THERE was plenty to discuss at the latest North West Alliance (NWA) meeting, with new information coming to light in recent months about a number of energy projects in the region.
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Gathering at the Mullaley Memorial Hall, they covered a number of topics including the Narrabri Gas Project, 'zombie' Petroleum Exploration Licences (PELs) and the Western Slopes and Queensland-Hunter gas pipelines.
The Alliance is made up of more than 20 community groups across north west NSW, who "educate and advocate the community, media and government on issues around coal seam gas and coal extractive industries", according to their website.
They meet every couple of months, and there was plenty of updated information on the agenda this time around.
Following the approval of Santos' Narrabri Gas Project last year, several decade-old projects that were reliant on the gas field getting the tick of approval have ramped up their efforts to push ahead.
The most notable change in recent times has been the confirmation by Department of Regional NSW Deputy Secretary Georgina Beattie in Senate Estimates that Santos were negotiating to reactivate PELs that had been long-expired.
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Alliance member Peter Wills said the confirmation came as no surprise, but they would continue to fight against it.
"We've been fighting the zombie PELs for over a decade," he stated.
"My father told Santos to 'bugger off' - that's the quiet version - 12 years ago, and we're still telling these coal seam gas companies to bugger off."
He revealed the group were eagerly awaiting the release of the state's Strategic Gas Plan, which deputy premier John Barilaro signalled may include policies which will see some of the PELs quashed before they can be reapproved.
After successfully lobbying the Liverpool Plains Shire Council to write to the state government objecting to gas exploration in their shire, NWA will now continue attempting to convince other shires to do the same.
"There's a lot of fronts that we're fighting on in regards to coal seam gas developments happening in our region," said Mr Wills.
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