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

The coal industry is on everybody’s lips at the moment, I guess, with the current debate in relation to emissions trading and other issues. The coal industry, as the member for Capricornia said, is a very important industry in a lot of our electorates. The coal industry has been active for well over 100 years in various parts of the electorate of New England and west of the electorate, more towards the Gunnedah Basin. There are a number of initiatives, some of which the government is looking to assist with. As most members would know, the electorate of New England—or the Boggabri, Gunnedah, Quirindi coal basin—is just over the Liverpool Range from the Hunter Valley, which is the member for Hunter’s electorate. That links our area with the Port of Newcastle. The Port of Newcastle has had quite massive expansion in coal loading capacity. From memory, with a third load, they will be able to handle something like 120 million to 130 million tonnes of coal annually, which will make it the biggest coal exporting port in the world, I am told. So the Hunter Valley, Newcastle and the lower part of New England in particular—although there is some exploration of coal reserves going on in the northern part of New England—will be very significant contributors to the export earnings of the state of New South Wales.

Currently there is a proposal before the Australian Rail Track Corporation. Minister Albanese is well aware of this. Some hundreds of millions of dollars were set aside in various infrastructure programs to rebuild a pathway through the Liverpool Range which will increase the capacity of the trains coming out of the New England area and down into the Hunter. Currently there is a range, which is at the top of the Murray-Darling system, which I will refer to in a moment, and a tunnel where trains have to be physically pushed and pulled. There have been a range of incidents there over the years. The capacity of those trains is quite restricted because of the height of the tunnel through the range. The Australian Rail Track Corporation have in train a number of feasibility arrangements to look at proposals—some above the ground and some below ground by way of a tunnel—which will increase the capacity. I would encourage the government—particularly the minister who made certain assurances in here that this would be part of the stimulus package—to make sure that this program goes ahead, not only for the coal industry and for the workers who will be receiving long service leave through this legislation but for the economy of Newcastle and other areas, as well as the nation.

The other issue that I would like to mention is the long-term future of the coal industry and where it locates. I am aware that in Queensland there are issues in some parts about the granting of exploration licences to coal companies in what some people would view as fairly sensitive lands. Some people in the chamber and those listening may well have watched the Four Corners program about two months ago that looked at exploration licences that were granted to BHP Billiton and a Chinese company called Shenhua that were proposing to explore for coal on what is called the Liverpool Plains. The Liverpool Plains are part of the flood plain that comes off the Liverpool Range that I talked about a moment ago where the new tunnel is being looked at. That particular range is at the top of the Murray-Darling system in that part of the world. The drainage system that comes off the Liverpool Range onto the Liverpool Plains—which, in fact, over hundreds of thousands of years has formed this magnificent flood plain, interspersed with a degree of sandy ridges—has magnificent soil, some of the best soil in the world. There is a current debate about the granting of the coal mining exploration licences to BHP and the Chinese company Shenhua. There is great concern about the impact of particularly longwall mining, which BHP proposed to put in place, but also of the open-cut mine that Shenhua is looking at. There is great concern about the impact that the mining plans could have on the underground water systems. There are quite large underground aquifers in that area that are currently used for irrigation in a sustainable way. A major adjustment process took place earlier this century.

The proposal to mine some of that land is of great concern to landholders in the immediate area who are normally affected by coalmining. I am not against coalmining. I live within a kilometre of a coalmine and I do not have any issues with them. In fact, as a state member I assisted them to develop in other parts of the electorate. The issue here really is not about whether or not coalmining is a good thing; it is about the impact of an activity such as coalmining, and maybe other activities, on the demeanour of the land form that may well be mined—in this case an alluvial flood plain underpinned with these massive groundwater resources. The critical point, and the question that is yet unanswered, is the need for an independent scientific water study to ascertain the relationship between the land and the water—the groundwater systems that are there—and how they are interconnected as well as their relationship with the Murray-Darling system through the Namoi River. That was the point that the Four Corners program took. We need to ascertain the science of these systems before a disturbance from an activity such as mining takes place; otherwise, the damage that we do could in fact be irreparable.

There are massive coal reserves in these two exploration sites—over a billion tonnes between the two sites and the two sites are only about 10 kilometres apart. It is massive, and it is massive dollars. The sites are massive groundwater systems and they have some of the best soils in the world. So we have this collision point that is going to occur in this place, even though the granting of mining licences is essentially a state issue. The collision point will be in this building rather than the state building because of the legislation that was passed last year on the Murray-Darling Basin arrangements, putting in place a process for the future whereby the basin is actually looked at as one rather than as part of four states.

There is great concern that, if mining proposals do go ahead before the science of the hydrology of the system—the hydraulics of the groundwater systems—is fully understood, there could be irreversible damage done to the connectivity of those systems, the quality of the water in those systems and part of the recharge area of the surface water system itself. In a sense it makes a mockery of the Murray-Darling Basin arrangements. I do not blame them for this—they have been given their riding instructions—but they are trying to put together a water audit with end-of-valley caps which will eventually end up with a plan for the basin whereby certain extraction activities can occur. Then the allocations et cetera will flow from there, and the environmental benefits will be gauged as one catchment. The Haystack Plain area on the Darling Downs is a similar area with slightly different problems but, nonetheless, is part of the Murray-Darling system.

If we allow these mining activities to occur in these very sensitive areas, it could have enormous implications for water quality, particularly given the much higher salt levels which could be extracted from that mining area even than the methane gas that is also there. We need to fully understand the science of the hydraulic nature of the Namoi system and the proposed coal activities. As I explained in another speech, the Liverpool Range provides the hydraulic push for the groundwater systems. Through this enormous valley, the surface water ends up going through a neck of land about six kilometres wide and then fans out again as it goes towards Gunnedah. You have about 150 kilometres of this system and we have very little knowledge of the groundwater and surface water issues.

Right at the worst possible point, we have a potential proposal from BHP Billiton to long-wall mine across this system. I have absolutely no idea of what that will do to the hydraulics of the system or the hydrology or the quality of the system. I know that if you long-wall a mine under a flat plain it falls in. That has a whole range of other issues as well which, under the Murray-Darling arrangements will probably not be allowed to occur. BHP is suggesting that they might just mine in the ridges and they fully do not understand—no-one does—the relationship between one side of the ridge and the other as to the groundwater that is being driven through that system.

I raise those issues just so that the parliament is aware that there is great concern out there. If we want people working in a sustainable farming system and a sustainable mining system into the future where people can access their long service leave for long periods of time into the future, we really need to look at these systems and the need, particularly within the Murray-Darling system, for what is called a bioregional assessment. The Commonwealth again might well have to provide a lead role here. The Commonwealth has taken the lead role in the Murray-Darling system itself and what we may need to do now is actually plan the activities, or risk assess the activities, which can and cannot occur within various parts of that catchment. I suggest that on the Liverpool Plains in particular, because of the sensitive nature and the relationships between water, soil and food production in one of the best food-producing areas in the nation, we should tread very lightly on this. If need be, we should not allow these activities to occur before we do a comprehensive and proper bioregional assessment of the assets that are there and the potential risk to those assets of certain other activities—in this case, mining.

The other issue that I will raise briefly is the failure of the planning system in New South Wales to really address issues such as mining in some of these sensitive areas. Currently, as most people are probably aware, part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act is the trigger mechanism for allowing a mine plan to proceed from an exploration licence through to something that is real and focused. That legislation—and some of the other legislation that impacts on mining approval—does not mention water once. The word ‘water’ is not included in that process once. We really have not looked at how the state legislation and approval processes and the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the federal Water Act are going to react, if in fact they do run into each other in terms of legislative assessment. We need to do that.

Essentially what the state based planning process does is assess a mining application: look at the site, make sure that nothing can get away from that site and, if something goes wrong, it is held within that site, and look at the land immediately adjacent to the site. In some cases, the miner may have to buy that adjacent land so that the disturbances to neighbours et cetera are taken care of. It is a fairly simplistic process. But when you are dealing with an underground water system like the one that feeds the Murray-Darling system, the impacts may well occur hundreds of kilometres away from the mine. The argument is, ‘If something goes wrong, you just compensate the people around you—pay them some money or come to some arrangement.’ But that does not allow for the unknown nature of the science in terms of the push, the drive, on those systems from the Murrurundi range right through to Walgett, which is probably 350 kilometres—and it probably goes further that we do not even understand. You cannot have a state based process that only looks at the small area where the mining activity is going to occur, if it is in an area where you have these other systems.

I am pleased to see the Minister for Resources and Energy here. I am about to conclude. It is very difficult when we do not have a full understanding of the science of those groundwater systems. The minister would be aware of these issues, so I will not bore him with them, but the relationship between the state based mining approval processes and the Murray-Darling Basin arrangements really does need to be addressed. A possible solution for the mining companies, the farm organisations and the farmers themselves in the communities is an appropriate bioregional assessment of the assets—mine wise, food wise and water wise—in these regions so that we can assess them for the benefit of all into the future. I support the legislation.

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