AUSTRALIA’s largest state farming organisation has engaged senior legal counsel as it ramps up opposition to the controversial Narrabri Gas Project.
NSW Farmers Acting CEO Mike Guerin – who led a successful legal challenge against the federal government and mining giant Glencore in Queensland – said he was “getting the band back together” to fight Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project.
“NSW Farmers has engaged the same senior legal counsel we used to defeat the federal government and Glencore a couple of years ago, and we are actively exploring the best way to defend Australia’s precious groundwater from mining giants,” Mr Guerin said.
“The people who depend on the Great Artesian Basin for their water are living in fear that this project will go ahead and go wrong, like many of them do, creating tens of thousands of water refugees and forcing farmers to abandon half the continent because it’s been contaminated forever.
“I’m happy to be getting the band back together on this one, because the risks with the Narrabri Gas Project are simply far too great to let it proceed.”
In 2024, Mr Guerin was CEO at Queensland farm organisation AgForce when it defeated the Australian Government and Glencore in a Federal Court case over a proposal to inject carbon dioxide into the Great Artesian Basin.
One of the key pieces of evidence was an expert independent hydrologist’s report, which found high risks of contaminating groundwater with high levels of arsenic and lead.
Mr Guerin called it a watershed moment for protection of vital groundwater, which was the only reliable source of clean water for almost half the nation.
“It’s a sad reality that governments, politicians and mining giants seem to be deaf to these genuine and real concerns about protecting this critical water source,” Mr Guerin said.
“They don’t appear to care about the environment or the communities that will be impacted or the billions of dollars’ worth of food that won’t be grown because of contamination.
“This is why organisations like NSW Farmers are here, to hold decision makers to account and make them do the right thing.”
Meanwhile, a report by Unions NSW Pilliga Campaign Committee says the project would destroy vital Gomeroi cultural landscapes, accelerate climate change and threaten many endangered species and the integrity of the GAB.
“Gomeroi have fought against coal seam gas in the Pilliga for more than 20 years, first with Eastern Star gas, and now with Santos,” the report says.
“This opposition, supported by many in the broader community, has limited gas development to a small number of pilot wells.
“In 2011, Santos began planning for a massive gas field with 850 wells, what they call the ‘Narrabri Gas Project’.
“(There were) 23,000 submissions made by organisations and members of the public during assessment by the Independent Planning Commission in 2020, the highest number ever received.” The report says 98 per cent of these opposed the project, but it was approved regardless.
“In March 2022, Gomeroi people voted overwhelmingly at a Native Title meeting to oppose any agreement for CSG,” the report says.
“Santos then took legal action to impose the project regardless, a process that has taken three years to resolve in the company’s favour.
“While the Native Title system has not stopped Santos, the heroic stand by Gomeroi has deepened community opposition.
“Following the 2022 Gomeroi vote, the peak body Unions NSW resolved to oppose Santos and to ‘support the Gomeroi people with all means available to us’.
“The union movement is committed to supporting Gomeroi in their right to self-determination, protection of culture, environment and country.
“We stand in solidarity with Gomeroi”.
