The gathering of the group at Thirroul on Sunday heard how Stop CSG Illawarra had been instrumental in getting five CSG licences in the Illawarra area cancelled, but that the sixth one - titled PEL 2, which covers a huge area that includes large parts of the metropolitan water catchment area - remained active.

Jess Moore, of Stop CSG Illawarra, said the group would push for meetings with Illawarra members of Parliament, hoping to convince the government to repeal AGL's licence and to enact legislation to ban coal seam gas exploration and drilling in the area.

"We want legislation to ban exploration in the catchment area. There is still that massive licence in place and nothing to stop more being issued," Ms Moore said. "It's abundantly clear the people want that to be banned."

Ms Moore told the meeting that AGL was in the process of renewing its licence to explore in the area, but said the government could cancel the licence without providing any compensation to the company. She claimed AGL had breached several environmental conditions of its licence, which would allow the licence to be cancelled.

"We're asking people to write to their local representatives to represent them in this issue, to support the cancellation of PEL 2," she said.

See stop-csg-illawarra.org.