The Victorian government is introducing legislation to ban Fracking, which is the practice of blasting water and chemicals into the deep earth to recover pockets of coal seam, tight, and shale gas.

Fracking is responsible for increasing numbers of earthquakes in the states of Oklahoma and Kansas - places that weren't significantly seismically active before Fracking began.  It's also been shown to contaminate water supplies, which would be a threat to VIC agriculture.  Premier Daniel Andrews credits a strong community campaign against fracking and unconventional gas that paved the way to the new legislation.

"This is a triumph of one of the most amazing community campaigns that our state and indeed our nation has ever seen," said the Premier.  "Local communities have put an elegant and articulate argument, and we have responded to that."

Farmers are welcoming the legislation that would protect their water supplies.

"It just makes our livelihoods, farms across Victoria, so secure," said Hamilton, VIC farmer Mal Rowe, who has campaigned for such a ban for a while now.  "We produce probably some of the best prime lamb and premium beef in Australia that goes to both domestic and international markets," he told the ABC, "If those markets realized that the produce we were providing for them came from a gas field, I'm sure that those markets would be compromised."

Not everyone is happy.  Officials say there are about 17 companies that still hold exploration licenses to seek underground gas deposits.  One is owned in part by billionaire Gina Reinhart's Hancock Prospecting, and has launched an effort to get the VIC Supreme Court to review the government's anti-Fracking plans.