It is an excellent practical solution Dex but I think you...

It is an excellent practical solution Dex but I think you greatly underestimate the strength of the opposition to the industrialisation of the area. Any plan that involves hundreds of wells and the possibility of polluted aquifers is going to face opposition that is unprecedented in Australia. I know that the beleaguered shareholders don't want to hear this but it is a reality.

It is a reality that both the government and the board of Metgasco it seems have come to accept. Why do you think the board agreed to this deal? What had the government said to Peter Henderson that made him want to just roll over like this? He would have known that he was signing his managerial death warrant when he agreed to this. He really must have had no other option than to take the deal.

The Government has already lost one seat because of Metgasco and would likely lose many more if it blew out into a full scale disaster of Nannas and small children getting their "heads cracked" by the police. This is a major headache for the government, one that it would want to make go away. The galvanized residents of the Northern Rivers are not going to go away so the easier option is to make Metgasco go away. The government would have a wide range of tools to facilitate this, tools which I can imagine may have been brought up in the recent negotiations.

Peter Henderson is neither a coward or a fool. He must have been shown the writing on the wall and the writing must have said that taking $25 million is the best option. I empathise with those who have had devastating losses, I really do, but the only thing worse that could happen is to fruitlessly hand over their remaining capital to blood sucking lawyers.