'No indication' fracking will occur within Katherine boundary: Tollner

Katherine Town Council has been lobbying the Department of Mines and Energy for fracking to be excluded from its local government area since April and slammed the department’s inaction at its October 27 ordinary meeting.

At the meeting, a letter from the department’s chief executive officer, Ron Kelly, was tabled and criticised by elected members for failing to provide a clear-cut response to the moratorium bid.

Mayor Fay Miller said Mr Kelly’s “generic” letter – which was in fact sent to all councils in the Northern Territory – provided no peace of mind for Katherinites.

She added that it was unacceptable for the department to dodge the issue for seven months as the council’s letters and unanswered calls continued to pile up.

“To put it quite bluntly, I think they were hoping that it would be just a bit of a flash in the pan from Katherine Town Council,” she said.

“When we first spoke to [Ron Kelly], we made it very clear that the exclusion we wanted would be the whole of the municipal boundary, and he appeared to take that on at that time.

“So, the fact we haven’t heard back from him in any satisfactory form is very disappointing.”​

However, Mr Tollner has come to the defence of his embattled CEO and said he believed that a “misunderstanding” had caused the council to believe the letter was a specific response to its lobbying.

“I think they misconstrued that as a response to their letter, which certainly wasn’t the case,” he explained.

“In a lot of regards, it’s answered their queries anyhow.”​

When pressed about a possible moratorium, Mr Tollner avoided the question and said there had “been no talk that there will be fracking in people’s backyards”.

“We’re not looking at going into townships,” he said.

“It’s not the US.

“It’s not going to happen in the Northern Territory full stop.

“There’s no indication that people will be fracking in the Katherine municipality.”