Lock the Gate is a loose national umbrella group which has staged demonstrations and rallies across the country, urging farmers to refuse to give coal seam gas companies access to their properties.

Mr Pratzky, from the rural-residential estates near Tara in Queensland, in the middle of a QGC coal seam gas field, recalls first meeting Mr Ainsworth and asking: ''Mate, I'm wanting to know what you're getting out of this?'' He said: ''I wanted service stations to get in on this gas boom, but there's money and there's crime, and this is a crime. I don't want to make money off it. I want to help you.''

Mr Ainsworth, who also paid for Mr Pratzky's defence when he was charged with public nuisance, said both his parents had turned up to Lock the Gate fund-raisers and his mother - with whom he co-owns a property near Bowral, an area threatened by coal seam gas development - had donated $20,000. Otherwise his activities were conducted independently of the family. ''We're still worth a couple of billion dollars and we're probably untouchable, unless we do something wrong,'' Mr Ainsworth said.

''If we do something wrong, we're fair game. I know if I put my foot wrong and I do something wrong I get my ass on fire.

''But I guess you don't mess with people unless you feel they deserve it and I think the CSG industry deserves it. Maybe I just had a big fight in me, that I wanted to have.''

Ainsworth and Hutton have had their moments, too. During one confrontation, according to Ainsworth: ''I said to Drew, 'Are you running a Green agenda behind the scenes?' and Drew said, 'No, but I do talk to my Green friends'. And I said, 'Drew, if you're f---ing well running a Green agenda behind the scenes, I'm out of here, you'll never hear from me again, and that'll be the end of it'. He said, 'Are you threatening me?' and I said, 'Drew, I'm not threatening you, I just want you to play it straight because I'm putting my heart and soul into this'. Drew said, 'I'm not, I give you my word I'm not'.''