ONE of Queensland’s most prominent environmental campaigners has resigned from The Greens political party in order to help landholders fight for greater regulatory protections against negative impacts from mining.
Long-serving environmentalist Drew Hutton has campaigned on many fronts during his 40-year career, but believes the rapid growth of coal and coal seam gas developments in western Queensland represents the single biggest environmental issue in Australia’s history.
Mr Hutton recently spent two weeks talking with landholders and community groups throughout the Surat Basin and has returned pledging to devote his energies and experience to a single campaign: the fight to protect inland Queensland from “being turned into an industrial wasteland”.
He has resigned all positions he holds with the The Queensland Greens – a party he helped to found – stating the move was necessary to enable him to tackle this campaign on an independent footing.
“I wanted to focus my attention absolutely on this issue, because it is such a big one,” he told Queensland Country Life.
“And secondly, I think I can communicate far more effectively with people in the bush if I am not seen to be a member of a political party.
“I am not there as a green politician, I am there as a community campaigner, and I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with people in the bush in defence of their properties and in defence of the land.”
Mr Hutton said he was particularly concerned about the future of landholders and rural communities, and the bigger picture threats posed to Queensland’s natural resources.
Gas companies had the potential to destroy the Great Artesian Basin through creating inter-aquifer leakages, de-pressurising coal seams and reinjecting salty by-product water brought to the surface back into aquifers.
It was estimated the coal seam gas industry would extract about 350,000 megalitres a year, 35 times greater than the 10,000ML/year that the Water Act stipulates should be used by the whole of the State.
Mr Hutton said by backing mining developments over all other considerations, the Queensland Government was turning Queensland into a one-product economy.
“The big question that we really need to answer as a society is what sort of economy do we want this State and this country to have?” he said.
“A one-product economy that is going to last for 20 years, and then leave us with our areas like the Darling Downs as an industrial wasteland, and a skills base that can’t expand to take on a multiplicity of industries?
“I know what my answer to that is – I am focused on the future generations.”
Mr Hutton said he was currently working with a range of individuals and interest groups before deciding how to tackle the new campaign.
He said the first steps would involve developing a list of demands for Government, aimed at reducing the impacts of mining developments, and developing a strategy similar to that taken up by campaigners against the Traveston Dam.
“Only this is a much bigger issue affecting many more people and consequently it will be a bigger campaign,” Mr Hutton said.
Asked how the campaign was likely to be funded, he admitted he had “no idea”.
“One thing I have learned about campaigns is, when they’re important enough, they finance themselves.
“People just put their hands in their pockets and they fund them.
“There is white-hot fury out there in the bush about this, and I think my role will be to c-oordinate that and give people the confidence to believe they really can stand up to the Government and these companies.
“I have spent the past 30 years doing this (campaigning) – I may as well pass the knowledge on.”
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