Beloved West Australian author Tim Winton has broken a long silence to condemn WA gas fracking and illuminate deep public mistrust, both of the mining industry and its government regulators.
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Winton has narrated a mini-documentary and television commercial by Richard Todd, the Margaret River maker of documentary Frackman.
While the author is a 20-year veteran of environmental campaigns, and remains particularly active in the marine conservation field, he usually prefers the role of patron to that of spokesman.
"I don't want to be out there every week bothering people with my opinions," he said.
"This just seems like this issue has had insufficient attention in WA.
"Most West Australians are unaware of how vulnerable we are to this sort of nascent fracking industry."
In recent decades, 'fracking' – injecting a water-chemical mix into the ground to fracture coal seams, shale and tight rocks – has made trapped methane a more commercially viable resource.
The government believes onshore reserves of "unconventional gas" in WA are double those offshore.
It has issued exploration permits over the aquifers supplying drinking water to Perth and the South West, and over areas including Ningaloo, the Swan Valley, south and east Bunbury, Margaret River, Capel, Donnybrook and Boyup Brook.
Though full exploitation is unlikely, this could equate in theory to 100,000 gas wells across WA, with 40,000 of those in the Kimberley.
Fracking is banned totally in Victoria, and five-year bans exist pending further research in Tasmania and, after the recent election, the Northern Territory.
In Queensland, coal seam fracking is permitted, while exploration in WA is focused on shale and tight gas.
There are risks
Winton, supporting the Frack Free Future Campaign, says the community cannot yet be sure the industry will stop from failing and causing disastrous pollution of both the surrounding environment and the aquifers that supply drinking water.
"There's not enough baseline data, in terms of hydrology, PH, geology and – not least – emissions," he said.
"We now have a clearer picture of the social experience of communities have been exposed to fracking. There are lots of bitter and unhappy people in the States.
"All methane jokes aside, it's on the nose.
"It's not just people who live around it. My friends and family members have been doorknocking in communities, and even people in the offshore oil and gas industry say, 'don't do it'; which is telling.
"Despite what the industry is saying they have no solid evidence this is a safe industry and the hydrology reports I have seen demonstrate that it's sucking and seeing. You send the stuff down, frack the rock and just hope.
"Once it gets a foothold, there is no stopping it; they just roll over the top of you. There are many other mining activities and methods that are more socially acceptable than this.
"In a time of runaway emissions, this is not going to help. This is not the transitional energy that sells itself. This is old school."
The government says the risks can be managed
Environment Minister Albert Jacob said the Liberals were committed to ensuring any fracking in WA is done in an "environmentally and socially acceptable manner".
"Under a Liberal government, every onshore gas proposal will be judged on its individual merits and will be subject to the highest level of environmental assessment," he said.
"This industry has the potential to boost regional development, further advance economic and social outcomes for Aboriginal traditional owners, provide jobs for local workers and support the state in a measured transition away from coal fired power towards cleaner energy."
The "whole of government approach" led by the Department of Mines and Petroleum means proponents have to jump through many hoops. They need surveys, native title access arrangements, consents from and compensation payouts to landowners, and licences to drill wells and take ground or surface water. They need well management, safety management and environment plans. Exploration and discovery can take five years.
A production licence means more assessments, approvals, plans for management and monitoring, and reports, daily, weekly and annually, to DMP. They must notify the agency of any incidents that can cause environmental harm. DMP can do inspections and take enforcement action. Some facilities are simultaneously policed by the Department of Environmental Regulation.
When a field has been exhausted, DMP requires wells be decommissioned, facilities cleaned and removed and the area rehabilitated.
A 2015 regulatory framework, with buy-in from agencies including Water, Environmental Regulation, Health, Mines and Petroleum, Aboriginal Affairs, Planning and Parks and Wildlife, covers well integrity, contingency plans, chemical approvals and disclosure processes, and outlines best practice to ensure "acceptable" levels of risk of water contamination.
The truth: "somewhere in between"
A two-year parliamentary inquiry into fracking in WA completed in 2015 found "differing, and often competing views, about the level and likelihood of risks".
"Proponents of the technology argue that many risks are exaggerated, whilst opponents of hydraulic fracturing refer to the 'precautionary principle', and that, if there is any risk whatsoever then hydraulic fracturing should be prohibited," the report said.
"The Committee has formed the view during the course of this inquiry that the truth lies somewhere [in] between."
The report noted a need for an informed debate and further scientific study in some areas.
The Department of Health has also stressed the importance of tight regulation.
The inquiry found DMP had strengthened its regulatory framework, but that small fines for wrongdoing were not a deterrent.
It found plenty of work remained, particularly on public communication and transparency, "to establish a successful social licence".
A question of trust
Of all the players in mining, people trusted NGOs the most, industry second, federal and state governments third, a CSIRO survey on Australian attitudes to mining found.
But levels of trust were very low overall.
"The industry's social licence is facilitated by the level of trust that the Australian public have in it," the report concluded.
"The more that Australians feel the benefits of mining are distributed fairly, the higher their level of trust ... the more faith that people have in Australia's governance capacity to ensure mining companies do the right thing, the more they accept ... but, perceptions of governance capacity is a stronger positive predictor of trust than it is of acceptance."
In a WA emerging from the boom with little to show but debt, it is perhaps unsurprising trust is in short supply.
WA's sleeper election issue?
Winton joins Frack Free Future campaigners including former premier Carmen Lawrence, musician John Butler, surfer Taj Burrow, celebrity gardener Sabrina Hahn and former Anglican bishop Tom Wilmot, who recently led a 300-strong protest at St. George's Cathedral.
Organisers say the issue will influence marginal metro seats including Mt Lawley (the state's seventh most marginal seat), Perth, Swan Hills, Wanneroo and Kalamunda, where community meetings have been held.
There are gas exploration leases over parts of the Swan Hills and Wanneroo electorates.
The campaign has had a strong response in Kalamunda, now bedecked with Frack Free Future signage, a seat Fairfax Media has reported the Liberals do not expect to hold.
Marginal regional seats could also be crucial, including the Kimberley, Collie-Preston and Bunbury – Bunbury being one of the 10 most closely watched seats. Winton said resistance was coming from farmers, traditional owners, community groups and scientists.
"There are already more than 400 Australian communities that have declared themselves 'frack free' for a reason. They are not stupid, they have done their research," he said.
"You would struggle to walk into a pub and get into an argument about this – unless, that is, the Premier or the Minister for Mines is in there.
"The Nationals have demonstrated some sympathy ... but how that would get played out in a coalition government is unknown."
The Conservation Council of WA recently blogged that typical pre-election polling structures often create environmental 'blind spots'.
Polls often simply included 'the environment' in a list of policy areas to be ranked by voters, director Piers Verstegen wrote.
And as other items on the list were typically jobs, law and order, education, and healthcare, 'the environment' generally rated at the bottom.
"This simplistic form of polling misses the point," Verstegen wrote.
"Western Australians don't think about 'the environment' in a generalised theoretical sense. But when they become aware of specific issues, they can rapidly rise to the top of the priority list for voters - and at a close election, this can be more than enough to unseat a government."
"The Roe 8 highway, gas fracking, climate change, and a range of other local issues ... none of these concerns fit into an abstract notion of 'the environment' as it appears on a pollster's list, but they will be important considerations for many at the ballot box."
Winton believes the government "might be surprised at the level of dismay in the electorate".
"It's all very well to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs; but this contemporary obsession with only one form of economics, which is just economics on paper, is a constant distraction from what we know is the bottom line; the organic reality of the quality of our air, soil and water," he said.
"The kind of debt we find ourselves in is astronomical; we are all scratching our heads about that. But we really need to bear in mind how much debt we are in environmentally. There are debts you can pay your way out of. But the true bottom line is hard to come back from.
"The sort of prudence we are constantly being lectured to practice in our own financial affairs doesn't seem to apply."
The Wilderness Society has commissioned its own ReachTel polling of 1500 voters in the Mt Lawley, Wanneroo and Kimberley electorates.
More than 80 per cent were concerned about fracking, with about 60 per cent wanting a ban and 30 per cent a permanent ban.
More than 70 per cent wanted farmers to have veto rights for their properties.
Nearly 60 per cent said traditional owners should have veto rights.
More than 70 per cent of thought renewable energy would best serve the state's future energy needs. Twenty per cent supported gas (fracked or conventional) and seven per cent coal.
Political promises
Labor has said it will ban fracking in the South West, Swan Valley and Perth, and place a temporary moratorium on areas north of Perth.
Labor did not put a timeline on the promise when asked by WAtoday, saying only that there would be a ban until there had been an independent public inquiry, with a decision to follow.
"It sounds good to the unsuspecting punter," Winton said.
"But to those of us who have been around the block a few times it sounds a warning. For a commitment without a number, you wouldn't bet the house. You wouldn't even bet the carport.
"They must think we're in kindergarten if this foggy "moratorium" is going to float."
The Greens support a statewide ban and a 100 per cent renewable energy target.
The state of play in WA
A 2015 survey of WA well failures found 11.7 per cent or 1035 active wells had "integrity issues". These had no negative environmental impact, thanks to multiple-barrier construction.
DMP executive director Petroleum Jeff Haworth said the industry was yet to prove commercial viability in WA.
A lack of markets, infrastructure and equipment made costs high – to complete a well then frack could cost up to $25 million.
He said 100,000 wells would therefore represent hundreds of billions in investment, meaning it was unlikely that WA would see development on this scale.
The Environmental Protection Authority is likely to play a greater role in the future. In the past, it has determined on a case-by-case basis not to assess small-scale 'pilot testing' fracking proposals and defer to other regulators.
But chairman Tom Hatton anticipates fresh referrals, large or small, will undergo full EPA assessment as public interest grows.
Digging deeper into WA culture
Winton said it was time WA stopped taking "electoral dictation" from a resource industry with "the deepest pockets of anyone in the state".
"They have tried their best to intimidate the politicians, whose will is now subject to this immense persuasive power ... both in terms of their capacity to run massive propaganda campaigns and their infinite capacity for litigation," he said.
"It would be nice to get past to that, to think that we could grow past a culture of digging and dealing.
"We used to talk about being smart, innovative, having a multilayered culture and economy but with a state more or less in recession and reliance on mining and construction booms, the fact is we spent it all like children.
"We have grown as a culture; as a state there is plenty to celebrate.
"But there are still signs of adolescence in this uncertain reliance, the quarry mentality that holds us back."
People power
Winton harked back to Labor's 2001 election victory on its commitment to end old growth logging and its re-election after the Save Ningaloo campaign that began soon afterwards.
"Fifteen thousand people marched through Fremantle when Ningaloo was far less well known," Winton said.
"This is a big industry with the support of government, but we have changed things in the past.
"People still do believe in the common good. They will give up their time and contribute. I have been involved in this sort of thing for about 20 years, and the usual [greenie] suspects only exist in certain people's minds.
"Outside meetings, you will see a ute, a treadlie and a BMW. Some people have facial piercings, some have pearl necklaces... though not usually together.
"So occasionally I speak out in order to help unite people, to remind them we do live in a democracy. We do have power."
