The vast green paddocks and dense forest at Maules Creek seem to stretch endlessly in this peaceful part of north-western New South Wales. It’s a quiet place, but something has changed – at almost every turn on the narrow roads there are police. All through the day the vans crunch across the gravelly roads. Car searches are common.

There is one road to which the police pay particular attention. The vans slow to a crawl outside a farm near the Leard state forest where the Front Line Action on Coal camp is leading a campaign against major mining developments in the region.

They are campaigning against the expansion of the Idemitsu Australia Resources coalmine at Boggabri as well as Whitehaven Coal’s new Maules Creek mine, which is set to be an enormous operation and has already had a major impact on the community. A group of people – made up of members of the local community and anti-coal activists – have launched a fierce campaign against the developments, undertaking direct, non-violent action to protest the mines.

The Front Line Action on Coal camp near the Leard state forest is open to everyone. Photograph: Paul Farrell for Guardian Australia Photograph: Paul Farrell/Guardian Australia

But their camp is under siege, and not just from outside the farm. Last week Fairfax Media reported allegations that corporate spies had infiltrated the camp over the past several months. The suspected spies spent time with the group, gaining their trust and learning the secrets of the community that is spearheading the resistance. While their surveillance attempts were eventually thwarted, they leave behind a different kind of damage.

“I counted this person as a friend; I would always hug him when I came to camp and really was always happy to see him, you know. It’s a sickening feeling of betrayal,” says Helen War, one of the Front Line Action on Coal members.

War is talking about Tony Groves, who has been accused of being a spy and is believed to have been engaged by a company contracted by Idemitsu.

Allegedly, Groves was not the only one. Another person who travelled to the camp, Marnie Tisot, is also employed as a security and intelligence officer and was believed to be gathering intelligence on the group.

Cliff Wallace has allowed anti-coalmine activists to camp on his property. Photograph: Paul Farrell for Guardian Australia Photograph: Paul Farrell/Guardian Australia

There were suspicions in the camp that someone may have been supplying information about their activities for some time, says Cliff Wallace, the owner of the farm where the group has set up.

Community members and activists have found a home there; tents and groups of people involved in the protests are all over the property. The camp is open and anyone can arrive and join the group. But Wallace, who has lived in the region for 29 years, says that in the past few months it appeared the police were always one step ahead.



“We were having trouble doing anything around the area at one stage without the police being there ahead of us or right on top of us. We expected someone. You don’t run this sort of show without having a few spooks or people who think they can gain by sticking a knife into you,” he says.

With hindsight, there appeared to be many signs pointing towards something unusual. Both Groves and Tisot had an aversion to being photographed. War says Tisot appeared “particularly well manicured”, which struck some in the camp as odd. She also had several phones and drove different cars to the camp.

At one point, Tisot became a spokeswoman for the group in an interview with the ABC. It was an act that made the allegations all the more shocking.

“You just felt really betrayed afterwards when you go back and you listen to this and know that she was in camp for a whole different reason and paid for by whoever, by these companies, to infiltrate and learn as much as she could. That was just pretty shocking because we’re just a little camp,” says Ros Druce, another resident.

A protester attaches to machinery at Whitehaven Coal's Maules Creek project. Photograph: Leard Forest Alliance/AAP Photograph: Leard Forest Alliance/AAP Image

War says the final clue came from an “ally in the security industry” who tipped them off that some in the camp may not have been entirely what they seemed. Tisot was confronted on video but she denied taking part in an operation and has not been seen at the camp since.

The sense of betrayal lingers. War says of Groves: “I had to realise that he was a person who wasn’t who he said he was; all of those things he told us were false. It’s been a really big learning curve above all. But he spent a lot of time with a lot of different people, and that really concerns me.”



Clive Harfield, an associate professor at the University of Wollongong who specialises in undercover policing, says the operations posed a number of ethical issues. “In an undercover situation, whether it’s an undercover officer or an informer, that relationship is being manipulated, the trust is being abused, and that is the moral harm,” he says.

For undercover operations conducted by the police, there are checks and authorisations that need to be obtained internally by officers. But the regulation of private contractors pursuing the interests of private companies is less. Certain types of surveillance and investigation are subject to licensing by the police.

Cliff Wallace observes a police van outside his property. Photograh: Paul Farrell for Guardian Australia Photograph: Paul Farrell/Guardian Australia

Simon Bronitt, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security says: “The law has tended to focus primarily on the regulation of public policing, rather than private security, and there remains a large gap in our knowledge about which private companies use these services and the range of tactics deployed.”

Furthermore, as Guardian Australia reported on Wednesday, the NSW police are investigating whether private spies conducting undercover surveillance on environmental activists at Maules Creek may have been acting unlawfully by breaching the state’s licensing laws. It is not known whether the two were licensed in another state.

Has the episode affected how the protesters organise themselves? War and Druce are adamant they remain open about what they are doing, but the experience has awoken them to risks they did not previously have to consider.

“We don’t want people to feel uncomfortable when they’re in camp, as though we’re going to vet everybody through the front gate. We still go with the trust that people who come to camp are people who are generally concerned about this issue,” Druce says.

“It’s just we really don’t want to feel that we have to be looking for this stuff all the time, but still trusting that this sort of sinister act is not going to happen again.”

Work on the Maules Creek mine project. Photograph: Mike Bowers for Guardian Australia Photograph: Mike Bowers/Guardian Australia

All the while, the forces outside the camp continue to work against them. Many of the community face daily roadblocks, car searches and stops by police as they continue to take action against the winter clearing of the forest.

But the activists have no plans to stop. Wallace says quietly but firmly that he expects the spies will keep coming. “There’ll be more for sure, because we’re still in a working mode.”

And will it stop them? He folds his arms across his dusty chequered shirt and says: “The last two years, while this campaign has been going, have been the best two years out of the 29 I’ve been here. So that should show you how I feel about it.”

• Guardian Australia are currently creating an activist map of Australia, charting environmental protests going on around the country right now. If you know about a protest near you, please tell us at australia@theguardian.com

