Coal industry under siege as protest groups tap global expertise and funds
JOHN MCCARTHY The Courier-Mail December 31, 2013 9:10PM
The mum and dad protest groups have gone rogue.
The once passive community associations or progress groups have turned aggressively anti-development and at least 40 activist groups are champing at the bit to take on the Queensland mining and resources industry, particularly coal.
But the mining industry claims the groups have been hijacked and that well-meaning residents have been manipulated by an international conspiracy to kill off Australia's fossil fuel industry through a well co-ordinated and deeply funded green movement.
"There is no doubt the activists have had it all over industry in terms of their agility and their resourcing and also the lack of constraints on them,'' Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said.
"The activists are very good at inhabiting those groups. There's no doubt (they are being manipulated).
"They are very good at hijacking local concerns but then very good at turning those local concerns towards the ultimate objective which is to slow down the fossil fuel.''
The activists have been so vocal that one group dragged Prime Minister Tony Abbott into their dispute with coal seam gas companies.
Mr Abbott paid a secret visit less than two months after his election to one of the most vocal activists, Debbie Orr, who has been campaigning against coal seam gas at Tara.
Since then, though, not much has happened.
"There's no doubt Australia has become a battleground for the activists groups globally,'' Mr Roche said.
"It's pretty clear their focus is on fossil fuel and they think that if they can turn back the development of fossil fuel in Australia then that is an important demonstration to the rest of the world.
"Most of the people behind them (the resident action groups) are very experienced activists who have operated in anti-forest action in Tasmania and have moved into the latest part of their careers as very adept campaigners.''
One of the most successful activist group has been Lock the Gate which has grown from nothing three years ago to having an annual budget of about $1 million and 20 staff nationally. It received a large slab of its money from one of the Ainsworth family, but LtG president Drew Hutton says that is no longer significant and the bulk of its money comes from its 25,000 members or supporters and grants from foundations.
He points out that if there is global money coming in for the activists it would not be anywhere near the amount the global mining companies are channelling in.
Patricia Julien from the Mackay Conservation Group says it's ignorant to make such claims against protest groups.
"That doesn't give us much credit for the work we have been doing for the past 10 years,'' she said.
"We do our homework and I am insulted that they would think I'm a puppet for anyone. I'm nobody's puppet. I've got two masters degrees so I'm no fool.
There is big money locally for green groups from the likes of Wotif millionaire Graham Wood, the Ainsworth family or the Thomas Foundation.
Flight Centre co-founder and millionaire Graham "Scroo'' Turner has also funded a fight against a coal mine expansion near one of his Pepper resorts in the Bremer Valley and the Sunrise Project also hands out grants of up to $5000 to small activist groups.
Farmer Ruth Armstrong has been fighting the Arrow Energy proposal in the Cecil Plains, near Dalby, for more than two years and had spent "a considerable amount'' of her own money helping fund Save our Darling Downs while other land owners had also invested what she called substantial sums.
She said the political system had failed them.
"We came to the conclusion that if we were not prepared to look after our own backyard no one else would be,'' Ms Armstrong said.
"The state of politics now is that a MP's first allegiance is to the party, not the electorate.
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