A new website that says it represents Northern Territorians who support fracking in the Beetaloo Basin appears shrouded in mystery with no details about who is behind it.
Environmentalists have concerns that the site, which calls itself the Beetaloo Economic Alliance, could be an example of astroturfing, a term that describes where a fake grassroots campaign is used to obscure marketing or PR.
Hannah Ekin, a spokesperson for the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance (Caffa), said it had “all the markers” of an astroturfing campaign.
The site was discovered as Caffa announced it was taking the NT government to the supreme court over an alleged failure to consider the environmental impacts of the fracking project by resources company Tamboran in the Beetaloo Basin.
The website presents pictures of men in hard hats with the claim: “Your opportunity is under attack! The only question is, are you going to allow it?” and has a “take action” button that links to a template to send MPs an email in support of the Tamboran project.
There is no contact information and only two working links. One to a piece by the Australian endorsing the project and another to a clip from the ABC titled: “Industry says gas from the Beetaloo Basin could solve Australia’s energy crisis.”
There is a Facebook page with no followers and a Twitter account with three followers and 54 following. It has been posted to 10 times since its inception in early December 2022. The message function is barred.
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Mudburra elder Ray Dimakarri Dixon, an anti-fracking campaigner in the region, is furious at the unauthorised use of his image to promote the purported “grassroots” campaign.
Near the bottom of the webpage is a picture of Dixon with the slogan: “No impact on air quality. A three year study by the CSIRO published earlier this year found fracking had no impact on air quality.”
Dixon said he was stunned by seeing his image used to promote fracking.
“They didn’t contact me,” Dixon said. “I am shocked about it.
“It’s me on my country. I’m standing up on my own for my country, for my water. I’m not saying yes to fracking or for any mining company. No. It’s just destroying our identity and it’s destroying who we are.”
Ekin described the images of Dixon as offensive and clumsy.
“Ray has been in the press many, many times saying that he is against fracking,” Ekin said. “Whoever’s making this website clearly doesn’t understand anything about the territory. It puts democracy at risk. To do so without authorisation and no indication of who they are.”
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The photo was taken by Lauren Mellor from Original Power NT. Both Mellor and Dixon have confirmed that the photo used on the Beetaloo Economic Alliance website was never sold as a stock photo, making it unclear whether the use of the image is intentional.
The executive director of the Environment Centre NT, Kirsty Howey, said: “If the fracking industry could run a people-powered campaign then it would.
“It’s vitally important that we know who is really behind political campaigns in any functioning democracy. The fact that pro-fracking sites like this, and Back Beetaloo, seem to be able to operate with no consequences is deeply problematic.”
Jack Fuge, an IT expert, said searches showed the site was registered to an entity in Pyrmont, but the name was not registered with Asic. There is no publicly listed ABN, and no more information is available.
In 2021, the Sun-Herald reported on another website BackBeetaloo.com, an alleged astroturfing campaign in the Beetaloo.
No links between BackBeetaloo.com.au and BeetalooEconomicAlliance.com.au have been found.
The NT director of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, David Slama, has stated that Appea “had no involvement with this website”.
A Tamboran Resources spokesperson said they had no knowledge of the site.