A CROWD of passionate anti-coal-seam gas petitioners have placed their faith and the signatures of a nationwide petition into their local member's hands.
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The group of signatories to The Big Ban petition, stood at the Port Macquarie Airport on Sunday afternoon, calling on David Gillespie to take their concerns to Canberra.
Principal petitioner, and the woman behind the documented outcry, Jennifer Schoelpple called on the Federal Member for Lyne to personally present a petition to the House of Representatives this week.
Ms Schoelpple reminded Dr Gillespie of his pre-election promise to "not support coal-seam gas" where it may cause harm or damage agricultural lands.
She said Gloucester was a prime example of this.
"I'm relying on him to now support the thousands of people in his electorate and the nation to say coal-seam gas is not appropriate anywhere," she said.
But Dr Gillespie said he didn't believe in "an absolute ban in anything".
He told the crowd his view on CSG related to it being "proven to damage surface or groundwater".
He said it shouldn't be located near residential areas and landowners should be adequately compensated.
"Those principles should be enforced by the legislation the NSW government has, and if they follow those laws, it'll be fine," he said yesterday.
More than 15,000 people have collectively signed the two pigeon-pair petitions, a bundle for the Senate and one for the House of Representatives.
The majority of them, being from Dr Gillespie's electorate.
It demands the government declare a complete ban on unconventional gas mining activities across Australia.
And, essentially, says the signatories would see Australia declared a "CSG, fracking, tight sands, shale and all other unconventional gas mining free zone"
Dr Gillespie happily accepted the papers and made a commitment to present them to Parliament, pending approval of the petition.
Ms Schoelplle said his response was "predictable", but expressed disappointment in his refusal to support a complete ban.
"It's the final sitting week of parliament and it'll be a real shame if Dr Gillespie doesn't find the time to present it," she said. "There's a lot of momentum behind it right now."
"We're putting a lot of faith in him to see it tabled."
