John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying yesterday evening, when I was abruptly terminated, the committee has the ability to publish options on improving the consistency of research in the area and information on developing leading standards in the protection of water resources from the impacts of coal seam gas and large coalmining developments. This is probably the big issue in being able to protect the aquifers, and at the same time allowing agriculture to continue doing what it does very well and the gas to be extracted. The committee provides the environment minister and relevant state or territory ministers with expert scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coalmining development proposals that may have a significant impact on water resources, and it provides other advice in whatever circumstances.

The background of it all is that while the technology to extract gas from coal seams has been long in existence, it has only been in the last decade and a half or so that development has actually occurred in our country of Australia. Currently, around 90 per cent of Queensland gas is supplied from CSG operations, and it represents approximately 10 per cent of Australia's total gas production. The industry is in the process of growing; in Queensland alone it is expected to deliver 18,000 jobs and around $850 million in royalties per year.

The federal government will also benefit from a substantial increase in income and in company taxes. There has been considerable public debate, as there would be, around CSG operations and the environmental impact, with groundwater resources being a key concern. But issues relating to water table preservation and the protection and integrity of aquifers need to be addressed. That is the prime issue. The establishment of the committee would add independent expert input into the debate. The coalition believes the committee is a positive step towards improving public confidence in the environmental integrity of the industry.

There is one proposed amendment to the bill. The bill states that 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, hydrogeology, natural resource management and health. The coalition proposes that, as the committee's fundamental reason for being is to advise on scientific issues relating to water associated with CSM and coalmining, the bill should require a majority of the members to have advanced qualifications and expertise in the key fields of geology, hydrology or hydrogeology. That is a very important issue.

While this bill is about the establishment of a committee to provide scientific advice to governments on relevant coal seam gas and large coalmining projects, access to land by CSG operators is a very significant issue to the farmers on that land. In addition, there is a significant concern that farmers are not receiving fair compensation for access to their land and a share of any profits. Obviously farmers must get compensation for surface interference and everything that goes with it, but this is very different to ordinary mining, where the company tends to buy at a very good price the land the mine is actually on and buys a buffer zone around it. Ordinary mining tends to resolve itself, but coal seam is different because they do not buy the land. They are probably there for 15 years, or maybe 20, so they are not going to buy it. So the interference is permanent. It is there for 15 years or so. It is very real.

There are three priorities which we need to balance. One is the water. We have to get it right. We have to make sure that coal seam gas is not going to have a major impact on our water resources and destroy the environmental and practical values of our productive capacity. We know there is still much about our underground water that we do not know, so we have to not make hasty decisions that we will regret. We need to look at the impact on farmers and farming land. On the water, I have spoken to the drillers—not the exploration companies. I mean the people whose livelihood revolves around their ability to drill and pass that information back to their employer. The drillers believe they actually can preserve the aquifers by their knowledge and their actions, and we certainly need that to be the case. Many of the farmers who are outspoken in the media just want the coal industry to stop; they just do not want it to happen. Yet in widespread consultation with farmers it is apparent that many are happy to accommodate the coal seam gas industry as long as their interests are not compromised and they are compensated. I believe they need to get a share in the profits.

The third and final issue is that Australia has ongoing energy needs which must be met and that coal seam gas, if handled properly, can help reduce our emissions, amongst other things, but at the same time we are talking about agricultural land that cannot be replaced. They are not making any more of it. They are making a lot more people, and agricultural land needs to be here forever.

None of these issues is easy, and good policy to address them will take time and continue to be refined, but we are abrogating our responsibilities if we just say no or yes because it is too hard to actually solve the issues. Hopefully this committee is a step in the right direction and can lead to a robust policy outcome, but it will not actually solve the issue. At the end Australia needs both farmers and exploration, but farmers must have their water protected and they must have a say in how that happens.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened with interest as the shadow minister for climate action, environment and heritage delivered a compelling and thoughtful speech on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012 last Wednesday. With even greater interest I watched the reaction to the address by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, who was at the table. The minister nodded with seriousness. He appeared as if he cared about and agreed with what the shadow minister said. It is a serious matter. There is bipartisan acceptance of the establishment of this coal seam gas committee. There is an amendment to this bill calling for members of the committee, except the chair, to be appointed on the basis that they have scientific qualifications that the minister deems appropriate to the performance of the committee's functions. This is a sound proposal.

I have previously seen Minister Tony Burke give a performance similar to last Wednesday's. I saw him listen and nod in the machinery shed of Benerembah farmer John Bonetti on 22 October 2010, just eight days after as many as 7,000 worried Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area residents—men, women and schoolchildren too—turned out at the first big Murray-Darling Basin Authority meeting at the Yoogali Club, Griffith. I saw him do the same, as well as taking copious notes, at the MDBA community meeting at the same venue on 15 December 2011 after the unacceptable draft plan had been announced on 28 November. This time, 12,000 people turned up, including the MDBA chairman, Craig Knowles, and the opposition leader. The reception the minister and the MDBA received was vastly different to that afforded Tony Abbott.

The MDBA obviously did not take heed of what was said that day, as only yesterday the states learned that the authority is pressing ahead with its intention to strip 2,750 gigalitres of productive surface water from our farmers. That is a big number. It is an especially high figure for farmers affected by both the basin plan and the contentious coal seam gas issue. But we probably already could and should have guessed that the revised draft basin plan number would be 2,750 gigalitres, equivalent to five Sydney Harbours. We should have figured it out when the Treasurer, who does not know the first thing about either farming or agribusiness and, worse, does not care, announced in his 8 May budget that $941 million of Murray-Darling Basin infrastructure money had been deferred to 2015-16. We should have realised it when money for buybacks was still very much left on the table.

The unacceptable 8 October 2010 basin guide, which became the unacceptable draft, has now morphed into the unacceptable revised draft which has been put to the states. I hope New South Wales and Victoria reject it out of hand for the disgrace that it is and for the contempt it has shown regional people who have put down tools, closed the doors of their businesses and stopped their tractors to attend community information meetings. New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries Katrina Hodgkinson has already rightly labelled the revised draft an insult to all.

The Independent member for New England yesterday queried the 12,000 attendance at that 15 December water rally at Griffith; he could not believe so many turned up. But that was the figure quoted by the local newspaper, the Area News, as well as the Daily Telegraphand the Land and the Mayor of Griffith, Councillor Mike Neville. Given that Griffith's population is 22,000, excluding the villages around the city, that is a remarkable turnout. That so many shut their shops, left their farms and went to show their support says a lot for the passion of this community and their need to have water security into the future.

The minister, who sat in this chamber last Wednesday nodding in agreement with our shadow minister about this legislation, will have the final say on the basin plan. Let us hope that, for the farmers' sake, for the nation's sake and for his sake, he makes the correct decision in the interests of our ability to feed ourselves and others into the future.

There are many in rural areas of northern New South Wales and Queensland who are just as committed to a balanced outcome in the coal seam gas issue. They, too, have turned up in large numbers at various meetings, including one in front of the New South Wales parliament on 1 May this year. Concerns about coal seam gas led members of the Country Women's Association to join thousands of protesters at the rally. NSW CWA President Elaine Armstrong from Oura near Wagga Wagga in my Riverina electorate, said the issues surrounding coal seam gas mining were so important that they had inspired the group to march on Sydney for the first time in its 90-year history.

This bill also has an important water component, one which must be put as the highest priority in any consideration about any coal development for the long-term sustainability of prime agricultural land and the environment. The independent expert scientific committee's role 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.

In recent years there has been much public debate around coal seam gas operations and the effect they have on the environment, with groundwater resources being a chief concern. The federal coalition's position is a balanced approach for a coal seam gas industry, which has taken off with support by state authorities, whilst acknowledging that it is imperative to ensure Australian food security and fair rights for landholders. Issues pertaining to watertable preservation and the protection and integrity of aquifers must be addressed.

The environment and water minister has appointed an interim committee to give advice on coal seam gas and large coalmining awaiting its formal establishment by this bill. One sincerely hopes the committee does a far better job than the highly paid members of the independent authority who failed to achieve a Murray-Darling Basin Plan with a triple bottom line. Ask anyone in Griffith, Coleambally, Leeton, Deniliquin or Shepparton today what they think of the MDBA and I am sure you will get an angry response.

The government has allocated $150 million to resource the activities of this coal seam gas committee. An additional $50 million has been reserved for allocation to states by the committee as inducements to implement its recommendations. The committee has wide-reaching powers, as you would expect. These include: advising on research goals; advising on bioregional assessments in areas of high potential risk from coal seam gas and/or large coalmining projects and giving advice to the federal environment minister on priority assessment areas; advising on research and bioregional assessments commissioned by the minister subsequent to the committee's advice; publishing options on bettering the researching in this issue; and information on developing the very best protection of water resources from the effects of coal seam gas and large coalmining developments; providing the minister and the relevant state or territory counterpart with expert scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coalmining project proposals which may have a high and lasting impact on water resources; and providing other advice deemed appropriate and necessary.

The Land's Canberra correspondent Colin Bettles recently wrote an excellent series of articles detailing how Australia could learn from the coal seam gas experience in the United States of America. In the past 15 years thousands of coal seam gas wells have been drilled in the Powder River Basin, home to the US's biggest coal deposits, in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming. As Bettles reported, for local ranchers it meant a share in rich royalties—if some interruptions to their agricultural operations. But now gas prices have tanked, mining companies are backing off and landowners are left with the legacy.

One of the telling quotes in Bettles' series came from Wyoming farmer Ed Schwartz, whose message for Australian farmers was:

… to get a tight water surface use agreement in place, before any mining activity starts.

“Make sure they reclaim the land, make sure they put up a sufficient bond to protect the water wells and don’t let them dump this water on the ground because if it’s salty like the water is here, it will kill the soil rather than improve it,” he said.

His son Troy said:

… the time it would take to repair the damage to critical land and water assets on his family ranch, caused by coalbed methane mining over the past decade, could take several lifetimes of his children and their grandkids—even with no more salt water running over it.

For many in Australia's coal seam gas regions, the horse has already well and truly bolted. However, this committee, if it undertakes the desired role, will certainly have an important part to play in ensuring environmental concerns are satisfactorily met on future developments. Given the amount of exploration and investment, the committee will—should—indeed be busy.

The economic benefits of the coal seam gas industry are now being realised across Queensland. The industry just gets bigger and bigger, and there is genuine and understandable concern about groundwater systems and surface water systems. We just heard from the shadow minister for agriculture, food security, fisheries and forestry, who made some pertinent points about the growth and value of coal seam gas in Queensland, and about our limited understanding of underground water systems.

Coal seam gas development requires a comprehensive policy approach which addresses the environmental, community and economic impacts of the industry. A measured, rational and balanced approach to the industry and its management is needed and is vital. Managed correctly, with proper safeguards in place, coal seam gas has the potential to revitalise parts of regional Australia. I know my colleague here, the member for Maranoa, is well aware of that, because it has brought great benefits and investment to his region and it delivered a new economic boom. Poorly managed it could become an environmental and social nightmare for the Commonwealth—certainly for the people who live in affected areas—and for the nation's future and that of our Great Artesian Basin. No coal seam gas development should proceed where it poses a real and lasting threat to the quality of groundwater or surface water systems. It must be crystal clear that no coal seam gas development should take place unless it is proven safe for the environment. Prime agricultural land is an increasingly important natural asset. It must be preserved and protected from activities which destroy its capacity to deliver food security not only for Australia but for a hungrier world, particularly in this Asia-Pacific region, for generations to come. Australia can play a key part in feeding the world as Asia booms.

Global food security is sure to be among the top issues most likely to lead to serious international conflicts over the next decade. There is a widening gulf between world food supply and demand. Worldwide demand for food will escalate dramatically in the coming years as the world population hurtles towards and beyond nine billion while limited resources of arable land and fresh water will become even more meagre.

The Prime Minister said in a groundbreaking speech to the Global Foundation Summit in Melbourne on 3 May that 'Australia must be ready to act as the food bowl of Asia' into the future and that we need to 'strengthen irrigation'. To do what the Prime Minister rightly says we need to do as a nation and supporter of Asia and the Pacific Rim, we must not enforce a man-made drought on our farmers through poor water policy decisions and we must get the issue of coal seam gas right.

Coal seam gas development must not be allowed to occur close to existing residential areas. People who have bought a home—their biggest lifetime investment—with a reasonable expectation of being away from mining operations must not have their lives turned upside down by coal seam gas operations springing up on their doorstep. Landowners are entitled to satisfactory pecuniary returns sourced by reason of access to their land. Remuneration for landowners should not be restricted to compensation. The regions which deliver much of the wealth from coal seam gas developments deserve to see a fair share of generated revenues reinvested in their communities.

There is an opportunity to grow our nation and encourage a lasting legacy from finite coal seam gas developments. The environment must be protected, as must the economic development imperatives of regional Australia and the legitimate rights of landowners. Unless regional communities are engaged as partners and have something meaningful to gain from the development of the coal seam gas industry, they will not support it, let alone on their land. Why would they? Without winning widespread support from regional communities, coal seam gas development will not proceed.

The need to earn a social licence is a reality with which the coal seam gas industry and governments must come to terms. State governments have primary responsibility for the approval and supervision of the coal seam gas industry, and the role and efforts of state governments in dealing with this issue are recognised. However, the stakes are so high for regional Australia that federal leadership is mandatory—something the Gillard government has lacked in so many areas, not just coal seam gas.

For regional Australians, it is acknowledged that coal seam gas presents both opportunities and threats. We must ensure the benefits of this emerging boom take into consideration the environment. That means finding a fair and necessary balance between the needs of mining companies, landowners and communities. Meeting those needs and spreading the benefits will smooth the way to underwrite support for the industry and guarantee it delivers regional Australia and, through it, the nation a lasting legacy far beyond the 35-year life of a coal seam gas well.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I respect the previous speaker, but doesn't he realise that his party stands for the exact opposite position of all of the moral issues that he raised in his speech? I feel as though I am in a lunatic asylum insofar as the cutbacks in the Murray-Darling are going to reduce a lot of his towns to ghost towns. They were little tiny towns of 300 or 400 people before the irrigation came through. You are going to take eight million megalitres of irrigation and reduce it to five million megalitres. I fear for what is going to happen in inland New South Wales. I went there, and it is very relevant to the coal seam gas issue because the contamination of the underground aquifers is very real.

I think that I am the only person in this place who has ever worked down mines. I worked my own mines. I put my own gelignite at the coalface, blew it up, and mucked out with a shovel. The thing was in the development phase, and you can afford to do that sort of thing in the development phase. I was floating my own mining company before I went sideways into other things. But I worked at the Mount Isa Mines as a labourer at the coalface. I would also like to think that my scientific knowledge is reasonably adequate.

If you release hydrogen sulfide or methane gases, when they mix with water, they become poisonous. I spent half my life looking for copper sulfate. When you are looking for a copper ore body, you look for the ore that is below the watertable. That is invariably sulfides, and copper sulfate is a poison. Every copper ore body in the world is a copper sulfate ore body. There are one or two exceptions, but I think it is a fair call. The watertables that they sit in by definition are contaminants. They are mild acids.

I love to promote my book! People do not know about their own country. Inside the Great Dividing Range there were no kangaroos—there were no Skippys—there were no goannas and there were no people, because there was no surface water. In my homeland in the mid-west of North Queensland, west of Boulia, which is almost on the Northern Territory border, there was a stream that ran for 80 kilometres: Spring Creek. The Great Artesian Basin surfaced there. We dug holes in the ground and took the water out east of Boulia, between Boulia and the Great Dividing Range. So we now have maybe 10,000 or 20,000 kilometres of waterways in that area between the Great Dividing Range and the Northern Territory border. We now do not have an 80-kilometre river out there. It was not much use because it did not rain much and there was nothing much living out there. But when we put that water back this way, where there was rainfall and beautiful soils, we had this highly prolific grazing area which grazed a lot of Australia's sheep and was the biggest grazing area for cattle in the country. But what happens if that aquifer is contaminated? And they are drilling through it as we speak. Let me explain this to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I am probably the only person here who understands this. When you drill down and hit hydrogen sulfate, methane or any of these gases they come up the pipe. There is sheathing when you drill. There might be a bit of contamination. You put bore casing down—whether it be plastic or metal—and it prevents that contamination from getting into the aquifers. They are drilling through the Great Artesian Basin now. It costs a lot of money to drill. These holes cost $2,000 a foot. They would not be doing it without knowing that the methane and other gases are there to access. Righto, it is protected when the sheath is there. But anyone in mining knows that the ground moves—and I am not talking about tectonic plate shifts. When the ground moves, it will wear out or buckle those plastic or metal sheaths. If you have got hydrogen sulfate coming up, then you have got acids coming up. If you have got any sorts of sulfates, you will have acids. No matter what metal the sheath is made of, it will be worn away. If it is made of plastic it will buckle and eventually wear out. So at some stage you are going to contaminate the aquifer.

You might say, 'What's a couple of holes?' Well, in Queensland there are 55,000 applications so far. God gave a wonderful resource to our country. This was a land that no-one wanted. The Portuguese knew about it in 1504 when they were in Timor, and, in 1624, Carstensz wrote a full report about it to the government of Batavia. But it was such a dry, hungry country that no-one wanted to come here. Even when they did come here, all they sent for the first seven years were convicts. The only reason anyone came here was that they found some gold here. Up until 1900, that was the only reason anyone came here.

But when we were drilling for gold and other things, we discovered this underground water supply called the Great Artesian Basin. Without that supply, there would be no cattle or sheep inland from the Great Dividing Range. We would lose it all. Our inland rivers are so inconsistent that we cannot rely upon them to supply water for our stock. So what is now a great resource that feeds maybe 15 million or 20 million people—from the cattle and sheep that come of that area—will be feeding nobody. We will have destroyed that great resource the good Lord has given us. God will say: 'I gave you this resource. What did you do with it?'

The previous speaker spoke about the Prime Minister saying we want to be the food bowl of Asia. I mean, I wish someone would get their feet on the ground here! We will be importing tomatoes from China. Do not talk to me about it. Go and talk to Frank Costa, the biggest seller of fruit and vegetables in Australia. He owns the Essendon Football Club, amongst other things. Go and talk to him. We will be importing tomatoes from China. We import prawns from China. We import seafood from China. We are importing apples from China. We are not going to be the food bowl of Asia; we will be a net importer of food from Asia. But do not listen to me. Go down to the library and get the statistics out.

But how are we husbanding those resources? We had six million hectares of the most beautiful land on earth. You can farm it for seven years and not use any fertilisers. We had a research place at Richmond for about 15 years. For seven years they farmed it. In the final year they had no results whatsoever from putting fertiliser on it. That is how rich this soil is. So what are we doing? Six million hectares has been taken over by the dirty, filthy prickly tree, which was introduced by us. Human beings introduced the prickly tree and it has destroyed everything. The little dunnart—a cute little fella that is like a mini-kangaroo—is doomed because it cannot survive the prickly tree.

Instead of going forward and irrigating on the banks of our rivers to protect them and build them up and stop these terrible seeds from getting away every time there is a flood and being carried out and out and out, we have done absolutely nothing. Our banks are eroding away into the Gulf of Carpentaria—and now we are drilling holes through the greatest asset this nation has! The greatest asset this nation has is not coal. Coal will run out in 30 or 40 years and there will be replacements for it. The greatest asset this nation has is not iron ore. Iron ore will run out in 30 or 40 years and other countries will be producing it anyway so it will not be worth a great deal. The greatest asset this nation has is the artesian aquifer. But nobody is saying, 'Stop, you're not to drill a hole through the artesian aquifer.'

I am the only one here with the experience to know that, if you drill a hole through there, you will pick up poisonous gases all the time. Methane, hydrogen sulfate and all these poisonous gases come up. As long as the plastic sheath, the bore casing, is there it is all right. But the bore casing is not there forever. I mean, nothing is forever anywhere. All the great buildings of the world are ruins today—the Parthenon, the Colosseum and the pyramids. All great buildings wear out eventually. We are dooming and condemning this area and putting it in question. What for? Where is the benefit to this nation?

The previous speaker said that there had been a benefit in the member for Maranoa's area. It is like a sugar fix: you get a lot of energy at the start of the game. But I would not want to be the coach. If your State of Origin team have a sugar hit, they will play terrifically in the first 10 minutes but there will not be much left in the tank for the next 30 or 40 minutes—that is for certain. And that is what is happening here. I have lived with four generations of my family—and, if you include my kids and grandkids, seven generations—in the mining fields of Australia. The Katter side of my family went to these towns before there were towns there. And on the other side of my family they perished chasing gold in the deserts.

Is mining a huge boon to a town? As I get older I wonder about the benefit of that. We have a huge shift, we leap forward and then we have terrible withdrawal symptoms afterwards. What happens afterwards is absolutely critical. Charters Towers was a bigger town than Brisbane. It did not just come down to a normal sized town; it was vanishing completely. A few things happened and we were able to arrest that decline, but the things that we did to arrest the decline vanished because we found gold. Everyone left the meatworks, to quote but one example, or left the railway to go and work in the goldmines. The gold has now run out and I have a town where 10,000 people have lost their jobs and we are in a very critical state. If we had not had the gold we would have been determined to keep open the meatworks and the hospital, and all of the other things we had. But we did not care much about that because we had this quick fix—a quick hit. As the previous speaker, the member for Riverina, referred to, it will not be there in the longer term, but the aquifers have to be there.

I am all for drilling before you mine coal. The Americans did this. I speak with great authority. As the Minister for Mines and Energy—and, more importantly, as the minister for northern development—in the Queensland government, I heavily researched coal seam gas back in the eighties. Then it was not profitable, although there will be those that argue about that.

The Americans extracted coal seam gas to make their mining safe—they heavily subsidised it—ahead of the mining, so that the dangers of mining were removed. And most of the coal seam gas in America really comes from that phenomenon of mining. I am all for doing that. If there are no aquifers I find it hard to say that we should not be extracting coal seam gas, but the minute there are aquifers, as the member for Riverina pointed out, the water that comes up is contaminated. Then you have to spread it out somewhere to get rid of it. It is all flat country; you cannot put it in a big hole somewhere, so it is a huge area that becomes contaminated.

Heather Brown, a wonderful Australian and one of our great fighters on this issue, pointed out that in her area there is going to be a huge bowl of dirty, filthy, contaminating, poisonous soup. She went there because this was a beautiful place to live and she was suddenly confronted. The neighbours—his father is one of my three best friends; we went around a lot of the country and the never-never—are in a situation where there is an authority over their land to prospect for coal and for coal seam gas. They cannot go forward. They cannot do anything with it because the banks will not lend any money because they do not know when a mine will open up there. And the miners will not tell them; they said it would be seven years before they make a decision. So the neighbours' lives are destroyed. They cannot sell the land; no-one is going to buy it with authorities to prospect or exploration permits over it.

I do not want to condemn people or speak badly about people but you cannot get up in this place and speak on behalf of the opposition when you know they have done absolutely nothing and when the incoming Premier in Queensland is in love with coal seam gas. There are 55,000 holes; he is going to put 200,000 holes down. He is in love with it. So do not come in here and say these things, because your party represents the exact opposite view— (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012 and to follow the member for Kennedy, who gave a bit of history of his own family and his background in western and central western Queensland. I welcome the opportunity to follow the member for Riverina, as well.

I can say that I too come to this debate with a great deal of experience, because my family lived in western Queensland long before many of the towns were even gazetted as towns. In fact, in the case of my own home town of Roma, my family went there prior to its being gazetted as a town. They settled there and I certainly grew up with an appreciation of the importance of water. My home town of Roma was where the first oil was discovered in Australia. In fact, it is still a very big hub for the natural gas that was discovered in our region.

So I come to this debate with an enduring interest, not only in the resource sector and what it can do for our regional economies but also in making sure that we get the balance right and get right the legislation and regulations governing the mining operations of the companies that extract this coal seam methane gas.

This Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill is certainly timely. I also acknowledge that it has the bipartisan support of both sides of the House. I acknowledge the member for New England who is here. He was raising these sorts of concerns in his area and, along with other people, I was one of those voicing protests in our own areas.

I acknowledged, all the time, that it is the state governments that have the overriding constitutional responsibility for the regulation and operation of our resources. The Commonwealth has very limited powers, and one of the powers it has is in the approval process. Our interests are limited really to environment and biodiversity issues associated with mining approvals.

So I do welcome this bill. It is important that this bill provides the support that we need to give communities confidence that these new developments—such as the open cut coalmining industry and the coal seam methane gas—are safe and that, as it moves into more closely settled areas, as opposed to the vast areas of the Cooper Basin in my electorate, it is sustainable, and that there is a much happier coexistence than we have seen as these industries have become established in the Surat Basin in my electorate. This bill will establish an independent expert scientific committee on coal seam gas and large coal developments. What I want to ensure is that when the panel is established it is not just loaded with scientists, because I can assure this House that if it is just scientists that make up this panel the communities will not have confidence in the committee. As well-meaning, well-resourced and well-credentialed as scientists may be, it is important to get a balance of people on this committee—as I believe it always is. It is important to include people who have an understanding of communities, of the environment, of the way the aquifers work and how they recharge, and, of course, of the importance of them to the people of the outback of Queensland and many parts of Australia. The Great Artesian Basin is not just in Queensland; it crosses into South Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales. So, when this panel is established, it is important that it has a balance of people, not just scientists, providing advice to the minister. It is important that we get the confidence of the communities, who have been a very strong voice of protest, and that we get the regulations right for the coal seam methane gas operations, particularly, and for the open coalmining operations as they move into more closely settled areas and prime agricultural land.

The coal seam industry in my region has been growing from the very early trials that they did in about 1995-96. It was Tri-Star, from America, that started to develop the method for identifying whether these coal seams would provide coal seam methane gas and how it would be extracted. Once they had established that it was possible they, Sunshine Star and a lot of other companies onsold a lot of their tenements to larger companies.

The other part of the problem in the establishment of this industry is that companies who had been granted tenements to explore for coal seam methane gas were taking for granted access to landholders' properties. They were cowboys. They were probably $2 shelf companies, with a computer in an office somewhere. They subcontracted to drillers. They believed they had a divine right to go onto landholders' land to look for coal seam methane gas, prove up a particular volume of gas in their tenement and then onsell it for a lot of money to a major company, who would then amalgamate the work that had been done by the subcontractors and cowboys—as we like to describe them in our area.

We had instances where these cowboys would just cut through people's fences and put old cockies' gates behind them, leave gates open and come in night and day, bringing vehicles onto properties that might have had Parthenium weed and other noxious plants that people spent hundreds of thousands of dollars controlling. The Commonwealth spent millions of dollars on control of these invasive weeds, and these cowboys did not have the respect that landholders had for this land.

Largely, I am happy to say, I think we have weeded out the cowboys and the regulations through the voice of protest. But we have seen what the previous government in Queensland and New South Wales have done—more particularly in Queensland, because I believe in Queensland we are much further advanced in the development of the coal seam methane gas industry than the southern states are. We are so much further advanced that quite a lot of the gas now that is used in cooking and power generation in Queensland comes from coal seam methane gas. In fact, 30 per cent of Queensland's gas consumption is from coal seam methane gas. I have two or three coal seam methane gas power stations in my area. One is a 125-megawatt plant at Miles, and another is a 750-megawatt plant in Braemar—combined-cycle, baseload coal power as well as peak-load coal seam methane gas power. It is very clean energy. When I see a coal-fired power station and a gas-fired power station, when it comes to the visual pollution, I would rather have a gas-fired power station than a coal-fired one any day. It is cleaner energy and there is less visual pollution in the landscape. Of course, when it comes to open cut coalmines, with the scar they leave on the landscape, as opposed to gas wells, there is no comparison.

I am certainly a great supporter, providing we get this right. We have to make sure landholders' rights are protected. I have family involved in this who are going to have gas wells on their property. I know their right to negotiate is absolute, but it has not been easy—notwithstanding the new regulations that are in place. So I come to this with family involvement in dealing with gas companies. I come to the debate having to deal with constituents with very real issues with the legacy left behind by the cowboys that were out there earlier, including pumping stations within 100 metres of family homes—things that are no longer allowed.

I will talk a little bit about the Great Artesian Basin because I have had a lot of practical experience in the Great Artesian Basin. On our own property we have had a free-flowing bore. When I was only a small kid we used to ride past this free-flowing bore in the winter on our ponies on our way to school. We would pull up and put our hands under the lovely warm water to warm our hands and then get back on our ponies and ride on to school. It sounds like it was a long time ago, and it was. But, after 56 years of free-flowing bores—the member for Kennedy, to his credit, did mention these free-flowing bores—that one stopped. Why? Because of the 4,500 free-flowing bores that went into the Hutton Sandstone and the Precipice Sandstone. When they were formed, 250 million years ago, the water just flowed down bore drains—98 per cent of the water was lost and two per cent was utilised. But the basin did open up the pastoral industry. It was seen as a way of developing the land out there, and it has done so. I am very pleased to see that since the mid-1990s we have had a program—funded by state and federal governments—to cap many of these bores. I would like to see that accelerated. I would like to think that we have a goal in the next five years of having every free-flowing artesian bore, from the artesian basin, capped. We can then continue to repressurise those bores. It will not run out in the near future but we have seen a third of them stop flowing since the first one went in, in the 1890s, at Bourke in western New South Wales.

The industry is important—if we get it right. This committee will have a huge responsibility in giving confidence to landholders, communities and members of parliament. This committee, this panel of experts and people with practical experience, are going to be a check in the state government's regulatory process for providing extraction permits.

In my electorate, coal seam methane gas extraction throughout the basin is going to produce something like 18,000 jobs. There is going to be something like $800 million worth of royalty money coming in every year to the state government, not the federal government. We need to make sure that this money goes back to development in those regions—for roads, social and health infrastructure or affordable housing. We need to make sure it is not just a transfer of wealth from the Surat Basin to our capital cities east of the dividing range. Those communities out there—local councils and small businesses—are under enormous pressure because of the goldmine mentality out at the moment. It is a boom.

I will describe the boom in another way. My home town of Roma is the epicentre of the Surat Basin at its western end. We have gone from one flight a day, from Brisbane to Roma, to six flights a day. In the last 12 months we have had up to 60,000 people flying through the Roma Airport. In the next 12 months 100,000 people are estimated to fly through that airport. It gives you some idea of the massive growth, the new wealth, that has come in. The subcontractors are getting a start in life. They are coming from many parts of Australia.

But it has put enormous pressure on existing businesses in affording staff. That is why the 457 visa process for workers sponsored in by companies is an important element. It makes sure that we can keep those small businesses—the traditional businesses—in business and able to afford labour. They should not have to compete with what the resource companies are paying to source labour—so they can drive the coal seam methane gas industry—to get the developments online, on target, delivering LNG out of Gladstone by 2015 and 2016. That has been their imperative, but it has put enormous pressure on our existing industries. Part of the reason we had such a voice of protest from landholders was this imperative; part was the way that landholders were being treated. They wanted to get the job done. It caused a huge division across my communities.

The Longreach Leader today said that out of Blackall we have a mining company opening up the possibility of open-cut coalmines. Blackall and those western Queensland towns are old wool towns and many of them have halved in population since the decline of the wool industry. It is the resource sector that gives those country towns an opportunity and a hope that they can once again be wonderful towns and grow to their former glory of the wool days and get a new growth in population. It will be the resource sector in the Galilee Basin that will give those communities an opportunity to grow. (Time expired)

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support this Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012. I do no support it for plain-English reasons. I support it for making a substantial contribution to better outcomes in natural resource management—productive land protection and establishing science at the centre of planning processes for land use.

I acknowledge Minister Burke in the chair and the work that he has done, along with the member for New England, in getting this bill before the House. This is one of the key agreements to come out of a pretty brutal debate around mineral resource rent taxes and their worth or otherwise. Three agreements between me, the member for New England and government came out of those negotiations. This was one of them, alongside the establishment of a cabinet food, soil and water committee. It considers, through the GST distribution review, mining royalties and how they relate to and talk to tax reform generally and looks at the relationship between the Commonwealth and the state. We are still waiting for the supplementary papers from the GST distribution committee to see progress on that one.

Of the three agreements, this one is the first. This one is very important and talks to the heart of many communities. They are very vocal at the moment and are deeply concerned. They have fears, real or perceived, about the energy gold rush and its impact, both short and long term, on communities as a consequence of that. In my local electorate I have one particular community, the Gloucester Basin, which is being challenged by both coal seam gas and large-scale mining. Mining has been in Gloucester for some time on a relatively small scale. Gloucester has mainly been a farming community. It is a community that is at the head of the Manning River. It has about 300 tributaries in and around the beautiful Gloucester Basin that is at the bottom of the Barrington Range and the Barrington Tops. For environmental, lifestyle and food production reasons many people choose Gloucester as their home. They are deeply challenged, therefore, by proposals with regard to coal seam gas in the area. In the last couple of years, 110 wells have been proposed, with more to come. Of greater concern is a large-scale coalmine, 1½ kilometres from the centre of town. For local council planning purposes, the location of this particular mine is, on local council papers, for local environmental planning purposes. So there is a clash between state government land use planning of extracting a resource if it is there as the basic principle of state based land use planning and a council planning document that says, 'We're going to have a bit of development here, but here is an environmentally protected area.' The situation with completely opposite outcomes proposed by the council and the state is unsatisfactory and has the community deeply concerned.

The Gloucester community probably has about 2½ thousand people in it and nearly half the community turned out on a very cold evening to express their concerns about the New South Wales 'strategic' land use planning changes. A very strong view was expressed that even the new changes under the new government are completely missing the point and are really just embedding the problems that were experienced under the old regime in New South Wales, where, at the heart of planning was the view, as I said before, that if there is a resource it is the obligation of the Crown to extract it. For many communities, that is not what is at the heart of community and, for the long-term economic interests of Australia, that is not sensible nor strategic policy. Many are now seeing that with an expected nine billion people by 2050 there are threats around the world with regard to food security but for Australia enormous opportunities in food production. Whilst there is a recognition of this energy gold rush of the moment, the long-term story for Australia will, quite rightly, see a very strong rebirth of agriculture as an important contribution to the region around us and an important contribution to our standard of living through national economic outcomes. So we cannot 'cook' those productive lands to achieve a short-term benefit and do ourselves damage in the long term—that is the broad principle and starting point.

That is not to deny that there may be locations where mining expansion, coal seam gas, may have a place, but that is where the Commonwealth kicks in, that is where this particular bill kicks in, in making sure that those decisions are not made by vested interests, not made by political interests and not made by a state government of any political persuasion that has the mentality of, 'If there's a resource, we must extract it.' It is all about science, the best possible science we can find, and making decisions with regard to impacts on some pretty sensitive regions, not only the water but also the landscape and also—I am pleased about what we will see over time—issues of public health. All these things need to be taken into real and material consideration in making decisions about how we deal with this very sensitive clash between productive lands and the rush for energy.

I am very pleased that we are now seeing an independent scientific expert panel being put at the heart of decision making. I am also pleased to see the very sensible engagement with the states, and a key part of this is the development of national partnership agreements with the state. As we all know, from a Commonwealth perspective, land use and land use planning has predominantly been state based. They are effectively the owners of the land but the underlying principle of extracted oil costs, regardless of the long-term benefits of potentially not extracting in particular locations, is one that was not being heard. I think, therefore, the role of the Commonwealth in coordinating and enticing state governments to consider food security, water security and the protection of productive lands alongside considerations around energy and the extractive industries is an important step forward.

I am not sure whether we are there yet with all the states but we are pretty close. I am pleased that New South Wales have signed up. I do not see their logic at all, and I suspect they would not be seeing their logic in hindsight, in signing up to what is a pretty simple but effective approach to putting science at the heart of this process yet, within 24 hours, trying to release some other strategic land use planning process that they themselves have tried to establish and control, which, if you have seen any of the protests out the front of the New South Wales parliament, you will know has caused enormous community uproar.

My message to New South Wales once this bill is passed is to keep it simple: just use this. Make this the heart of your policy and the way out of the position you have put yourself in in trying to be, in my view, too clever by half. The protests that I and others have attended outside the New South Wales parliament were extraordinary. To see a coming together of farmers and environmentalists—a whole range of representatives of community interests—expressing deep concern at the loss of community as a consequence of getting this wrong should be a very loud and instructive message for us all. There is a way through and it is this bill. It is making sure that not only New South Wales but all states work very closely in cooperation and in collaboration with what is being attempted at a Commonwealth level. To have the Country Women's Association standing outside the New South Wales parliament for the first time ever in its 90-odd year history should say it all—that New South Wales has got it wrong. This bill has got it right. It is a difficult issue. It is one that has to navigate a path of cooperation through conflict and I congratulate the drafters in pretty well striking the balance.

I would also like to thank the many local organisations in my area who have been involved—the likes of the Manning Alliance, the Manning Clean Water Action Group, the Barrington-Gloucester-Stroud Preservation Alliance, the Gloucester Residents in Partnership and the Camden Haven Anti-fracking Group. It is arguably even more important to acknowledge the many individuals who are not aligned with any particular organisation, who have had signs up on their fences, who have been emailing—the very ordinary ones who do not want to protest and who do not normally want to engage in politics. These very ordinary people have done an extraordinary job in making sure this message is heard loud and clear around the country and have made it a priority issue on the agenda of all parliaments.

This bill reflects the concerns of farmers, homeowners, environmentalists, landholders and many others and, hopefully, now starts to get some sensible public policy. It should not act in isolation. I think public policy has a lot of things to consider deeply. For example, food security and the sort of strategy Australia takes—whether we should chase the idea of trying to feed all or start to shake the top end market of the Asia-Pacific and become a specialist in food security. There are opportunities in our strategy, but we need to think about it a lot.

Likewise, I do not think we have nailed water security and the issues around water yet. The Murray-Darling Basin issue is still up in the air. There are still issues being put up by the National Water Commission which are falling on deaf ears in government. There is more work to be done. The issue of soil protection is one that has not had its place on the public policy landscape as much as it could—probably because soil is a pretty, pardon the pun, dirty topic—but it needs its place. Our loss of topsoils globally is an issue of our time. It is an issue that this parliament needs to start taking seriously and needs to start contributing to not only domestically, but also internationally as we grapple with the loss of topsoil around the world. If science is to be believed and is to be trusted, this is an issue for the next hundred years if we do not deal with it. It is right before us; it is a complementary issue to water and food security.

I am pleased we have got to this point. Now it is about locking all the states into the national partnership agreement and getting these bioregional assessments up and running. Now it is about securing the place of the independent science at the heart of any development processes from here. And now it is about really trying to get the states—in my case New South Wales—to see the worth of this, to use it for their own benefit and to make this the heart of public policy on this difficult but important issue for the states, including New South Wales, moving forward. I congratulate the minister at the table, Minister Burke, and hopefully now we can get some sensible direction on some challenging policy.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank everybody who has contributed to what has been an extremely good and a very constructive debate here in the chamber. I have not been able to hear all of it, but I have probably heard close to half of the contributions, either here within the chamber or from my office. There has been a really strong message from this chamber to industry generally and to the public—and this will not be lost on anyone—that the bill before us does not say that nothing should go ahead, but it does say that all decisions should be made on the best possible scientific information and that information should be available independently.

When I was dealing with some of the environmental decisions on projects in the Darling Downs—the Surat Basin—I felt there was a need for ongoing adaptive management of some of these mechanisms and I established an independent scientific committee that would overlook them. When the mining tax was being discussed, the member for New England and the member for Lyne both argued the case strongly, asking, 'Why can't we provide the best possible information in advance of decisions? Why do we have to wait for the process of decisions having been made and get into adaptive management?' They came up with the suggestion to government that we have an independent scientific committee on an ongoing basis and we provide serious dollars to fund the best possible information. It is one of the best ways of dealing with the obligations that we find we have in our interactions with the states. In this bill we are not telling the states to change their standards. We are not telling them to change their timelines or their laws, but we are saying: 'If we're putting together a framework with the best possible scientific information, then please use it. Use it to inform your decisions, because no-one should be afraid of applying the best quality scientific information to environmental decisions.'

We also need to face the fact that we are dealing with an area that is unbelievably complex and where a lot is not fully known. I have had a number of discussions where I have been told that individual aquifers have no connection to other areas of underground water and then I get told by another set of scientists that they think they might be connected and others who say they definitely are. There is a high degree of uncertainty and a lot of information only becomes available as further research is done. By putting the serious dollars that are on the table attached to this bill and having—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, if I could just say—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Kennedy!

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

from Boulia—indicated that those aquifers are connected. There is no way you can get that water to run—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very glad we allowed the pause. While the interjection might have been long, the point is really well taken. Because if something is not connected then you do not have a risk to underground water. But we do not want to undo all the conversations that are happening about water reform by finding that there is more water in rivers and we are just sucking the water back out through the system by depleting aquifers that are in fact connected. No-one wants that. The best possible scientific information is the best guard against that.

We have had good responses from a number of the state governments. I am disappointed that at this point the WA government is still saying, 'Absolutely no way'. But I am pleased to hear a number of members of the same party in the same state as the WA government—a number of members from the other side—who have spoken strongly in support of this. I hope they take that message to the WA government. No-one should be afraid of getting the best quality information—no-one.

I am also advised there was a contribution by the member for Groom, where he got stuck into decisions that I had made in a project in Queensland.

Mr Ian Macfarlane interjecting—

I did not hear a word of it, but I have been advised to feel very hurt by what he said. So I would simply refer him to a letter to the editor that was published in the Financial Review yesterday where I dealt with similar allegations which had a similar level of accuracy to the ones that were made by the member for Groom. But I am sure the mistakes were entirely well meaning.

Can I commend the bill to the House. Effectively, as a result of what is in front of us today, there will be a much better quality of base level information, a much better quality of information dealing with underground water and the right set of experts across the full range that we would want to see of expertise. It will be well funded. It means future decisions will be well informed as a result of the decisions taken in the parliament this day.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.