Member for the Dubbo electorate Dugald Saunders has described an amendment to a bill proposing a moratorium on coal seam gas mining as badly timed after facing criticism over his no vote from anti-CSG aligned activist groups.
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The amendment, put forward by Justin Field, was voted down by the state government on Thursday,
The proposed changes sought to 'impose a moratorium on the prospecting for, or the mining of, coal seam gas in New South Wales and to reintroduce the public interest as a ground for certain decisions relating to petroleum titles'.
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Peter Small, a representative of the North West Alliance network of groups, living in Dubbo called the vote 'very disappointing'.
He also warned that if a moratorium wasn't put in place, and the project at Narrabri went ahead, Dubbo could be next.
"We have licenses that range all the way from Dubbo to the Queensland border and they're second on the list, if Narrabri goes ahead, it'll all go through from there," Mr Small said.
Mr Saunders said the project at Narrabri had the support of the local community and the mayor, while Mr Small argued the the strong response against the project showered there was a mandate for stopping it.
"When Santos put the statement forward, a record breaking amount of submissions went in opposing it," Mr Small said.
Mr Saunders described the amendment as 'the wrong bill at the wrong time', saying that all options had to be considered when it come to energy production in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
"We need to have ways of producing more, and supplying our own resources, we've seen that and talked about that during this COVID-19 pandemic," Mr Saunders said.
"To do that we need affordable energy, and as many different ways of achieving that as possible, whether that's renewable projects like we are seeing across the region through large scale wind and solar, or the possibility of Gas, the more the merrier."
Mr Saunders said that he believes a broad mix of energy providers would be the preferred way to ensure 'strong supply and lower prices'.
Mr Small argued that it was unlikely CSG would produce cheaper energy.
"This is the most expensive sort of gas you can drill for, so how could that lower the price," Mr Small said.
