Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this bill, the substance of which has a significance well beyond this parliament. The bill in question, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012, is one that formalises the plan to establish an independent expert scientific committee on coal seam gas and large coalmining development. As previous speakers have said, there is a level of community concern in relation to these developments, and I will come back to that in more detail.

The role of this committee will be to provide scientific advice to governments on relevant coal seam gas and large coalmining projects, and to commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions. The committee can advise on research priorities and bioregional assessment in areas of high potential impact, advise on research and bioregional assessment commissioned by the Commonwealth environment minister as a result of the committee's advice, publish options on improving the consistency of research in this area and publish information on developing leading standards in the protection of water resources from the impacts of coal seam gas and large coal developments. Also, the committee can provide the environment minister and relevant state or territory ministers with expert scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coalmining developments that may have a significant impact on water resources and can also provide advice outside the scope under certain circumstances.

The coal seam gas industry both in Queensland and in New South Wales has been the subject of a lengthy debate in recent years, some of which has been guided by a genuine desire to balance the specifics of the burgeoning industry with the interests of pre-existing industries, most importantly and most commonly agriculture. Unfortunately, some of the debate has been has not been quite so well intentioned and in some cases has been downright misleading and dishonest. The result is that many people who are not directly involved in the CSG industry have only ever heard the negatives about the industry. They do not hear about the jobs that CSG and coal are creating. They do not hear about the regional communities these industries are sustaining.

I grew up in a regional community, and it is interesting that in my 14 years in politics, Bruce Scott, the member for Maranoa has been closing in on my boundaries because of a population drift in his electorate. We are now seeing that actually go the other way; his electorate, for the first time in many years, is growing. That is a direct result of the development of the coal seam in the area.

We do not hear from the critics of these industries about the export revenue that the coal and coal seam industries are providing. All we hear are claims of division, about farmers who are steamrolled by ruthless mining companies hell-bent on making a profit no matter what the cost. I grew up in this region, I live in this region and I see both sides. I was a farmer for longer than I have been a politician. I can assure you that, yes, there are areas of conflict and, yes, there are areas of difference. But in the main there is a resolve in the community to reach a point where these two industries, the agricultural industry and the mining and resource industry, can actually coexist. The reason is they have a shared interest not only in the long-term sustainability of the land—in terms of allowing, where it is possible, resource extraction; they also, more importantly, have a shared interest that that land continues to produce agricultural wealth for our nation.

We see that cooperation between the rural industry—and farmers in particular—and the resource industry take place outside the spotlight. As I have noted elsewhere, this issue has been subjected to some of the most disingenuous manipulation that I have ever seen in my many years as a farmer, my fewer years as an agri-politician or my recent years as a politician. I know this area and this industry well. Agriculture is still running deep in my blood and it is in my soul that we do everything we can to ensure that that industry and its people have a future. But at the same time we owe these people, and more particularly their children, the opportunities that may exist in having these industries coexist.

One of the pleasing things I see as a result of the so called coal seam boom is that parents are now seeing the opportunity for their children to travel away to university to gain degrees, to become trades people and then to return to their home district and have a future there amongst the family and friends they grew up with. Those ties always run deep. I had the opportunity a few weekends ago to go back to my home district. There is nothing like mixing with the people you grew up with. Perhaps you do not know them as closely as you used to but there is a feeling of belonging. My district virtually has expired. There are now more people from my district living in Toowoomba than living in the district I grew up in. The one thing that will save districts like Boondooma from that sort of near extinction where the school closes and the community is almost in an idle is if the agricultural industry and the resource industry can coexist and come up with an agreement where the long-term future of agriculture is protected and the opportunities provided by the resource sector are optimised.

The regulations surrounding the CSG industry and the coal industry fall primarily in the jurisdiction of our state governments—in these cases, primarily in New South Wales and Queensland. There has, however, always been an element of federal regulation as far as the EPBC Act applies, and recent developments mean there is added pressure on the federal government to expand its oversight role. The coalition believes that anything that further ensures the integrity of the industry and can address the issues of public confidence is a good thing. So we believe there is a role for this assessment panel and for the expertise it brings to this area. We are a little bit cautious that this process may bring an added level of red tape and convolution but we are prepared to give it a shot on the basis that we see the merit in it. We need to work with the state governments, which are at the moment trying to balance the interests of mining and agriculture and ensure that the states' prime farming land is safeguarded for the long-term future. Both states are taking their responsibilities seriously and I think we can have faith in the processes both Queensland and New South Wales governments are putting in place.

I do expect, however, that the Greens-driven protest movement will continue. The Greens have capitalised on the campaigning opportunities of stirring up anti-CSG and anticoalmining sentiment, and there are legitimate concerns within the farming communities about the long-term impacts of these industries. These concerns need to be and hopefully will be addressed by this committee. We have seen, though, that at times federal red tape with the environment minister basically ties projects up. We have a recent example where the Queensland government has approved the expansion of bauxite mining on Cape York but that whole process has been tied down by the federal minister's unwillingness to make a decision when he has been fed an absolute bucketload of misinformation by the Greens. He wants to go back through that information, and I could bet that that information is going to prove to be untrue. It is a good example of how the green movement uses these sorts of genuine processes to slow everything down to a point where they try and destroy development.

The legitimate concerns of the farmers, who are the custodians of productive farming land for generations to come, need to be addressed. And the incorrect claims that are made by those who have no interest in sustainable development also need to be addressed and proven incorrect or correct, one way or the other. That is not to say that there are not parts of rural industry that will be deemed off limits. Both the coalition leader and I have said quite clearly that, while it is beyond our immediate power, the preservation of prime agricultural land is of top priority and that the owners of that land should have the right to say no to development on their land. As such, some land will be deemed off limits, but that is a good thing in terms of maintaining productivity in the long-term interests of Australia.

This committee gives us a good opportunity to balance the interests of mining and farming sectors, to the benefit of both, and to ensure the harmonisation of the state system so that stakeholders know exactly where they stand. To this end, the coalition supports this bill and provides in principle support for the establishment of the committee, subject to an amendment which I will outline during the detailed reading stage.

While the potential economic benefits of these industries are clear, with around 90 per cent of Queensland's gas supplies already coming from CSG operations and with the industry expected to deliver 18,000 jobs and around $850 million in royalties per year in Queensland alone, there is a very significant concern that we get this system to work properly and in a way which not only allows those jobs and that return to the state to take place but also ensures the protection of ground and surface water systems. The establishment of this committee will add, in our opinion, independent expert input to the debate about coal seam gas extraction and export and about coalmine development and the export of coal. The committee is a positive step towards improving public confidence in the environmental integrity of these two industries in particular, and the coalition will not stand in its way.

The coalition sees the benefit in this. There is a requirement that we in parliament ensure that public confidence in the processes is maintained and that, where it can be, it is improved. There is a vast amount of information available in relation to coal seam development and underground water in particular that needs to be collated, verified and put in a form that can be used both for assessing applications to explore and develop but also for disseminating to those farmers who have concerns. They are the custodians of this land for generations to come and they need to have confidence that the information they are getting is correct and can be relied on.

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