Tara sees red over protests
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/tara-sees-red-over-protests/story-fn6ck620-1226130867527
TARA is as mad as hell and is not going to take it any more. The tiny town on the western Darling Downs says it has repeatedly been maligned by Greens and "blockies" demanding an end to coal-seam gas mining.
Tara has been depicted as a town full of rebels. I couldn't find any the day I visited.
Suggestions that Tara is leading the charge against gas is a misconception advanced by the media. The truth is that most Tara townsfolk support the gas industry with the appropriate environmental safeguards. And so do businesses in the district.
Yet Tara has been repeatedly portrayed on television as the town backing the infamous Lock the Gate campaign.
It isn't.
"Tara is getting the blame for all the protesters but we have never had a placard waved in Tara," says 55-year-old Richard Thornbury. "Why would we want to lock the gates? Gas has brought jobs and wealth and the hope of a more prosperous future."
Tara business leaders dismiss demonstrators as a rent-a-crowd.
Thornbury, whose family arrived in Tara in 1936, is president of Tara Futures, a community group set up to combat negative images of the town.
Thornbury says scenes on television of protesters being dragged away by police happened at Wieambilla, more than 30km away.
Tara families couldn't recognise the protesters on television and most of them were professional protesters who live in Brisbane and were brought to the demo by the Greens, he says.
Tara has now joined Chinchilla, Miles, Dalby and other Maranoa and Darling Downs towns embracing gas.
Gas-fired power stations such as Braemar 2 at Tipton West are sprouting alongside wheat crops and cattle yards. Braemar 2 generates enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. And it's cleaner than coal.
But the heat remains in Tara, where an unsigned flyer condemning the Greens-backed Western Downs Alliance has been circulated.
"These are the people claiming to represent Tara," it says. "They will in fact continue to devalue our town by their self-serving thoughtless and often unlawful actions.
"This is a group of people who are devaluing our homes, our town and our blocks of land.
"Make no mistake. It is these people who are destroying the value of our town."
The flyer criticises the "lazy drones" on unemployment benefits. "The workers they abuse and threaten are the same people paying the taxes that supply their benefits," it says.
"These people who do not represent us fraudulently continue to scream 'Hands off Tara!'.
"Tara doesn't need this. Many people participating in the protests do not live in or around Tara."
Tara's fightback comes as Australia's coal-seam gas producers launch a major campaign stressing the positive side of the gas industry. It will focus on investment, jobs, environmental benefits and enormous opportunities that this industry generates. About time. Gas has been safely captured in this state for half a century but its benefits are largely unknown.
The apolitical campaign was put together by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and highlights the practical opportunities gas is providing for regional communities in Queensland and NSW.
The "We want CSG" campaign is backed by some of Australia's biggest energy companies including AGL, Santos and Origin Energy, and by major foreign investors such as BG, PetroChina, Shell and ConocoPhillips.
I hope the Greens take notice of the campaign, especially the part pointing out that using more gas can help reduce global CO2 emissions.
As well, coal-seam gas has a much smaller footprint than other energy sources such as coal.
I am also waiting for the Greens to acknowledge the gas industry's significant contribution to housing and infrastructure.
Queensland Gas Company will invest more than $60 million on up to 100 houses in the western Downs and Gladstone as part of its integrated housing strategy.
The strategy has been approved by Queensland's Co-ordinator General and includes new houses for project staff and affordable housing and rental assistance in communities from Chinchilla to Gladstone.
QGC is expanding its operations in the Surat Basin in southwestern Queensland to transport gas through a 540km underground pipeline to an LNG plant at Gladstone.
Santos and its partners will provide $13.2 million towards social and affordable housing support for the Gladstone and Maranoa as par of its housing strategy approved by the Co-ordinator-General.
The gas companies are also generous in their financial support for everything from footy teams to indigenous housing.
At present QGC is handing out grants from a $6 million Sustainable Communities Fund, which supports not-for-profit and local government organisations in the western Downs, Gladstone, North Burnett and Banana Shire regions. Groups can apply for $10,001 to $50,000 for short-term, one-off projects.
Near Dalby, Arrow Energy continues to supply water and gas to the massive Grassdale cattle feedlot, next door to a major gas field.
Like cattlemen and grain farmers, gas extractors are helping to put food on our tables
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