Arrow missing target

If you're trying to convince people you're above board and your company really is good for the community, it's not a good idea to lock them out of your meetings.

Arrow Energy has been, at best, disingenuous in their recent communications.

Firstly they've talked about "community information meetings" but refused to allow in the community or the media.

Secondly, in March they told Echo reporter Andy Parks that they weren't going to focus on the Northern Rivers. On Friday they admitted they've been doing "low level" exploration.

If coal seam gas is as safe and 'good for the environment' as gas companies and their body the Australian Association of Petroleum Exploration keep saying it is, then why do they need to hold meetings behind closed doors?

To say it's because they didn't want protestors is just more doublespeak. There wouldn't have been anywhere near as many protestors if people had been allowed into the meeting.

Arrow is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shell and PetroChina. They announced on Wednesday that they'd taken the next step in their masterplan to convert CSG to liquefied natural gas in the Great Barrier Reef.

So it's not drawing a very long bow (sorry, couldn't resist) to infer that their plan is to mine the Northern Rivers, ship or pipe the gas to Gladstone, pipe it to Curtis Island in the Barrier Reef and then ship it either to China or other international markets.

What does that do for local food security? To water? To farms? To our environment? Well, we don't know.

Because despite gas industry claims that it's a safe industry, increasingly we're seeing that there are known dangers, including risks to the water table.

I've seen examples of this particular company's attitude to clarity and quite frankly I don't trust them.

Their assurances that they're safe are probably worth about the same as their assurance on the record to us that they weren't concentrating on the Northern Rivers.

Absolutely nothing.