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

My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Minister, given that the clear objective of the National Partnership Agreement on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development is to 'avoid or minimise significant impact through a transparent process that builds public confidence', will you confirm that New South Wales has failed to meet the 30 September 2012 deadline to publish protocols that provide public certainty on which development proposals will be referred to the Commonwealth's independent expert scientific committee? Could the minister also comment on the progress of that committee in engaging with regional natural resource management authorities? (Time expired)

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

I thank the member for New England for the question and acknowledge the role he has played in advancing within this parliament the many concerns about the potential impact on water resources of coal seam gas and other developments.

He has not been the only member to raise those concerns. Members like the member for Page and the member for Lyne have as well. But certainly the amendments that are referred to have been very much part of the negotiations and discussions that the member for New England has been leading. Those amendments resulted in two issues where there have been two different delays, which are referred to in the question. The first is a delay in arriving at a protocol with the New South Wales government. The second delay that the member refers to is a delay in setting up the finalised committee. I will just explain the reasons for each of those delays.

The first delay with New South Wales has been that they wanted to base their protocol on their aquifer interference policy. That policy was not resolved until quite recently. There has been a fair bit of public discussion about the merits of that policy, and I will not get into that now. But the protocol has been designed to match that policy from the state government. So that is the reason that that delay has happened. We want to make sure we get a protocol that is right, and that is why that has taken a bit longer.

On the establishment of the committee, we did have an interim committee in place immediately. We were not able to put a finalised committee in place until the legislation was through the parliament. That took a lot longer in the Senate than we expected. I blame nobody within this House, but it is true that a number of coalition senators went on a frolic that was entirely unexpected. They formed a unity ticket with the Greens and massively tried to expand the legal environmental powers that I had to go to every single land-use decision. So, for all the one-stop shop arguments and other arguments about how environmental law should be run in this country, interestingly we ended up in a situation—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

And apparently the senators are not your coalition partners, from that interjection. We ended up in a situation where that massive expansion that was proposed was rejected by those opposite who are now interjecting, and the whole legislation took quite a few months extra to be able to get through.

It is now through, and I can advise the member for New England that I am in the final stages of being able to announce the membership of the committee. That is something I expect to be able to do in the next few days. At that point we will have a finalised committee. Because of the delays, I intend to ask the finalised committee, once it is proclaimed, to review any of the work that the interim committee has done. I am not rushing to make any decisions that are ready in the interim to make sure that the finalised committee is actually able to do its job in spite of that delay.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question to the minister. Given that New South Wales seems to be paying lip-service to this issue, at what point will the Commonwealth jettison New South Wales from the process and introduce into the parliament legislation, as committed to by the Prime Minister, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to create an appropriate trigger for the Commonwealth to assess cumulative impacts of extractive activities? (Time expired)

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

I thank the member for New England for the supplementary. We are not at that point yet. The delays, so far, were due to a not unreasonable request by the New South Wales government to make sure the protocol matched their aquifer interference policy. We do expect, though, now that that policy is out, that the process of developing the protocols will not continue to be delayed.