Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all of my constituents who have been sitting around waiting for the continuation of this speech can now sleep easy. This is actually very important legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012. As I said in my introduction, whilst I have no coal seam gas development projects in my electorate, obviously a lot of people in my electorate of Moreton work in this area and are also concerned about the farmlands that can be affected by this. The benefits of coal seam gas and coalmining developments can be seen easily in Queensland. If we look at the job opportunities there and the housing demand in places like Moranbah and other parts of the state we can see that it is an important industry for future jobs in Queensland. We saw that in the Gillard government's 2012 budget, which centres on making sure that all Australians share in the benefits of the mining boom and our strong economy, with the revenue from these projects distributed across Australia. Unfortunately, it is a very patchy economy. There are parts of Queensland where unemployment is down to one or two per cent, such as up on the Darling Downs where it is hard to get accommodation, but when you go to places like Cairns that depend on tourism there is unemployment north of 14 per cent. So it is definitely a patchy economy and more needs to be done to spread the boom evenly. Nevertheless, some of my constituents are very worried about what CSG and coalmining developments mean for Queensland and want to know what steps are being taken by responsible governments to ensure that these industries are being properly regulated.

Coal seam gas and coalmining are constitutionally state and territory government responsibilities, from the perspective of both environmental approvals and the planning beforehand. I was a bit disturbed to hear Premier Newman indicate upfront that he was going to give a green light to projects—I think that was part of the election campaign—and that he would cut red tape and green tape. Unfortunately, that could be a bit of a black day because, as we need to remember, the regulations are about protecting our environment. I would hope that the state and territory governments take their responsibilities seriously. Obviously the Commonwealth only steps in if a project is likely to have the significant impact on a matter protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, or the EPBC Act, as most people call it. Traditionally, people will see this in the media when we are talking about a threatened species that might be impacted by a project.

The things that need to be considered by the federal government—and they are not, as I said, the exploration permits or minerals development projects or the environmental side of mining—are only national environmental significance factors under the EPBC Act. I will list those factors. They are things to do with World Heritage properties, national heritage places, wetlands of international importance listed under the Ramsar Convention, listed threatened species and ecological communities, migratory species protected under international agreements, Commonwealth marine areas, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and nuclear actions, including uranium mines—although that obviously does not apply in Queensland at the moment.

The reason this legislation is before the House is because there has been such community concern. As I said, you have got Alan Jones and the Greens on the same ticket, throw in the member for Kennedy, and I think even the member for New England has spoken on this as well in terms of—

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