One Nation has taken a stand against a non-existent environmental threat in Queensland’s channel country with its vow to block coal seam gas mining, according to a peak conservation body.

Pauline Hanson’s party, which could be on track to hold the balance of power in Queensland after a poll had its 18% primary vote pushing major party support to record lows, pitched itself as being on a collision course with both Labor and the LNP over CSG in the state’s south-west outback corner.

However, the Queensland Conservation Council co-ordinator Tim Seelig said One Nation appeared to be confused about the real environmental threat in channel country, which came not from proposals for CSG mining but shale gas extraction.

“It could be that they’ve heard that there might be new unconventional gas in the Cooper Creek and floodplain areas and they’ve just assumed that that means coal seam gas, which is actually a bit of a red herring,” Seelig said.

One Nation’s apparent misstep comes as its online Queensland state policy booklet lists a number of steps that have already been legislated.

These include “no body, no parole” laws for homicide convictions that Labor passed this year and mandatory sentences for possession of illegal weapons such as sawn-off shotguns that were passed by the former Liberal National party government.

The Queensland One Nation leader, Steve Dickson, has separately taken a leaf out of the LNP’s 2015 election campaign playbook by making a funding promise contingent on a One Nation victory in particular seats.

Dickson last week made a $10m “pledge” towards a Townsville driver education facility if One Nation held the balance of power – and provided one of four seats in the northern city went to the party.

One Nation has made a further pitch for farmers’ votes by vowing to fight tree-clearing restrictions that Labor has promised to restore if returned with an outright majority.

One Nation’s previously released state policies also include publishing an online register of sex offenders, “rebadging” the police service as the “police force”, freeing up gun licensing and opposing the sale of income-generating assets.

The party also wants to improve access to medicinal cannabis, legislate to allow citizen-driven referenda for petitions that gather 5% of electors’ votes and push for new or bigger dams and water storage across the state.

Dickson said the party wanted a moratorium on new CSG projects until a “full inquiry” examined its impacts and particularly opposed any extension of CSG into the state’s channel country.

He said while the “major parties are focused on CSG and renewables as the answer to the energy crisis”, One Nation had “a broader view” with “new coal power stations and water security as the way forward for Australia”.

Dickson said there should be a ban until there was “irrefutable scientific proof that such mining would have no impact on the [Great Artesian] Basin”.

“The channel country is renowned as a stock fattening area but depends on a reliable water supply,” Dickson said. “If mining compromised the basin, the ramifications for not only Queensland but the rest of Australia can only be imagined.”

Seelig said CSG and shale gas extraction – proposals for the latter having prompted opposition from an unusual alliance of farmers, conservationists and traditional owners in channel country – were “two different processes in two different areas of the ground”.

“The difference is important for me in that because I don’t think CSG is any imminent threat in the areas we’re talking about, the Cooper Creek and the floodplains,” Seelig said.

Whereas most CSG in Queensland did not involve “fracking” – breaking underground formations through the injection of chemicals – shale gas mining “almost always” did.

“So it’s a different order of magnitude and a much bigger threat to Cooper creek and the floodplain areas because it involves a whole new layer of toxic chemicals and what to do with water storage and the risk of polluting the river system and so on.

“It’s actually shale that’s the issue and we don’t believe that shale gas is appropriate on the floodplains or the water courses of Cooper Creek.”