Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There is a seconder. I second the motion. Our federal environment minister has just approved a Gina Rinehart backed, huge coal-seam-gas project in my home state. This project, the Senex Atlas stage 3 project, will clear 360 hectares of endangered koala habitat in inland Queensland for fracking. This project is expected to require the drainage of a whopping 6½ million litres of groundwater as the coal seams are depressurised every day. Let's not forget that the depressurisation of coal seams across Queensland's Western Downs is causing some of Australia's best farmland to sink. Lock the Gate said it best:

"Minister Plibersek is happy to pose for photos with cute and cuddly koalas one day and then approve the clearing of hundreds of hectares of koala habitat for new Gina Rinehart-backed coal seam gas developments the next … "

Queensland communities are already incredibly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, yet we have the Labor government approving yet another polluting fossil fuel gas project, further exacerbating the climate crisis.

The overwhelming majority of Queensland's gas extraction is exported overseas, and the biggest domestic user of gas in Queensland is the gas industry itself. There would be no need for this project if the federal and state governments were managing existing gas fields in the national interest. This project is going to result in 151 coal seam gas wells and a 300 million litre CSG brine storage requirement. This is only going to make the boom-and-bust cycle of short-sighted gas development worse in the Queensland town of Miles. So here we go again: yet another fossil fuel approval from this Labor government. It's not the first, and it's abundantly clear it's not going to be the last.

How long can the Labor and Liberal parties continue to ignore the most basic of scientific facts. Approving new fossil fuel projects is bad for the environment, the climate and the future of our planet. April was the warmest month on record—the 11th month in a row of record global temperatures—and sea surface temperatures have been at a record high for over a year. The world's top scientists now believe that we're going to blow past the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris climate agreement, and here we have the Labor government willingly approving new fossil fuel projects, despite those warnings.

You don't have to look too far to see to why this is happening, though. We all know it, so we're going to say the quiet part out loud. Over the last decade, the fossil fuel industry has donated $13.7 million to the Labor and Liberal parties. You might be asking: why both? It's because it guarantees that this dirty industry has influence and power regardless of whether Labor or the Liberals win the election—and what a return on investment they get. This last budget continued to hand over billions of dollars in subsidies to fossil fuels at the expense of communities right across the country. Coal and gas say, 'Jump', and this government simply responds with, 'How high?' It is abundantly clear that you cannot trust either the LNP or Labor when it comes to protecting our environment. The LNP still don't really believe that climate change is even real; and then we have the Labor Party, which has the gall to tell us that they think it's real while they continue to approve new coal and gas wells. It's actually insulting!

This latest approval of 151 coal seam gas wells is the latest in a long, long line of this government ignoring science and ignoring every single person in this country asking for climate action, and it must be overturned.

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