I spent time in the Pilliga in the early 1980s. I now live in the city in an electorate which is for the time being, Liberal; I am female and over 60 years. I have no connection with the Pilliga or its people these days.

Many important decisions are made within large organisations such as governments that are poorly informed by lived experience. Facts, figures, statistics, reports, science are absolutely essential but can take us only so far. The "aha" moment, the realisation of what matters most, comes from the imagination, from lived experience and from our inherent ability to conceptualise based on these and upon science.

I submit my lived experience and my conceptualising as an aid for responsible decision-makers who may be less well-placed.

It is incredible to me that anyone would permit further difficulties to be introduced in managing the fragile and at
times exceedingly harsh area of land known as the Pilliga.

Anyone who has seen the Pilliga in drought knows the insult from csg mining will destroy any chance of the land being usefully productive and so destroy the rural community too.

The toll on biodiversity and those wild creatures we all view as Australia's own, will be devastating and irredeemable.

Australia does not need more csg for its own use. It needs investment in renewable energy and cost-effective hydro storage of renewable energy, as recently espoused by a professor at ANU.

It is patently wrong by ourselves as a nation and by our descendants to risk ruin of productive land for generations, in an effort to make foreign sales today.

Australia is already affected by climate change, placing biodiversity, food security and water security at risk. We cannot eat or drink coal seam gas.

Remediation, on the scale needed after csg mining, is very unlikely to be successful, particularly in such fragile and rugged country as the Pilliga. If full remediation costs were included in requirements for approval, no company would be interested in mining csg. It would not be cost-effective to mine.

Lost opportunities, during and following csg mining is another area of great loss that ought to be costed and allocated to the activity.

Allowing csg mining is allowing miners to take all the value and leave the damage for others to pay in lost opportunities and actual clean up costs.

There are sites all over Australia where the legacy of earlier generations of miners has destroyed rural communities and the prospect of later generations using that land productively again. Remediation is either not possible or so costly as to make any scheme to fix it unviable. Such structural ruin of Australia's rural areas cannot continue as we will need all arable land to feed a future larger population, in an ever harsher climate.

Respect is necessary for the people of the Pilliga; for their knowledge, skill and effort in working difficult land productively and in caring for it so the next generation can do the same.

I object most strenuously and passionately to the harms old-world mining in the form of csg mining, poses to the Pilliga.

How much do we have to destroy before our environment is truly devastated? Why is the short-term financial greed and profits held better by dumb politicians than the only place we all have to live in and share.
Why is there a crisis - because the forward thinking of the inept pollies and public servants refuse to see alternatives. From massive land clearing for marginal farming, to the constant threat of polluting the water our dry country so desperately needs to survive, why aren't these taken into long term consideration.
I want to share my country with my grandchildren - not a dug-up polluted mess that the short-term visionaries have for us. So please REJECT this massive potential destruction of the Pilliga now, for all our sakes - even those greedy and unenlightened

The reason there is a gas shortage for local consumption is that of greed by the suppliers in that most of our gas is sold overseas thus pricing australians out of the market.
The inherent problems associated with extracting coal seam gas are well known. To ignore these problems is morally and ethically wrong and leaves future generations of Australians the problem of a contaminated subterranean system.
I urge you to reject this proposal to mine coal seam gas.

We must care for OUR HEALTH, WILDLIFE HEALTH and the HEALTH OF OUR FUTURE!!!!!!

There is no justifiable reason for SANTOS or any Company to perpetrate Coal Seam mining in our fragile country, let a lone in the Pilbura. We are still a resource rich country with an abundant supply of natural energy in the form of sun & wind. These do not require violating the earth to make money. SANTOS should investigate these forms of energy if it wants to grow as a Company with the Public's support. It is time cars turned to other non polluting methods to run.

More damage to the environment, more flogging of a dead horse. The truth about CSG and the damage done to the surrounding environments is now common knowledge, as well as proven. Yet the mining corporations think they can just give donations to political parties and everything will be hunky dory. It's time to put our future as a nation and as a species above the greed of the wealthy few.

I strongly support the protection of the entire Pilliga region
and I absolutely totally oppose the development of The Narrabri Gas Project.

Stop companies destroying our environment and contaminating our water resources for the sake of their short term profits.

We need to put our environment first always
We can't drink coal seam gas!

We can develop different forms of energy - ones that aren't destructive or rely on the contamination of our land air and water.
We can't replace or redevelop a natural system back to its original complex

Its really simple - protect the environment and its biodiversity first and foremost - its not just morally right to do so but we RELY on it for clean air, clean water and food production. Its so obvious and so so simple!

To go ahead with CSG mining is to commit a most destructive form of environmental vandalism upon OUR earth - you do not have the moral right to give companies the go ahead to do that.

Can we please do not drill for CSG since there are to many stakes at risk!
Please consider the environment and all the farmers in the area who rely on a clean/water environment.
Water is a very precious commodity in Australia we can not risk to pollute any of it!
Here in Australia we have a very unique wildlife and all will be at risk by drilling in to a sensitive habitat.
We also have a cultural aboriginal background to respect!!

Imagine this: 850 gas wells on up to 425 well pads over 20 years, and the construction and operation of destructive gas processing and water treatment facilities. Is this the world we want to live in? The fracking industry has evidently devastating effects on the environment, on all life living there and depending on it, not only for the time it is operating there, but for a very long time into the future. It will have ongoing direct and indirect impact on nature, animals and human life into the future. It will diminish the life support systems, it will have systemic effects on the culture and economies of the region and beyond for a long time to come. We cannot risk this to happen. It is our responsibility to make sure that the region has a prosperous and flourishing future ahead of it. The Narrabri Gas Project will destroy this.

The Narrabri Gas Project threatens Australia's largest groundwater aquifer, the Great Australian Basin--Australia's largest, and other important water resources. Local communities are opposed to the project for fear of their future including the Gamilaraay Traditional Custodians, farmers and other local communities, all of whom depend on it directly or indirectly, culturally, economically, socially, and health-wise.

The company Santos who is seeking to exploit the gas resources has already contaminated a freshwater aquifer in the Pilliga with uranium at levels 20 times higher than safe drinking water guidelines, as well as lead, aluminium, arsenic and barium². In addition, there have been over 20 reported spills and leaks of toxic CSG water from storage ponds, pipes and well heads.

The Pilliga is one of 15 nationally listed biodiversity hotspots and is vital to the survival of threatened species like the Koala, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Black-striped Wallaby, Eastern Pygmy-possum, Pilliga Mouse and South-eastern Long-eared Bat. The forest is home to over 200 bird species and is internationally recognised as an Important Bird Area². The Santos gasfield would fragment 95,000 hectares of the Pilliga with well pads, roads, and water and gas pipelines--damaging vital habitat and threatening the survival of endangered species.

NSW needs to take its responsibilities seriously to contribute to the global effort to reduce climate altering gases. Methane is by far the major component of natural gas, and is a greenhouse gas 72 times more powerful than CO². CSG fields contribute to climate change through the leakage of methane during the production, transport, processing and use of coal seam gas.

A range of hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds can be released into the air from coal seam gas operations, including flaring of gas wells. The effects of volatile organic compounds vary, but can cause eye, nose and airway irritation, headache, nausea, dizziness and loss of coordination⁴. These impacts have been documented in human populations nearby to existing gasfields in Queensland, Sydney and in America.

Even the nation's premier optical astronomical observatory is at risk. The Siding Springs Observatory, situated in the Warrumbungles and adjacent to the Pilliga, is under threat from the Narrabri Gas Project due to light and dust pollution. The area has been internationally recognised as a `dark sky park' and the 50m high gas flares proposed by Santos threaten the viability of the facility.

Thousands of tonnes of salt waste will result from the project. Between 17,000 and 42,000 tonnes of salt waste would be produced each year, a toxic legacy in NSW far into the future, far beyond the lifetime of the industry planned there.

The Pilliga is prone to severe bushfires. If this development went ahead, there would also be much higher risks of fires would throughout the Pilliga's tinder-box conditions. Methane flare stacks up to 50m high would be running day and night, even on total fire ban days, highly flammable gas would be extracted, transported and stored right within this extremely fire-prone forest, a catastrophe waiting to happen.

All in all, the social, cultural, geophysical and also the long-term economic realities make it clear that the Narrabri Gas Project must be rejected.

I have known and loved the Pilliga scrub for years and value all its small details and ecological systems. I know it has existed for tens of thousands of years. its species and its water underground are precious.

No mining of any type is good for the Pilliga.

So refuse fracking with its dangerous consequences and poor respect for people and land.