Territorians are being urged to defend their water and reject the NT Government’s planned no-go zone fracking maps, which place communities, high-value farmland and important cultural and ecological sites at risk.

The public has one week left to comment on the mapping which, if adopted and enshrined in legislation in its current form, would jeopardise drinking water for towns like Alice Springs, impact important cultural sites, and damage world-renowned wetlands.

The Protect Country Alliance has slammed the Gunner Government’s budget as a taxpayer-funded windfall for fracking companies, at the expense of Territory taxpayers and the environment.

“The Chief Minister is playing Robin Hood in reverse, stealing from the poor in the middle of a financial crisis to give to some of the wealthiest companies in the world,” said Graeme Sawyer, spokesperson for the Protect Country Alliance.

For all the talk of belt-tightening and cuts to community services to reign in the budget blowout, it’s the fracking industry Territorians have rejected that has seen the biggest handouts from the NT Government, including:

The Protect Country Alliance and Traditional Owners from across the NT have slammed today’s shock announcement by Opposition leader Bill Shorten to gift a $1.5 billion taxpayer-funded loan to build new gas pipelines to access NT shale gas.

Bill Shorten said today that, if elected, his government would replace the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility with a fund to encourage onshore gas fracking projects.