it clear that so long as key environmental questions remain unanswered, they want fracking taken off the table. Hardcore greens? Hardly.

What has aggravated the already contentious issue has been Beach Energy’s spectacular mismanagement of the public relations campaign surrounding its activities in the South East. A hopelessly inadequate and often arrogant media and lobbying effort has actually driven more people to view the company’s presence in the South East with contempt.

Beach Energy’s gas exploration program remained front-of-mind in the South East during the state election campaign thanks in no small part to the location of one of its two drilling sites, which was just a few hundred metres from the bitumen on the busy Riddoch Highway between Penola and Mount Gambier. It could have hardly been more prominent or imposing.

Beach is yet to make a formal approach to the State Government to obtain a licence to establish unconventional gas extraction programs in the South East and any movement is unlikely until there is a dramatic improvement in the export gas market. Nonetheless, the company says the samples gathered in its exploration program at Penola have been promising and it is keeping its options open.

… as it stands, the Weatherill Government is all but immune from any political fallout that might arise if fracking gets the green light in the South East. Conversely, Liberals stand to gain very little out of the debate, but might endanger their political currency in the South East if they are wrong-footed.

As vexed as the debate has been during the exploration stage, local community and industry opposition to fracking will step up to a whole new level if Beach seeks to proceed to the extraction phase. If and when that occurs, the Liberal Party will face fresh pressure from both sides of the debate to declare its position.

The Liberals dodged a potential bullet in March 2014 because fracking only gained serious momentum relatively late in the campaign. Had the issue been grabbing headlines months earlier, the groundswell of local unrest would have very likely created the perfect setting for an anti-fracking candidate to give the Liberals a serious run for their money in MacKillop.

The voters of the South East, naturally conservative though they are, have never been afraid of sending an independent MP to North Terrace if they think the Liberal Party has stopped listening to them. In fact, it’s how current MacKillop MP Mitch Williams entered parliament in 1997, when he ran as an independent against former state Liberal leader Dale Baker. It’s a similar story south of MacKillop, where Bell’s victory last year prised the city of Mount Gambier from the independents’ grasp for the first time since 1997.

In contrast to Bell’s stand on fracking, it would be reasonable to expect some Liberals on North Terrace are naturally inclined to sing a similar tune to that of Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis on fracking, proffering the line that the state simply can’t afford to forgo the lucrative royalties from any new mining projects. There is no doubt the state needs to find need new revenue streams and the Premier and Treasurer (who also has the Mining and Resources portfolio) are increasingly desperate to promote any potential mining developments from which they can skim royalties.

But it could be argued that if Beach Energy had started exploring in the Adelaide Hills, the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale, the political situation might been playing out very differently because of the closer proximity to Adelaide and the city’s affinity with those regions. This would likely also be a talking point among voters in a number of significant suburban seats, especially those hugging the ranges, such as Newland, Fisher and Mawson.

In his capacity as Primary Industries Minister, the Member for Mawson, Leon Bignell, is refusing to budge on genetically-modified crop laws, saying the state needs to protect the clean, green and GM-free image of its rural industries. Meanwhile Koutsantonis is accusing anyone who dares question the safety of fracking as being “anti-gas” or “anti-business”. For the countless South East farmers who are keen on planting the same GM crops as their Victorian neighbours but are uneasy about fracking, SA Labor’s “clean and green” contradictions aren’t just baffling, they are absolutely infuriating.

But as it stands, the Weatherill Government is all but immune from any political fallout that might arise if fracking gets the green light in the South East. Conversely, Liberals stand to gain very little out of the debate, but might endanger their political currency in the South East if they are wrong-footed.

Troy Bell seems to have acknowledged the situation and is championing the fight to ensure that no mining projects which might compromise the region’s land and water ever go ahead. After all, it was Bell’s pressure which single-handedly ensured the Liberal Party room backed a parliamentary inquiry into fracking in the South East.

If nothing else, the inquiry has bought the Liberal Party some much-needed time, which is significant given the spectre of fracking in the South East could linger through to the 2018 state election. The naturally pro-business, pro-mining Liberals now have a bit longer to ponder their position on fracking. If the party ignores the political climate in the South East, it will do so at its own peril.

Tom Dawkins is a freelance journalist and author based at Naracoorte. He is a member of the Liberal Party and a former member of the party’s state executive.

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