Numerous government decisions will be taken in coming months that will either constrain the CSG industry or allow it to expand.
There's currently a freeze on new exploration licences that will be replaced with a strategic release framework, new codes and conditions are being finalised, and CSG will soon be regulated by the Environment Protection Agency.
The NSW government also plans to have a "use it or lose it" regime for licences. It has decided not to appeal against an overturning of its suspension of Metgasco's gas drilling licence near LIsmore.
Assisting the industry are an army of former political staff and former politicians, many of whom had a role in the regulation of the industry before jumping the fence to industry. A few have come back the other way, moving from senior jobs in the major gas companies to senior advising roles in ministers offices.
Green's MP Jeremy Buckingham says the revolving door between politics and the mining sector has utterly undermined the community's faith in our ability to regulate mining and CSG.
"It's very concerning to see a decision maker who helped to create the industry now spruiking it," he says.
"The community feel that often it's just a foregone conclusion and that the government is paying lip service to regulation".
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration, the coal seam gas industry body, declined to comment when contacted by Fairfax Media.
Often politicians and political staffers jump directly into a role that involves them advocating for the companies, unrestrained by rules that are designed to provide cooling off periods between politics and business.
For instance Martin Ferguson, the former Labor resources minister, became chairman of the advisory committee for the peak oil and gas industry association, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, six months after leaving politics.
His colleagues, Greg Combet, the former Gillard government minister for Climate change and Craig Emerson, her minister for Trade, waited a year before penning an opinion article in support of the CSG industry in the Australian Financial Review.
They are both working as economic consultants to AGL and Santos, the two biggest players in CSG in NSW.
Former National party leaders, John Anderson and Mark Vaile also moved into high profile roles in mining and CSG companies after politics. John Anderson became chairman of Eastern Star Gas, the company behind the Narrabri Gas project about two years after leaving politics. The company was taken over in 2011 by Santos and Anderson made an estimated $9 million out the deal.
Mark Vaile became a director and then chairman of Whitehaven coal, the company behind one of the state's most controversial mines at Maules Creek. He is regularly seen in the corridors of Macquarie Street.
The most high profile shift between politics and the mining industry has been Stephen Galilee, who is the former chief of staff for then Treasurer, Mike Baird. Galilee moved soon in late 2011 to become chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council. A spokesman for the council said it does not lobby on the gas industry - it leaves that to APPEA - but it is intimately involved in all things mining including the planning and environmental regimes.
But there are a myriad of informal relationships that are less obvious to those being lobbied and to the public at large. These long standing personal relationships work to ensure a company can pick up the phone to a politician or adviser in the office if there is an issue at hand or a meeting is needed.
The list goes on...
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I can see now how Tony Abbott backed off from holding an enquiry into the actions of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton flooding the market with iron ore.
If there's so much money in mining why are we in so much deficit? Why aren't we at least charging them to the eyeballs for taking our minerals, using our water and ripping up our agriculture?
