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

It is with pleasure that I speak to this piece of legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012. This piece of legislation will have lasting significance environmentally and in the way that state and territory governments relate to the Commonwealth about water. This chamber is currently looking at the Murray-Darling issue and other water issues across the nation and this piece of legislation will have lasting significance.

This bill would not have happened had there not been a hung parliament. This is a piece of legislation which is bound to a national partnerships agreement that New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia—I am not quite sure at the moment whether Victoria—have signed. The independent scientific committee which we are debating today is part of that broader agreement. That national partnerships agreement will have lasting impact. It is part of the negotiations around the minerals resource rent tax that the member for Lyne and I had with the Prime Minister where $200 million was set aside for the national partnerships agreement; $150 million of it to go into the arrangement we are talking about tonight.

I will not spend a lot of time talking about the committee and its functions. I think they are fairly self-explanatory and most members have already spent time doing that. But it is interesting to see that for once we have unity across the chamber on what is potentially one of the most significant issues to face regional Australia—that is, the impact of coal seam gas and large coalmining developments on groundwater systems. One of the things that is critical to this debate, and to the independence of the scientific committee that this bill puts in place, is to recognise that in the past there have been state government failures in process. In New South Wales there are some former mining entities under investigation as we speak. I will explain for those who do not understand the process of what effectively happens now in a mining application. There are slight variations between coal seam gas and mining but New South Wales and Queensland have very similar processes. Essentially, a company makes application or applies for an exploration licence. It carries out a whole range of environmental and other assessments and gives the state government of the day some cash for doing that. It then relays that information and the environmental and other assessments back to the approving government, which is the same one that received the money. Then, traditionally, some codicils might be put on the mining application. I think only one application in New South Wales has been refused. So there has been a process whereby the mining sector has been able to virtually drive a bus through the allocation of an exploration licence, which eventually leads to the allocation of a production licence with, in some cases, a minor amendment.

That system has failed, particularly in New South Wales, and I think it is failing in parts of Queensland as we speak in that it has not taken into account the effect of these activities on groundwater systems, particularly in those circumstances where this parliament and the state parliaments within the Murray-Darling system are looking at trying to come to grips with a water-accounting process that crosses state borders and that has some impact on environmental flows and the management of the general river system. When we do not understand the groundwater issue it is impossible to develop appropriate 'accounting in the valley' processes without that knowledge.

Part of the reason for this scientific committee being put together is to get a more appropriate hold on the knowledge that we do have. I would imagine that, where we do not have sufficient knowledge, the people on this committee would make recommendations to the federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, who, through the national partnership agreement—which is not being debated today but is the bigger part of the package of which the scientific committee is a smaller part—will have the capacity to go back to the state approval processes and have some real say as to whether those processes go forward. There will be transparency in what the independent scientific committee actually does in terms of the information that it relays.

We have had state planning failures in the past. In an independent sense, the scientific committee will be able to assess the potential impacts of some of these large coalmine developments, mining developments and particularly coal seam gas developments. This measure has grown out of concerns that were originally expressed by people on the Liverpool Plains, which is in my electorate and, to their credit, by people in Queensland, who have great concern not only about coal seam gas developments but also about large mining developments on the Darling Downs. Both of those sections are part of the Murray-Darling system. The Haystack Plain development on the Darling Downs, in a sense, became a lightning rod for the intersection between the mining sector and agriculture. Liverpool Plains are another area of concern. There is a big difference between Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs. They do have similar soils and they are highly productive soils—they are some of the best soils in the world. But the Liverpool Plains—not all but quite large sections—have massive underground water resources. The knowledge of the Liverpool Plains underground water resources is probably one of the greatest that we have in this nation but it is still minute.

So, before many of these large-scale activities take place, there is a need to actually understand what is going on under the ground and how that could impact not only on the mine site but on the people who are nowhere near the mine site but who may be impacted by the groundwater systems that could be disrupted through some of these extractive activities.

Part of this committee's work is to establish a bioregional assessment process. In 2008, environmental spokeswoman for the Minerals Council, Melanie Stutsel, essentially made the point that, prior to the letting of exploration licences there should be a region-by-region assessment—a bioregional assessment—of particular landscapes so that mining companies did not apply for an exploration licence in an area where they may not have been granted success in the long term. I just instance, even though it is not incorporated in any of this legislation, that you cannot apply to mine in a national park. Governments of the day have made a decision that certain areas of the nation which may well have resources under them cannot be mined.

The bioregional assessment process is essentially about assessing risk. This committee will have the capacity to make reference to the minister; the capacity to do research; the capacity to make an independent reference back to the minister about a bioregional assessment process; the capacity to look at the cumulative impacts of a number of proposed mines and existing mines; and the capacity to look at how they will potentially impact on the groundwater systems and the landscape generally.

I thank the minister for being here and I thank him for his role in the broader part of what we are talking about today: the National Partnership Agreement on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining. We should have undertaken a bioregional process many years ago. If we had have done it years ago, we would not now be going through this convoluted Murray-Darling process, because a lot of the work on the impacts on water, our knowledge of risk and water and how it intersects with landscape and other issues, and how groundwater systems relate to surface water systems would have been done.

Today there was an announcement from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. I heard the minister's press conference and I share his concern. There are new numbers, again, in relation to groundwater. Hence the general public and particularly those who live in the Murray-Darling system are legitimately asking the question: what does all this mean? How come we can get a variety of numbers about a particular issue when we really do not understand what is going on?

The independent scientific committee will work in priority areas which, I think, are nominated in the bill somewhere. The point of the independent scientific committee is to work through those priority areas. One of them, the Liverpool Plains, is in my electorate. There are a number of large coalmining developments there at the moment. There are a number under assessment, and people have very real concerns about them. There are also a number that people do not have many concerns about. There is also a proposal for very large gas fields to be explored and potentially developed. This committee can assess, instigate research and make recommendations by way of advice back to the minister about what it believes will be the risk profile—and very importantly the cumulative risk profile—on some of these developments.

I would like to thank the Namoi Catchment Management Authority for the role they have played. They have spent something like $6 million or $7 million in recent years developing a layered spatial approach to their landscape. The Commonwealth has been involved by way of the Namoi water study, which will provide another layer. In that particular catchment there is a lot of evidence. The independent scientific process will be able to gather that information and make recommendations, or show concerns, or assess risks or cumulative impacts in terms of the catchment, and it will be an invaluable objective way of assessing whether these projects should go ahead or not.

I am not anti or pro, but I am very pro that the decisions are made in an objective sense. The state based process that we have had for many years has not been objective. The mining companies, essentially, have paid for the licence, gone away and paid for the environmental assessments, then gone back to the government that they paid the money to and asked for approval. There has been a nice little club where approval is nearly always granted.

I think it is important, particularly with the vision to have the Murray-Darling across state boundaries, that we have an independent scientific process that is part of the National Partnership Agreement which looks at the broader impact of these developments across the catchment, the Murray-Darling where I live, and also across the independent subcatchments within the broader catchment. Once we get to that stage we can make objective assessments with long-term risk profiles, and those developments will not be allowed to go ahead if it is shown that there is a risk of impacting on the landscape.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Historically, Australia was an agricultural based economy, became a manufacturing based economy and then a service based economy. The latest shift, however, perhaps most notable in my home state of Western Australia, sees the mining sector underpinning the growth of the nation. The boom in iron ore, coal and gas in particular has fundamentally altered the economy of the mining states and has had a significant impact across the nation. The government should recognise the importance of this investment. After all, without this sector the nation would be in recession.

The latest economic shift brings with it great opportunity but also carries great risk and great responsibility. We have to manage the impacts of the growth of the mining industry if we are to deliver a sustainable triple bottom line. Community, states and national economies all want and need the financial rewards that mining brings. In fact we have seen this government putting its hands deeper and deeper into miners' pockets in its mining and carbon tax grabs.

We all recognise the social advantage delivered by mining and its support of families and communities around the nation, even though we acknowledge some of the negative impacts other industries face in trying to compete with mining for workers and capacity. It is common in Western Australia, specifically in my electorate, for local business operators, especially in the transport and machine operator industries, to consistently lose trained staff to the higher-paying mining sector. Apprentices trained in the south-west frequently get their ticket and immediately leave the local business that trained them but cannot afford to match the high wages available up north. Whilst nobody would seek to deny those workers the rewards of working in mining, the impacts on other industries needs to be addressed.

The third part of the triple bottom line is environmental and it is this tranche which the bill today addresses. The bill is a direct response to the concerns about the impacts of mining on the hydrogeology of a region. Our aquifers are not inexhaustible. They are not bottomless pits and neither are they independent systems. Isolated from the surroundings or the greater environment, water assets are our most precious assets on which our society depends. Our farmers cannot grow food for us and for the growing international population without water—that is something that is overlooked. I also think it is something that is underestimated and undervalued.

The city of Perth could not survive without tapping into the Gnangara Mound, a superficial aquifer that supplies two-thirds of Perth's water needs. The impacts of this extraction are consistently studied and many have expressed their concerns. The south-west of Western Australia, including the seat of Forrest, also has significant groundwater resources. There are superficial aquifers, the vital Leedervilleaquifer and the enormous Yarragadeeaquifer. All three levels of aquifer are vital to the environmental, social and economic health of our region. The superficial Leederville aquifers provide domestic, industrial and agricultural water. The Yarragadee aquifer supplies larger farming, industrial and mining enterprises as well as providing domestic water supplies for the cities of Bunbury and Busselton.

There is a high degree of connectivity amongst the south-west aquifers, so none can be considered in isolation and all three are vital for the health and environment of the south-west. Australia has only two internationally recognised biodiversity hot spots, and my south-west is one of those. This ecosystem is vital to the environmental health of the state and is under threat from a drying climate, salinity and acidification as well as Phytophthora dieback. Adding additional water stress by dropping groundwater tables or contaminating aquifers will further damage a system that is already under pressure.

The bill before the House specifically addresses the impact of the mining industry on high-value, at-risk ecosystems, and the south-west of WA is a prime example. It is also the only region of Western Australia that has an active coalmining industry. The Collie coalmines have been mined for nearly a century and they still provide the fuel for the state's largest power stations. Mining in Collie requires significant dewatering of the Collie Basin aquifer. Whilst the removed water is largely reused by industry, including in the nearby power stations, there has been an impact on the level of the water table in the basin itself, and that in turn has had an impact on the vegetation and the iconic Collie River, both of which are supported by groundwater capacity. The bushland around Collie, known alternately as the Eastern or Northern Jarrah Forest, has suffered from declining rainfall and is under severe stress, and this may be reflected in the next forest management plan by reduced harvest levels.

The Collie River is the heart and soul of the Collie community and it feeds the Wellington Dam, which is a major water asset of the community and the broader irrigation system. But the Collie River is also under threat, with declining flows and salinity issues adding to the eternal problem of weed infestation. Local resident Ed Riley has been actively studying these impacts for many years and has written a submission for the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Environment and the Arts' inquiry into Australia's biodiversity in a changing climate.

In addition to the coal resources in Collie, the south-west also has coal and coal gas assets along the Vasse Shelf between Busselton and Augusta, in what are known as the Sue Coal Measures. This resource should be of particular interest to the independent expert scientific committee described by this bill, given the potential impact on key groundwater assets of the region. Members should be aware that the state government of Western Australia has recently rejected an application to mine coal in the Vasse seam. The rejection was based on the need to protect the vital groundwater resources of the region. Any risk to the Leederville aquifer in particular, which lies close to the coal measures, is a threat to the very environmental, agricultural and tourism lifeblood of the region. As I said earlier, the Leederville aquifer is used in so many ways. It is integral to the south-west. It grows crops, it waters stocks and it is intrinsically linked to the superficial aquifers on which our whole region depends.

Our knowledge of groundwater systems, and of the potential impacts of mining on those systems, needs to be expanded. We need more information. The Vasse region also contains coal gas deposits. There have been previous attempts to tap into these gas deposits but they were not commercially viable. It is the process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which causes the most concern in the community. This is the process of introducing water and chemicals into a geological strata.

The bill before the House today establishes an independent committee which will provide greater scientific advice to governments on relevant coal seam gas and large coalmining projects, specifically for the protection of water resources. The committee will need to independently assess and provide information and evidence to the community that the process is safe and under what circumstances it will be safe. It will publish options on improving the consistency of research and it will qualify and quantify the risk in plain terms. This is what the community is asking for. The committee needs to deliver the outcomes proposed in this legislation. I strongly support the coalition's amendment that, to deliver that independent result:

… each member of the Committee, except the Chair, is to be appointed on the basis that they possess scientific qualifications that the Minister considers relevant to the performance of the Committee’s functions, including but not limited to ecology, geology, hydrology, hydro-geology, natural resource management and health.

This covers the spectrum that we need on this type of committee. This is the sort of information that we need to be able to give the appropriate level of independent assessment that we and the community all need. The committee will also commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions. The south-west of Western Australia is a priority region.

There is another process that the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development that this bill seeks to establish should examine as well. Although not in its current remit, the committee should examine the potential environmental and broader impacts of geosequestration. The government is funding work to examine the potential for geosequestration in my electorate of Forrest. The proposed South West CO2 Geosequestration Hub would be based in and around the Harvey, Myalup, Binningup and Cookernup areas along the coastline as well as slightly inland. The first exploratory bore has been drilled in Cookernup.

I understand that this process will take some time to evaluate, with some years required to examine the results of the test bore before any further significant action will be taken. But perhaps the greatest threat to the project is the reality that the carbon tax will be short term, because the costly geosequestration process requires significant government subsidisation, and is uneconomic under current circumstances. The International Energy Agency has put the cost of geosequestration at over $70 a tonne. Given that the world has walked away from economy-wide carbon taxes, except Australia under a Green-Labor government, the chances are that the price of carbon will fall, not rise—as we have seen around the world—in a truly free market.

The independent scientific assessment is essential to any potential geosequestration in the South West Hub in the Harvey, Myalup, Binningup and Cookernup areas. To this end, more information is required and the process must be required to meet that same triple bottom line. The people—not only those that currently live in that area but for the future of the Harvey, Myalup and Binningup communities—deserve that level of certainty as well.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of this Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012 because I think it is good legislation.

In recent years we have seen considerable investment and development of coal seam and shale gas both in Australia and around the world. It is also becoming clear that Australia has huge reserves of underground gases, including both coal seam and shale gas. On current estimates, it is estimated that there are sufficient reserves in Australia to provide for all of our energy needs for about the next 120 years. It is therefore expected and not unusual to see the level of investment we are currently seeing in gas deposits around Australia. We can expect to see exploration increase in the years ahead and we are already seeing that occur. What is also known is that large quantities of gases are located along the eastern coast of Australia under some of the nation's most fertile agricultural land and in proximity to important underground water storage areas.

What is also known from mining developments already underway is that there are real risks to the environment as a result of these activities. Environmental impacts and damage have consequences for the rest of the community and, in particular, for our farmers whose livelihood is very much dependent on the health of the land and of the water that sustains them. That is why this legislation, which establishes an expert scientific committee to provide advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining operations, is both necessary and timely.

Mining activities are mostly governed by state and territory governments. Federal government interest in mining arises from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and it is from that EPBC Act that the committee was established.

The federal government is also establishing a national partnership agreement with the states and territories. Those states and territories which are signatories to the partnership agreement will also have access to the committee's expertise. I note that Queensland and New South Wales have already signed that agreement. I also note that this legislation has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural Affairs and Transport. Not surprisingly, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, AMEC, in its submission to the Senate committee, opposed this legislation. AMEC believes that jurisdiction for mining activities rests with the states and territories and that is where it should remain.

My concern with the existing process is this: the states are all but struggling to balance their budgets. The temptation to approve mining projects without adequate environmental impact considerations should be of concern to all fair-minded Australians. The mining companies know that it is easier to get approvals if they only have to deal with the state and territory governments—and for that matter if they only have to deal with one level of government.

It was a similar situation in the USA where, I understand, concerns relating to mining activities and approval processes caused the USA federal government and, in particular, their environment protection authority to act in the national interest. In the USA, each of the individual states also previously had control over the approval process relating to mining and exploration activities.

One of the main concerns relating to coal seam gas extraction is both the large volumes of water used and the possibility of contaminating underground water sources. Underground water supplies currently provide substantial quantities of water to our farmers. If that water is contaminated, farmers' livelihoods are at serious risk. We heard a lot about this in the course of the inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin that was chaired by the member for New England, who spoke on this bill only a few moments ago. We heard from farmers in that region about their concerns relating to the impact on their water supplies as a result of the extensive mining exploration and activities that have been undertaken in recent times.

Similarly, the restrictions on farmers' draw of water in drought years is difficult to justify when substantial volumes of water are used without restriction by miners. Again, this is a matter that was brought to the committee's attention in the course of that inquiry. It seems that if there were going to be restrictions placed on the extraction of water by farmers then the same restrictions should apply across the board to all those who draw water from underground.

As has been the case in the USA, contamination of underground water supplies may not become evident until some years later, by which time it may be all too late. An additional concern arises when the fracking process, referred to again by the previous speaker, is used to release gas from a coal seam or a sedimentary layer. Fracking often relies on the use of a range of chemicals ranging from harmless through to highly toxic. It is the use of those chemicals that has raised community concerns about the fracking process right across the world. The CSIRO has carried out extensive research into coal seam gas and the fracking process. The CSIRO's research and knowledge in this area will no doubt be beneficial to the expert panel and to the mining industry. We heard from the CSIRO a few weeks ago in this place. The CSIRO provided a presentation to members of this House specifically on the fracking process, and it was indeed a very enlightening presentation. I have to say that, whilst I still have concerns about the process, it was reassuring to know that with the right conditions, many of the risks can be either averted or minimised. Those conditions will obviously vary from one location to another, depending on the soil types. And that is exactly why and where we need to rely on expert advice, because it is not necessarily the same situation in all places. It is understanding those differences that makes a difference in the risks that we might otherwise take and again why it is so important to have an independent expert panel of people to look at the applications that are made.

The question in respect of those conditions then arises: what should those conditions be? It is my view that an independent expert scientific committee is an important step in ensuring that those right conditions are in fact imposed. I suspect that in the past it has not simply been a case of conditions not being imposed for any other reason than that they were simply not known. The risks were not known and the expertise was simply not there to impose the conditions. I understand that, in some of the more recent approvals of these applications, the approvals have been granted in conjunction with anywhere between 1,200 and 1,500 conditions. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It simply means that there has been a level of scrutiny applied to the application process that is absolutely appropriate and ought to be in place before the approval is granted.

Another matter I wish to touch on concerns underground water supplies and why an independent panel of experts will be of great benefit in ensuring those underground water supplies are not in any way contaminated. I refer to the possibility of storing water underground during times of heavy rain. We saw that again in the last couple of years of above average inflows into the Murray-Darling system, and yet there has been nowhere to store the excess water as it has come down the Murray. It is a bit of a shame because we all know that in years to come we are likely to go into another drought but we have not been able to store the water in the good times.

One of the ways of storing that water is underground. We know that above-ground storage can be controversial and the building of new dams is inevitably met with some resistance. But storing water underground not only is a real possibility but is less likely to be at all controversial. In April this year a workshop of leading groundwater experts convened by the National Centre for Groundwater Research discussed this topic and concluded that large volumes of water could be stored underground. Those same experts identified the eastern Australian areas, where much of the gas stores are located, as possible sites for future underground water storage.

I will repeat that, because it is a critical point. The very areas that we have have identified as possible sites for gas being stored are the areas that have been identified as areas where we could store water underground. I know the process is being and has been successfully used by the city of Salisbury and other places in the world, including in the US where in Orange County it is reported that around 300 gigalitres a year is being stored. That is more than all the water requirements of the city of Adelaide, where I come from, in a normal year. Underground water may not be visible, but it has been critical to sustaining communities across Australia. Good management of those underground water supplies is dependent on experts in this field.

I would like to finish where I started, by saying that this legislation is good legislation and it is timely legislation in view of the level of interest being shown in exploration activities around Australia. We know we have the mineral resources there. We know we have gases there and we know it is an area of activity that will only grow. It is in everybody's interest, it is in the national interest, to ensure that those activities are managed in the best interests of the nation and that can only come about if we have experts making the decisions, and not politicians who will possibly make them for other reasons.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take pleasure in joining the debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Export Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012. The bill establishes an independent scientific expert committee, and its roles will be to provide scientific advice to governments on relevant coal seam gas and large coalmining projects and commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions.

As the member for Makin has said, this is an important piece of legislation. Although much of the focus on the issue of coal seam gas has come about through conflict and competing land-use pressures in states such as Queensland and New South Wales, this debate is also particularly relevant to Victoria, both today and into the future. There are some active licence applications for exploration in Victoria and in particular in the seat of Gippsland, where the debate over coal seam gas is certainly emerging as a significant issue. The development of this scientific committee has the potential to add some scientific rigour and some objectivity to a discussion that unfortunately at this stage has been hijacked to a large extent by emotional and some unsubstantiated rhetoric, primarily through the extreme Greens movement in Victoria. I do not think they are being very helpful at all in terms of their participation in this discussion in Victoria. In fact I would suggest they have not been very helpful in participating in a debate anywhere in Australia, but certainly in Victoria the emotional and subjective language which is being used and the divisive nature of their campaigns have not been of any benefit at all to the broader Gippsland community. If I were to stand here tonight and present my position more broadly, it would be one of cautious optimism about the potential economic opportunities associated with coal seam gas development in the Gippsland region. It is also tempered by a desire to hasten slowly and be sure that we get the processes right and respect the interests of the other stakeholders more generally. I obviously include in that broad statement the landowners themselves and the other important land uses such as agricultural production, particularly when we are talking about Gippsland. I think this legislation before the House is an important step forward, and it may help to resolve some of those issues that I have just touched on already in relation to Victoria.

The committee, importantly, once it is formed, will be in a position to advise on research priorities. It will also be able to advise on bioregional assessments in areas of high potential impact and coal seam gas and/or the large coalmining developments and provide advice to the Commonwealth environment minister on priority assessment areas. The committee will also be able to advise on research and bioregional assessments commissioned by the Commonwealth environment minister as a result of the committee's advice and also publish options on improving the consistency of research in this area and information on developing leading standards in the protection of water resources from the impacts of coal seam gas and large coalmining developments. I think that is a very important point. I have noticed many other speakers have already touched on that particular issue of making sure that in any standards or any requirements we place on the industry we recognise the absolute paramount importance of water resources and making sure we protect those water resources from the impacts of coal seam gas and large coalmining developments.

It is fair to say that that has been a very contentious issue in Gippsland already in relation to offshore operations associated with the oil and gas industry and the operations of the Latrobe Valley coalfields. The impact on water aquifers in the Gippsland Basin as a result of those activities has been the subject of much debate, and it continues to be of great debate and great importance to the people of Gippsland. So I think this legislation and the formation of the expert scientific committee gives us some heart, if you like, that the research work is going to be done and will inform the future decisions that are made by governments in relation to these major mining developments.

The committee will also be in a position to provide the environment minister and the relevant state or territory minister with expert scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coalmining development proposals that may have a significant impact on world resources. I emphasise that point because it refers directly to the fact that the committee will have a role in relation to the state and territory ministers as well, which, I think, is obviously going to be a critical part of the rollout of any further developments in Victoria.

This issue has exercised a great deal of discussion within the National Party itself. It is fair to say that if you follow the media coverage you will see a lot of discussion amongst National Party MPs and other regionally based MPs in relation to how we get the benefits of the coal seam gas industry without compromising a key constituency of the National Party—our farmers and landholders. It has caused a great deal of discussion, it is fair to say. It is something that we have kicked around within our own party room but also amongst our broader constituency in our own individual seats.

From our discussions, we have a fairly clear idea of where we believe the development of this industry should progress. Our approach to the coal seam gas resources is probably based on five key principles. Without wishing to dumb down the debate, I would suggest that there are five key principles we refer to. One of those is that no coal seam gas development should proceed where it poses a significant impact to the quality of groundwater or surface water systems.

Another of our principles is to recognise that prime agricultural land is an increasingly important natural asset and must be protected from activities that destroy its capacity to deliver food security not only for our nation but also more broadly for the world. We recognise there is going to be a huge food task and Australia is going to play a part in that, and we recognise that prime agricultural land—although, having put the term 'prime agricultural land' out there, we do acknowledge it is very hard to define what prime agricultural land is—is becoming a scarcity. Quality agricultural land is an issue for us. Making sure that we can allow for continued food security not just for Australia but more broadly throughout the world is one of the key principles that the National Party MPs in discussing this issue have settled on.

We recognise also that there is some conflict between coal seam gas developments and existing residential areas. We believe that people who have bought their own home with a reasonable expectation of being away from mining operations deserve some level of protection from those operations, and they should not end up with coal seam gas operations on their doorstep.

We also believe that landowners themselves are entitled to appropriate pecuniary returns from any coal seam gas which is sourced by reason of access to their land. This is a difficult issue, and I acknowledge that. There is some debate on this particular point, because individual wells may produce at a higher rate than others—so how do you set a level of return for a landowner for something which under our existing legislation they do not own? Nevertheless, we believe it is an important point that landowners who are adversely affected or who provide reasonable access to their land as part of these developments should be properly remunerated in some form.

We also believe—and this is a sticking point, I guess, for all regional MPs; I am sure that it is not just those from the National Party but also those opposite from regional seats and our Liberal colleagues who have this same view—that the regions which already deliver such an extraordinary amount of wealth to our nation deserve to have a return from the operation, whether it be coal seam gas or any other activities. I note one member opposite nodding in agreement. I will not, for the sake of her future prospects in the Labor Party, acknowledge who that is. I think all regional MPs have a particular passion about ensuring that there is a direct return to the communities who generate so much of this wealth. I have seen this in my own electorate of Gippsland.

If I were to be critical in any way of the oil and gas industry's development in my community—and it is only, in comparison to the broader benefits, a minor criticism—I would say that for over 40 years the oil and gas operations have been in Bass Strait but I still have towns in my electorate which do not have natural gas. Quite frankly, the people in my community find that quite bizarre. You can look out at Bass Strait and see 16 oil rigs from the hills at Lakes Entrance, and you do not have natural gas in your own town. There are many towns in Gippsland in that situation. We would like to see some of the development, opportunities and infrastructure that can flow back into regional communities flow back into the communities that delivered that wealth for our nation in the first place.

The previous speakers have done a very good job in addressing the benefits of unconventional natural gas, but they are worth repeating. Natural gas is a very flexible source of energy. Its high energy content and ease of pipeline transport hold advantages over competing energy sources. It is the cleanest burning of the fossil fuels and, when used for power generation, natural gas emits significantly less carbon dioxide, mercury, sulphur and nitrogen oxide than coal, which is obviously another important fuel in the Gippsland electorate. It provides greater energy security for the Australian nation.

We have abundant and accessible natural gas resources. Our challenge here, and I followed the discussion across both sides of the chamber, is not to be saying 'no', it is to know when to say 'yes' and what appropriate precautions and safeguards to put in place. I have been heartened by the constructive nature of the debate on both sides of the House. It is not necessarily having a shot at the industry, but the industry needs to stand up a bit and take some of the blame for this particular issue. It has lost the confidence of the Australian people in the extraction of coal seam gas.

The industry has an important role to play in itself now to rebuild that confidence. I believe this legislation will help. We are putting requirements in place that will set a very high standard of scientific rigour but the industry itself has to stand up to the plate and build confidence in its future. In order to build support for gas development in areas like Gippsland—and other parts of Australia—the industry has a responsibility to help the public understand more about those developments.

That may be difficult in some regards. Some of the communities we are talking about may have no historic background in terms of oil and gas development, unlike the Gippsland area which has been familiar with oil and gas development over the past 40 years. There are other parts of Australia which have suddenly been exposed to this type of development, never having seen it in the past. The pace of the development has taken some communities by surprise and perhaps the industry has not brought communities along with them. That has been a concern for many regional areas.

The other aspect that makes it a little difficult for the industry is that the industry itself is a very diverse group. You might have small companies with 20 or so employees; you might have independent oil and gas companies right through to international majors that have expanded participation through acquisitions. It is a very difficult industry to get your head around and to set standards where every participant in the industry meets those standards. I have had experiences in my electorate where some cowboys—if I can call them that—have not been well received. They have come along and done some exploration work and left a mess behind for the landholder to clean up afterwards, and that has disappointed landholders in my region in the past. Then you have other industry participants who are outstanding, who are very good at discussing their particular plans for exploration, for example, and work very well with the landholders.

I put the challenge out there to the industry that they have a role to play in building community confidence. Not just the government here with legislation before the House but also the industry more broadly. They have a role to play in ensuring that they bring the community with them and recognise the importance of negotiating with all stakeholders. It probably comes down to showing some good faith with the communities they want to work in and explaining to them what the benefits are going to be and what the long-term impacts might be, and let the community have that information before they make these decisions. We are talking about informed decision making. I believe the development of scientific advice in this legislation will inform that process very well.

The experience in Gippsland over 40 years with Esso and its joint venture partners has been a very positive one. It has been a mutually beneficial relationship where Esso has managed to source a lot of its staff from our community and has built an enormous reservoir of goodwill within the local community. Companies like that are going to need to draw on that reservoir of goodwill—without wishing to prolong the metaphor of the oil and gas sector—and start explaining what they hope to do in the future if they hope to participate in the coal seam gas developments in my community. The bottom line, and it has been mentioned by several speakers today, is that protecting water is important to everyone, and industry has a role to play in making sure that those impacts are properly communicated and understood.

A debate which is well informed, which is based on the science and in which the community is brought along with the industry is one that can be very constructive and can lend itself to some good long-term outcomes. This is not just for my seat of Gippsland but also for the Australian nation more broadly. Natural gas development does have great potential in regional communities. There is no question that we will have to make sure we utilise a variety of energy sources in the future to secure our nation's energy security.

I refer to the minister's second reading speech, where he stressed the need for that independent scientific advice and the need for the states to sign up and be part of this process. In his concluding remarks, he said, 'These arrangements will provide Australians with greater confidence that projects will be subjected to the most rigorous and objective scientific assessment.' That is the level of rigour the people of Australia expect, and I acknowledge that the people of Gippsland demand that of this government.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act. I do so for a very strong reason. I listened to the contribution by the honourable member for Gippsland. He said, among other things, that industry had lost the confidence of the community. I was thinking that I agree with him and they are comments I have made before on the public record, particularly as it relates to coal seam gas mining.

In my area this is a big issue. It is a contentious issue. It is an issue of community debate and the whole community is seized by it. It is one of those issues that has brought together a wide range of people right across our community. You have the farmers out with people who, although certainly environmental activists, would not normally be together. There are a lot of people across that spectrum. It has united everybody. In speaking of support for the bill I will tell a bit of a story that gives the experience of my area, and my experience and my advocacy on this bill or the provisions within the bill—what the bill will actually do. When it started, like a lot of issues, we thought, 'Great; we will have more gas. It is clean.' That is what we thought in our local area. There is one valley in my area where a particular coal seam gas mining company had come to seek exploration licences. People were quite excited, thinking: 'This will be good for the region. This will be good for economic development and it is clean—it is gas.' That was the thinking and I was supporting Richmond Valley Council and really wanting something good to happen for them in that area.

Then people started to ask questions about the impact that would have on water. I will separate it from the land issue, because that is a separate issue—although they are all related when you are looking at coal seam gas mining or any mining. People started to ask questions about the water, and we could not get any clear answers from the mining companies themselves on what the data was, what the scientific evidence was, what studies there were et cetera. To some extent, maybe it is too new, but it has happened in other places. They were the questions that started to be asked, and I also asked: 'What about the impact on the water, on the quality and on the aquifers and what about the depression that occurs?' I asked about a whole range of things and I could not get any answers. So I started to feel some degree of concern in that area.

Then I started to do some research and had a look at the impact it may have on water. I was drawn to the National Water Commission's position statement of 2010, the Coal seam gas and water challenge. I cannot read the whole statement—it is a two-page statement, so I cannot read it in—but I just want to quote some paragraphs from that statement that alerted me that we have a problem with regard to the water. It talked about potential risks to sustainable water management. But, before it did that, it talked about current projections and it indicated:

… the Australian CSG industry could extract in the order of 7,500 gigalitres of co-produced water from groundwater systems over the next 25 years … In comparison, the current total extraction from the Great Artesian Basin is approximately 540 gigalitres per year.

Of itself, that may not be a problem, but it certainly alerted me to a problem—understanding a little bit about water and hydrology. The statement went on to say:

•   Extracting large volumes of low-quality water will impact on connected surface and groundwater systems, some of which may already be fully or overallocated, including the Great Artesian Basin and Murray-Darling Basin.

•   Impacts on other water users and the environment may occur due to the dramatic depressurisation of the coal seam, including:

- changes in pressures of adjacent aquifers with consequential changes in water availability

- reductions in surface water flows in connected systems

- land subsidence over large areas, affecting surface water systems, ecosystems, irrigation and grazing lands.

•   The production of large volumes of treated waste water, if released to surface water systems, could alter natural flow patterns and have significant impacts on water quality, and river and wetland health. There is an associated risk that, if the water is overly treated, 'clean water' pollution of naturally turbid systems may occur.

'Clean water' as it is called, has a particular definition, and it is not 'clean water' as we think in sort of lay thinking.

It also talked about the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—as it is commonly called. Further on it said:

•   The reinjection of treated waste water into other aquifers has the potential to change the beneficial use characteristics of those aquifers.

That is just a little bit of what is contained within the statement. But that was enough to convince me that there were some problems around water and that before we said, 'Yes, this is a great thing; we can do this here,' we needed to know exactly what impacts it was going to have on the water in our area.

The other issue that came up was about land. Farmers were concerned that mining companies could go on to their land, they thought, basically unfettered. People said, 'We want the federal government to deal with this and stop it.' A lot of people often say that because they think that the federal government, whoever it is, has the power to do and stop a lot of things. This area comes within state and territory jurisdictions. I have said in this place before that in New South Wales there are about three acts that are particular to mining and about seven that would be implicated within environmental conditions and other standards. That is in the New South Wales jurisdiction. I do not know the other jurisdictions quite so well.

So one of the first things I had to do was look at whether there was anything that we could do at a federal level, apart from speaking out, having a view or looking at it, and I started the conversations with the respective ministers. I noted at the time that the minister for resources talked about the mining companies vis a vis this issue but having to do some work to keep or maintain their social licence. It was really clear that that work had not been done in that area—and that was one of the things that I said. Also, in talking with the local community I said that I would raise the issue at a federal level but that it was a state issue and had to be raised at that level—and it has been.

I spoke in the House last week—I think in the adjournment debate—about how 7,000 people marched in Lismore—in my home town, in my electorate—in opposition to coal seam gas mining. So the horse has already bolted, and the coal seam gas mining companies have lost their social licence—and I think they would have to do a lot of work to get it back with this particular issue. However, I asked the minister to please explore, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—which I see has limited applicability in relation to mining, even though you can end up with a whole lot of conditions attached, but particularly to these issues with coal seam gas mining—whether the act could apply in some way or whether or not there is some action we can take so that we have some oversight. I knew that would have to be done with the states and territories. We could not just change the act and say, 'We're going to look at water', which generally comes under state and territory jurisdictions, so there would have to be some sort of conversations around that.

I also had discussions with the honourable member for New England. We share electorate boundaries, so some of the issues that come up are issues in common, and we had conversations about this particular issue. I was exploring whether there was something that could be done. It is not easy, but this amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act shows great initiative on the part of the government in coming up with this framework and model whereby we can actually get, for the first time, some scientific data that tells us about the direct impacts of coal seam gas mining in particular areas regarding water resources. From memory, I think 'water resources' is defined in the bill in the same way as it is in the Water Act 2007. That is one of the big issues that we need to have evidence on.

I note that the bill creates a new division under part 19 of the EPBC Act to establish an independent statutory committee, and then it goes on to talk about what its responsibilities are, such as to advise on research priorities and on bioregional assessments in areas of high potential impact. I thought they were going to cause bioregional assessments to be done, but it says 'advise on' as well. I suppose it would be 'advise on', if they cause them to be done. Then it says, 'advise on research and bioregional assessments commissioned by the Commonwealth minister for the environment following consideration of the committee’s advice.' One of the questions I have been asked is: when they provide that advice, at what point will that be published for the public? That is one of the things people are asking me, and I am not sure on that, but the minister might address that in his speech in reply. The bill also says, 'provide advice outside this scope in certain circumstances.' Obviously that is one of the things that it would do.

I also note that the bill amends section 506 of the EPBC Act to add the committee to the list of committees that that particular division applies to, and it has the effect of protecting committee members' independence. There is some comment about the broad fields that people would be drawn from to be experts to sit on this committee—hydrology, ecology and a whole range of areas, with some scientific background. It is sad in a way, but there is a mistrust in the community at large about experts and what is independent and what is not. I have faith in the scientific data that can be gleaned from this, but the people who sit on this committee will be free from the coal seam gas mining interests. They will primarily be people who are not in that industry but know that industry and are experts in their own areas. These are some of the issues that I have had raised with me by people in my electorate, and I said that I would raise them when speaking to the bill.

I note in closing that the National Water Commission updated its position statement on coal seam gas in April this year, and they said a number of things. They produced the paper titled Onshore co-produced water: extent and managementa good paper, worth reading for those who are interested and engaged in this issue. They also said:

… the Commission encourages the industry to continue to release actual co-produced water data in an accessible format over the entire CSG life cycle … along with other baseline groundwater monitoring data, as an essential element of broader and more transparent reporting.

Then they said:

The principles articulated in the Position Statement remain a robust framework for the implementation of regulatory arrangements for managing the water impacts of CSG development.

In my area, people have said that they do not want coal seam gas mining, full stop. That is a matter that has to be dealt with at state level. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.