This has ominous lessons for coal, which has the added pressure from Big Oil spruiking environmental benefits of gas over coal, and European oilers wanting a carbon tax to push coal out of the energy mix.

Vote Compass showed a growing number of voters in key battleground east coast states are against any easing of restrictions on the CSG industry.

According to the online tool, which collates responses from visitors to the ABC website on a range of issues, some 60% of the more than 250,000 respondents who have used Vote Compass want strict conditions on CSG extraction, up from around half of voters who had their say on the topic at the 2013 poll.

It points to the increasing success of the Lock The Gate movement, and an apparent failure of the peak lobby group the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s ‘Our Natural Advantage’ advertising campaign.

CSG remains a contentious issue in the east coast states from Queensland to Tasmania.

While thousands of wells have been drilled in Queensland to support the six giant LNG trains under development and some domestic production, Tasmania and Victoria have seen exploration ground to a halt, and New South Wales has all-but put the axe into most CSG exploration, particularly in the Northern Rivers region where Metgasco was basically run out of town.

Anti-CSG activists’ secret weapon is that the issue polarises all side of the political spectrum, aside from the most extreme climate change deniers, while APPEA’s attempts to paint gas as a clean alternative comes across as big business putting profit ahead of the agricultural industry and local communities’ views that they should decide what industries come to town and how they should operate – a community mindset that is not unique to CSG.

CSG, however, is a perfect storm of issues: climate change, aquifer and soil protection, pollution and land access that can cover impact on hundreds more landholders than a single coal mine, as evidenced by the thousands of land access agreements that CSG companies have negotiated to date, some painlessly and some in the courts.

Lock The Gate spokesperson Daniel Robins told the ABC it was clear there was widespread and growing opposition to CSG across the country.

“This issue breaches the divide of left and right, and people in the cities and in the country areas are saying they oppose this," Robins said.

“Those concerns will continue to grow as protections to water and protections to people's health have failed."

The CSG industry does not agree that exploration and extraction is unsafe, and says there are regulations in place to protect aquifers like the Great Artesian Basin and almost 20 years of experience with CSG wells in Queensland.

APPEA says CSG has reinvigorated rural and regional communities in Queensland, bringing jobs and investment, but that belies the fact that an impoverished region like Casino has told CSG it was not wanted.

Belief

APPEA argues the Vote Compass is more about people's belief in regulation rather than any opposition to CSG.

CEO Dr Malcolm Roberts told the ABC that people were instinctively wary of reducing regulations across all sectors.

He said ongoing CSIRO research into community attitudes in regional Queensland had shown a majority of people in areas where the industry operated were supportive, and some 70% of regional Queenslanders oppose the easing of regulations.

Victoria has a standing moratorium on CSG exploration, which is under review and an announcement from the Government is expected next week, and it could be a tipping point in the southern states’ CSG path.

Campaign

APPEA has always had its detractors, as any group does, but it has faced increasing criticism from industry that it doesn’t do enough to get its message out.

Consulting reservoir engineer and CSG expert Don McMillan, a frequent letter writer to Energy News, recently called for APPEA to be reformed so industry can get on the front foot to tackle the rising tide of opposition.

He said the industries' response to a predicted east coast gas shortage was “lacklustre to the point of irrelevance”

“The question is why have we lost the respect of the general public? I believe we are to blame.

We have failed to address the public concerns regarding the work we do. Silence from the industry is interpreted as ‘you are hiding something’,” he told Energy News this week.

He said APPEA needed to take a more activist role, putting technical people in the debate to correct “misinformation”.

When asked about industry professionals’ concern about APPEA’s messaging success in the community, Australian Pipelines & Gas Association CEO Cheryl Cartwright conceded that, in APPEA’s defence, it was easier to pedal unsubstantiated myths than explain technical realities.

“You have the left-leaning protestors and left-leaning media ignoring the science that proves that with appropriate regulation – and that is appropriate management of the wells – CSG development is safe with appropriate guidelines and methods in place,” she told Energy News.

“The people who talk about climate change and ‘the science is in’ are ignoring the fact that the science is in on CSG.”

The Adelaide-based Norwood Resource Group has also been critical of APPEA, with its secretary Bruce Holland telling Energy News this week that his group was created because of an “apparent vacuum in the public space”

It said “much of the poor press was based on misinformation, and was not being rebutted or challenged” and Holland told Energy News that “the industry and its associations, and government, should be more proactive at an early stage, and more forceful in communicating the facts into the media space” to counter-act the “demonising of fossil fuels”

Defensive

In response to industry professionals who told ICN sister publication Energy News APPEA might need a new strategy to tackle industry’s opposition, Roberts said the lobby group’s critics had the advantage of setting the agenda, and forcing APPEA into taking a reactive role.

“APPEA has been much more active in the time I’ve been here in responding to those issues,” Roberts said in a frank interview about its strategies amid an environment that he said was generally “hostile” to business.

“No one disagrees that the industry needs to put facts out there when people are spreading misinformation, and that’s what we’re doing. I think we’re all frustrated that it’s very easy to get baseless claims printed or circulated in the media.

“It’s very easy, when you’re not accountable, to make claims that aren’t supported by the facts, and you will always get a media out let willing to run a story that promises conflict or apparently expose problems.”

He said it was harder to get fact-based discussions to be carried in the media, and it is true the modern blipvert-paced media cycle that is predicated on a diet of short attention spans, sensationalism and clickbait headlines.

Roberts said it was an “obligation” for not just APPEA, but all industry professionals who can provide a factual, honest response to get involved in the debate.

“The companies and individuals do that, CSIRO and others are part of the debate.”

Asked point blank whether APPEA is losing the battle for community acceptance given the drilling moratoria in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, Roberts said it was easier to create fear than it is to create understanding.

“It’s easier to create in some people’s minds concerns that may not be clearly defined – certainly not concerns that are supported by any evidence or independent analysis,” he said.

“It’s easier to pedal those myths and make people anxious, especially in places where the industry is not well established, where there are not the demonstrated benefits of the industry at that stage.”

While APPEA puts out study after study from the likes of Deloitte and others about the economic and environmental benefits of industry, often the group funded these studies itself, which leads to misgivings in the community about the viability of those reports, despite being written up by highly reputable groups.

“We don’t think people should take our word as gospel. People can be pretty sceptical and downright cynical about claims from industry or business. The current climate is pretty hostile in some ways to business,” Roberts said.

“We’ve tried to encourage people to go to the best independent sources of information.”

He said there were numerous independent reports, from CSIRO, NSW chief scientist Mary O’Kane, the Hawke Review in the Northern Territory and the Australian College of Learned Academies, plus overseas studies, independent of APPEA, which always come back with the same conclusion: that the risks can be managed with good industry practice and effective regulation.

Asked whether APPEA needs a public ‘personality’, or popular go-to point, he said: “We are a go-to point, we have people across the country speaking every day about these issues.”

The Vote Compass findings are based on 252,309 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from May 8 to May 31, 2016. The data has been weighted to ensure the sample reflects the Australian population.