For anyone living underground for the past month, the jack mackerel was the unsung hero of a soap opera played out in Canberra between a fishing company and environmental protestors.

Despite complying with every rule laid down by the Australian government over the right to catch up to 18,000 tonnes of jack mackerel, Dutch trawler Abel Tasman had the deal pulled out from under its keel for no reason other than to appease environmentalists.

Coal mine developers in Queensland’s Galilee Basin should be alarmed by the fate of the Abel Tasman because the speed at which the Australian government caved in sends an ominous signal.

Miners, like fishermen, might think they have a rock-solid agreement signed by government ministers but once the protests start the paper on which the deal is written turns to water.

And, if in any doubt that the same fate awaits the proposed Galilee coal mines take a look at how the protesting process starts, grows and eventually sucks in ministers in a government desperately clinging to power with the aid of friends in the environmentally driven Green Party.

First shot in what looks to be a concerted attack on the Galilee started on Tuesday when Greenpeace, the original and most vocal of the world’s environmental movements, published a report on its website called: “Alarming new findings for our climate & our reef”

Link to that report here, attached not so much to help Greenpeace but to help coal industry readers get a close-up look at what they’re dealing with.

It also helps them understand the way the protest process works, slowly at first, working up until a weak government caves in, even if it means breaking signed contracts.

The essence of claims from Greenpeace is that coal mines planned for the Galilee will involve mining up to 330 million tonnes of coal a year and shipping it through the Great Barrier Reef.

It is, in effect, a double-edged sword. Greenpeace and friends are saying that if the carbon dioxide does not get you then ruining the reef will.

Oh, and if saving the planet isn’t enough then how about tossing in a few people you can dislike because incorporated in the opening shot from Greenpeace are photographs of the three leaders of the Galilee coal rush, Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Gautam Adani.

By inference the three amigos are guilty of the worst offence of all in the eyes of Greenpeace. They’re rich – and fighting the rich is a third (and noblest reason) to launch a jihad against coal.

Once started, the forces opposed to the development of coal mines in the Galilee will follow a tried and proven procedure, identical to the way the Abel Tasman trawler was pilloried until the government reneged on a deal.

In fact, a second shot in the anti-Galilee campaign was fired within hours of the Greenpeace report being published on its website, with local newspapers and their websites picking up the theme. Even London’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper joined in.

What the Guardian liked most was a Greenpeace claim that if the nine mines planned for the Galilee proceeded then Queensland would become the world’s seventh biggest producer of carbon dioxide.

Pressure will build on coal as Australia heads to next year’s election.

Even if the Alpha project of Rinehart and Adani has won the approval of the federal and Queensland governments they would be wise to look very carefully at the fine print in what has been signed.

Then again, even if the mining partners and their lawyers believe they have a contract that cannot be broken they had best consider the fate of the Abel Tasman and its jack mackerel contract because once the wheels of protest start to move, it becomes a political circus.

Or, as Greenpeace notes on its website: “People power wins! Super trawler banned”

For a politician facing an election there is nothing more frightening than people power, not even a visit from Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Gautam Adani.

Perhaps Greenpeace even has its next headline ready to go: “People power wins! Coal mines banned”