Matt Cunningham: Stop all the bullsh*t, for frack’s sake

THE debate surrounding fracking has become more toxic than any potential threat to the Territory’s waterways, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham with resident John Jenkyn after he set fire to gas along the Condamine River.

IF you want to watch something that will truly leave you shocked, check out a video posted on Facebook in April 2016 by New South Wales Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham.

He’s sitting in a tinny on the Condamine River in southwest Queensland. He pulls out a lighter and holds it close to the water’s surface, then suddenly, BOOM!

The river catches fire, flames shooting into the air as Buckingham, yelling expletives, jumps for cover.

“Sometimes a picture says 1000 words, have a look at this, the Condamine River, in southwest Queensland, on fire,” Buckingham then says.

“The fracking just a kilometre away, methane coming up and now the river is alight. Unbelievable, the most incredible thing I’ve seen; a tragedy in the Murray-Darling Basin.”

Incredible, no doubt. A tragedy indeed. Or at least it would be, if it were true.

But just two days after Buckingham posted this “evidence”, the CSIRO debunked it. Professor Damian Barrett from the CSIRO’s onshore gas program told Guardian Australia the methane leak that caused the fire had always existed.

“The presence of the industry there has not caused that crack to occur or that fault to occur, it’s been there for eons,” he said. “The gas has probably been coming to the surface there for as long as people have been there.”

But by the time this myth had been busted, Buckingham’s video had been viewed more than two million times.

This is an example of the battle the gas industry faces as it tries to win the hearts and minds of the public ahead of a Northern Territory Government decision on whether to allow unconventional onshore gas fracking. As that decision draws closer, the debate has become more heated. Buckingham’s video, debunked almost two years ago, featured in news reports about fracking in the NT as recently as last week. This is now a battle of emotions, not a matter of facts. And the anti-frackers are winning handsomely.

This week I spoke to David Paterson, a former senior executive from Energy Resources Australia, which operates the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park.

He says the gas sector can learn much from the uranium industry when it comes to the public relations battle over fracking. Paterson, who now runs a strategic communications consultancy called Emergent Advisory, says the gas industry, like the uranium industry in the early days, spends too much time trying to argue the facts.

“Reputation is not just about facts, it’s not just about dispensing data to people, that’s not going to get you where you want to get,” he said. In other words, all the data in the world is not going to win an emotionally-charged battle when it’s up against a video of a flaming river. Instead, Paterson says, the gas sector should focus on the community benefits it can offer. Things like local employment, indigenous training and improved occupational health and safety standards. And it must be transparent about its operations.

“It’s very complex how people form opinions about industries,” Paterson says. “The factual content is only a small part of it, it’s often about trust. Who do people feel like they can trust? And the industry needs to focus on building that trust.” That’s a mountainous task when you consider how far behind the gas industry has fallen in this debate. The anti-frackers are well-funded, well-organised and now well-and-truly embedded in the community. They’re also prepared to personally attack anyone who challenges their narrative.

At an event organised by Lock The Gate last year, Rod Campbell from the left-wing think-tank The Australia Institute, depicted an NT journalist as the devil for his reports on the potential economic benefits of the fracking industry. In contrast, the gas sector is rarely seen or heard from, although some suggest this has been at the request of the Government. The Government probably knows the one certainty of a s**tfight is that everyone gets covered in s**t, and it’s got enough crap to deal with at the moment.

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On Thursday night, a group of artists held an anti-fracking exhibition in Winnellie. They’re critical of the Government’s independent scientific inquiry into fracking, even though they don’t appear to have read its draft report.

“There’s so much information, like the report itself is pages and pages long, and so I’m hoping that the exhibition will simplify things, get the facts out there,” exhibition curator Therese Ritchie told the ABC.

Who needs a $5 million, 12-month scientific inquiry conducted by a panel whose expertise includes terrestrial ecology, sedimentology, hydraulic fracturing, fluid ecotoxicology, groundwater-dependent ecosystems and environmental geochemistry when you can get your fracking “facts” from an artist?

Many of the works, which will be passed on to anti-fracking groups, have Chief Minister Michael Gunner in the firing line. One poster reads: “Are you Gunner frack us over, Michael?

The people have already spoken. Fracking’s no good for long term jobs ... especially yours.” This column has been generous in its criticism of the Chief Minister in recent weeks, but on the fracking issue Michael Gunner is guilty only of doing exactly what he promised to do before the election.

The exhibition did, however, get one thing right. It was called Lies, Damned Lies and Fracking. And in this debate there have been plenty of them.