Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I hope that this House does agree to these Senate amendments. I can enlighten the House as to the rationale for them. The Greens have been campaigning for some time on the question of potential impacts of coal seam gas not only on water but on land and on communities as well. There have been a number of groups campaigning because of the concern about the massive expansion, largely unchecked, of coal seam gas we have seen in this country.

The Greens proposed a number of ways of going further than this bill goes but we did welcome it as a first step. We commended the work done by the member for New England to bring this about. There were a number of issues we raised in the other place to improve the bill. One of them—where working with others succeeded—was on the question of what happens when salt is brought to the surface of land when coal seams are dewatered to get the gas to flow. We were concerned that issue was not something that was going to be considered by the committee that would have been established.

An amendment was successfully moved in the Senate to expand the remit of the committee. It would not expand it into a vastly new area but would be very much connected to the question of water. We were pleased the amendment was agreed to by a number of Independents and members from other political parties. I note that Senator Heffernan and Senator Joyce in the other place were very active on this question and were the driving forces behind getting their side to agree to this amendment.

I am very concerned that now the bill has come back here to this place that the coalition will change its position. Because, unless these amendments are agreed to, the committee will not be able to look at some very important water connected but land based impacts of CSG including salinity as well as climate impacts and impacts on farm operations from surface infrastructure.

The amendment came out of an attempt to address a very real problem and the coalition understood those arguments in the Senate. It would be very concerning if the rationale behind that suddenly changed now that is has been brought back here. I could speculate on why that might be and whether it is a case of coalition senators being prepared to go to the bush and say one thing yet when it comes to the question of how they actually vote when legislation comes back here, the leadership team says, 'You can go and say whatever you like, but, when it comes to the way we are going to vote, that is not actually how we are going to vote.' If that was the case, that is the inference that people would be entitled to draw about the coalition's concern on the question of coal seam gas because this amendment was successfully passed in the Senate with their support—and we congratulate them for that. I hope the coalition reflects on this and that these amendments are insisted upon here in this House.

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