Activist calls bluff on gas seam companies as conviction wiped - Sydney Morning Herald

Conviction overturned ... Drew Hutton, right. Photo: Damian White

A QUEENSLAND judge has overturned the conviction of Drew Hutton, co-founder of the Greens and president of the anti-coal seam gas group Lock the Gate.

Mr Hutton, pictured, was arrested on March 29 last year while protesting on QGC's gas fields near Tara on Queensland's western Darling Downs.

Last December Mr Hutton was convicted in the Dalby Magistrates Court under section 805 of Queensland's Petroleum and Gas Act, which provides for fines of up to $50,000 against anyone who obstructs an oil and gas company from entering, crossing or carrying out any other authorised activity on land covered by an exploration or production licence, on condition that they have been properly warned by the company.

But District Court judge Fleur Kingham acquitted Mr Hutton - the only person so far to have been convicted under the law - on the basis that he was not properly warned by QGC. Her judgment criticised the ''awkward and ambiguous drafting of s805''.

Mr Hutton said it would be a ''brave or foolish policeman'' who arrested anyone under the Queensland law.

''It's been the main bluff the government and companies have been using against landowners from day one. The other one is that landowners would be taken to court.

''We've called [their bluff],'' he said.''This makes it a lot easier for people to lock the gate.''

Mr Hutton, a long-time environment campaigner who has been arrested while protesting before, spent a night in Toowoomba jail last year after being arrested at Tara, after he refused to sign a bail agreement that required him to avoid QGC sites.

Mr Hutton's appeal was funded by Kjerulf Ainsworth, son of billionaire poker machine king Len Ainsworth, who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lock the Gate.

Neither QGC nor oil and gas lobby group the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association was available for comment.