FRACKMAN – Special Event Screening
State Cinema, Elizabeth St., North Hobart.
Wednesday March 11th, @ 5.30 pm

To be followed by a Q@A session on fracking in Tasmania

Superheroes aren’t usually born super, or heroes. Think Daredevil. 12-y.o Matt Murdock does a good deed, is exposed to a radioactive substance in the process, and develops extraordinary superpowers.

Spiderman? A little geeky, until he was bitten by an irradiated spider. The Fantastic Four owed their powers to cosmic radiation exposure. Ordinary people, exposed to dangerous substances, developed super powers.

Frackman? It was the coal seam gas. Or, more strictly speaking, the coal seam gas industry.

Dayne Pratzky had been digging tunnels and living a party life in Sydney as a young man. Recuperating from a workplace injury, he bought a 100-hectare block near Tara, in Queensland, planning to build a farm and shoot pigs. But, then Queensland Gas Company people turned up on his doorstep. They were planning to use hydraulic fracturing – fracking – to extract coal seam gas from beneath his property, as they were busily doing on neighbouring farms, and told him there was nothing he could do about it.

And this exposure to coal seam gas transformed Dayne Pratzky into Frackman. The conservative, pig- shooting wannabe farmer became, over time, a savvy and extremely capable activist. An ordinary sort of man, he witnessed the divisions caused within his community by fracking, the damage to the health of families he called neighbours and friends. And, he took up the battle against the powerful mining companies wanting to frack on his land.

Frackman, showing this Wednesday evening at North Hobart’s State Cinema, is the documentary of Pratzky’s story. It tells of his journey from ordinary man to global campaigner, the story of the effects of fracking on his life and land – and those of his neighbours and friends. Along the way, it touches on tragedy, loss, love and empowerment. It’s an amazing story of one man, which can tell us much about ourselves.

One story featured in Frackman is that of Nood and Narelle Nothdurft, who believe their family life and health has been irreparably damaged by fracking. Narelle recently visited Tasmania, to meet with politicians and councils in an effort to ensure fracking is not allowed here.

In Queensland, it’s all about coal seam gas. In Tasmania, when the moratorium expires, they’re planning to frack for shale oil and gas. While experts do argue over the differences between fracking shale and coal seams, the reality is fracking poses risks to the environment and the communities living in that environment.

If you’re undecided about the whole business of fracking, watch Frackman and gain some insight into the human side of unconventional mining practices.
Shaun Thurstans, Alex Tomlinson