Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

        Schedule 2, Part 2, page 295 (after line 34), after item 161, insert:

161A  After section 255

Insert:

255C Mitigation of unintended diversions

                 Prior to exploration licences being granted for subsidence mining operations on alluvial floodplains that have underlying groundwater systems forming part of the Murray-Darling system inflows, an independent study must be undertaken into the impacts of such mining on those systems.

The amendment that I am moving to the Water Amendment Bill 2008 is to mitigate unintended diversions. This issue has been around for quite some time and many members would remember from the last parliament that the then Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, agreed to fund a study into the offsite impacts of longwall mining activities on groundwater systems and the interconnectivity of those systems with the river systems. At the time, Mr Turnbull and then Prime Minister John Howard stated on a number of occasions when under questioning in this House that there was a lack of knowledge about the connectivity issues of groundwater and the way in which it would impact on the Murray-Darling system. The issue needs to be resolved, because the bill that we have before the House at the moment, which amends the Water Act, is putting in place a structure related to basin plans and the various cap activities on the ends of catchments. To be able to do that successfully, we really need to understand those relationships that are happening in the groundwater systems. It is very clear that we do not.

This issue has come about in my electorate because of the exploration licence that was granted at the state government level to the company BHP to explore quite a large area of the Liverpool Plains, which is an alluvial floodplain on a portion of the Namoi Valley catchment. The Namoi Valley not only is one of the most productive areas of Australia but also forms part of the Murray-Darling system. It not only has river systems involved in it but also has very extensive groundwater systems. Those groundwater systems, we believe, are interconnected; the degree of interconnectivity is unknown. The way in which those systems relate to the river systems is also largely unknown, but it is understood that there is a relationship between the two. BHP were granted a licence by the New South Wales state government to explore for coal, and they are currently doing that. A Chinese company, Shenhua, has recently been granted another licence to explore for coal. I think it cost something like $360 million for the granting of the licence. To my knowledge that has not been paid yet, and hopefully that is a good sign, but the fact is that the state government is granting licences on these alluvial floodplains when it really has no idea what impact longwall mining would have on those particular areas if those licences went ahead.

Under a state based planning process, as long as the area that is impacted by the mining activity is remediated, that is all that is required. What concerns a lot of people in that area—and should concern the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the Minister for Climate Change and Water and this parliament—is, if we are trying to come to grips with the Murray-Darling system, what offsite impacts there could be if longwall mining did occur and there was a breach in the hydraulic nature of those systems. No-one knows the answer to that. That is why we need an independent study to determine the relationships between the groundwater systems themselves and between the groundwater systems and the river system.

I particularly congratulate Mr Tim Duddy, who is currently blockading BHP on a property on the Breza Plain. The landholders there have formed themselves into a group and are very serious about this issue. Senator Wong is well aware of this issue and has been asked on a number of occasions to look closely at it. The state government has put in place a facilitator, Pam Allan, whom you would remember, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz, from your days in state parliament. (Extension of time granted) She is to look at the issue of whether there is a need for an independent study.

I believe that it is in the interest of the coal industry that an independent study take place, because it is pointless to grant exploration licences if the companies will not be able to mine on those areas of land. It is in the interest of everybody that those licences not be granted on these alluvial floodplains, where not only will subsidence occur but there could be impacts on those groundwater systems in the Murray-Darling system. I call very strongly for an independent study.

Part of the evidence base in relation to my call for a study is the National Water Commission, and I would advise the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts to look at the website of the National Water Commission today, because I believe this would still be on that website—it was there yesterday. Under the heading ‘Groundwater-surface water connectivity and water reform’ it says:

Groundwater and surface water resources are intimately linked. Although we are still unclear as to the extent of these interconnections, they have important implications for management of both ground and surface water resources. It is critical that we build the knowledge and capacity needed to jointly manage these resources

The National Water Initiative recognises the connectivity between surface and groundwater resources and requires connected systems to be managed as a single resource.

In 2007, in its first biennial assessment of progress in implementation of the National Water Initiative, the National Water Commission found:

… limited recognition in water plans of the connectivity between surface water and groundwater resources. States have arrangements in place to manage groundwater, although they do not yet amount to sophisticated, integrated management. This is largely due to the complexity of the hydrology and a lack of knowledge of linkages and impacts.

The commission concluded, and this report is available on their website today:

Significantly more effort needs to go into building knowledge of groundwater resources and the capacity to manage them.

If that is not a clear indication of the lack of knowledge on this particular issue, I do not know what is.

After I spoke on this amendment in the House yesterday I was contacted by members of Senator Wong’s staff. They told me not to be too concerned about the passage of this amendment because the bill, and the original bill that we are amending, actually allows for a study to take place. I looked at the legalese of what it actually says, and the words used are ‘may’ and ‘can’. The authority may or can, and the minister may or can, implement a particular study if in fact there is seen to be a diverting of water from one system to another, a polluting of water or a whole range of other issues. The fact is that it does not say ‘will’.

The purpose of this amendment is to protect these very productive lands. I know the same sort of issue is starting to evolve in the Darling Downs, in the seat of Maranoa, where there are very similar concerns. There is an extraordinary lack of knowledge. I know the minister will probably stand up in a minute and say, ‘This is a state based issue.’ That is what he did when I asked him a question about this issue about a month ago. Minister, the state based planning process is flawed. It looks at the localised impact—(Time expired)

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