Power to Win Toolkit

How grassroots advocacy locked the gate on coal seam gas

When the invasive gas industry came to town and threatened rural communities in eastern Australia, an incredible community movement was born – the Lock the Gate Alliance. What started as a small group of concerned citizens soon grew into a powerful movement that put the brakes on dangerous unconventional gas mining in Australia and won a permanent ban in Victoria.

Five years on and the Alliance continues to gain momentum, with rural and urban communities all over Australia stepping up to defend our land, water and future from the invasive coal and gas industries.

There’s a lot we can learn from the success of the Lock the Gate movement. How they used a simple and effective local strategy across the movement. How they built a powerful network of local groups to demonstrate collective power and win political outcomes. And ultimately how a small organised group of concerned citizens can take on a massive industry and win.

What Lock the Gate accomplished:

Lock the Gate’s success came down to two vital elements:

1. They were locally focused

Groups started as locals meeting to discuss their concerns about the rapid expansion of coal and coal seam gas development all over Australia’s eastern states. Following community meetings in New South Wales and Queensland, the Lock the Gate Alliance was formed in 2010. A declaration was made: farmers would lock their gates to these destructive industries. Groups were seeded in a number of communities and a shared strategy developed for the alliance.

Groups were small, local, and dedicated. Lock the Gate groups could be fewer than 10 people, but they were highly localised, and they dedicated significant personal time and resources. Members communicated with each other regularly, tracked developments in industry and related government policy, and coordinated advocacy efforts together.

Groups were relatively few in number at first. Lock the Gate was not hundreds of thousands of people spending every waking hour focused on advocacy. Rather, the efforts were somewhat modest. In short, a relatively small number of groups were having a big impact on the national debate. There are 250 of these now, many of which collaborate in regional alliances.

2. They had a simple, shared strategy to demonstrate power and pressure their political representatives

Groups developed a shared strategy across the alliance. Knowing that farmers and landholders couldn’t legally keep mining companies off their land if the government had granted them a licence, members of the alliance in Northern Rivers in NSW developed a creative strategy to demonstrate companies fracking for gas had no social licence in their communities. Landholders would lock their gates symbolically to the gas industry and communities would declare themselves ‘gasfield free’.

Groups used simple tactics to build community support and make the campaign visible. They surveyed their neighbourhoods by doorknocking and had people sign on to a simple pledge – ‘I want my community to be gasfield free’. Where the majority was won, groups declared their communities ‘Gasfield Free’. ‘Lock the Gate’ signs were stuck on nearly every gate in the community and 'Gasfield Free’ signs were erected on local roads. Groups celebrated the results with colour and style, handing declarations to decision makers, holding festive declaration events and re-energising for the next challenge. There are now 440 gasfield-free or coal-free communities in Australia.

Groups focused on local government representation. This meant demanding their local representatives be their voice in Canberra. They used the survey results as way to pressure their local political representatives – if their local MPs represented their community, then they couldn’t avoid speaking out on this issue. At a tactical level, Lock the Gate had several replicable practices, including:

  • Demonstrating power to their local representatives with the survey results 
  • Showing up to their local MP’s public speaking events and demanding answers
  • Showing up to their local MP’s office and demanding a meeting
  • Coordinating creative actions to pressure local MPs at key moments

 

 

Using these lessons to stop coal and push for clean energy

Adani’s giant Carmichael coal mine has the support of both the Queensland and federal governments. And in just the last few months, we’ve seen our federal government falling over itself to demonise renewables and pander to the coal and gas industries. But with Queensland and federal elections approaching, our elected representatives are at their most vulnerable – they know that to stay in government, they have to stand up for the issues their community cares about most.

By applying a shared movement strategy locally and coordinating pressure on local representatives around the country, you can really have an impact. If many local representatives are hearing the same story and feeling the same heat, these issues feed their way up to Canberra.

Make getting out of coal and into clean energy a priority for your local representatives. Local government offices have limited time and limited people. A day they spend worrying about you is a day that they’re not ticking things off their to-do lists. Make your issue a problem that won’t go away by maintaining consistent pressure on your local representatives and their staff.

Sap your representative’s will to support coal. If you do this right, you will have an outsized impact. Demonstrate to your local representative that supporting coal will make life difficult for them. Every time your local representative signs on to a bill, takes a position or makes a statement that supports coal, a little part of his or her mind will be thinking: “How am I going to explain this to the angry constituents who keep showing up at my events and demanding answers?”

Demonstrate your collective power. The coal industry and the politicians in their back pocket have a lot of influence over our politicians. Use creative ways to build community support for your issue and then demonstrate your collective power to your local representatives. Make your voices so loud they drown out the big polluters.

Join a community of people who show up, speak out and act

or donate to ACF today ›     privacy ›