Craig Thomson (Dobell, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, it was good that you and Minister Albanese were on the Central Coast confirming the budget announcement of the F3-M2 link and the extensions to the F3. While transport issues are very important to us on the Central Coast, the No. 1 concern for residents of the Central Coast is the security of our water supply, which almost ran out a few years ago. Will the government support my private member's bill to secure the water supply for communities on the Central Coast, or will the government side with foreign mining interests?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dobell for his question. I did have the opportunity to be on the Central Coast talking about $600 million of infrastructure investment which will benefit people as they move along the Central Coast and do the drive into Sydney for work—getting rid of 22 sets of traffic lights. I think people understand what a difference it will make to a journey to not have to stop and start 22 times.

But the member does raise with me a different issue, and that is the security and quality of water supplies. I do acknowledge that this is of concern to people on the Central Coast, and more broadly, it has particularly been of concern as the coal seam gas industry has got going in Australia and spread. I believe it is important for us as a government—indeed, for us as a nation—to find the right way of balancing mining, and the economic investment and progress and jobs that mining brings, while ensuring that our natural environment is protected for the future.

The approach that we are taking is different from the one that the member advocates in his private member's bill. So we are taking a different approach and not endorsing the member's approach in his private member's motion. The approach we are taking has been to ensure that, under federal environmental protection legislation, you can have water issues triggering federal laws and federal assessments. We have also made sure that the best of scientific evidence is available not only to us but also more broadly to the community, through having an expert scientific committee that will look at the assessments of the way in which underground water and mining coincide and the implications of one for the other.

To the member for Dobell: I am not in a position to agree to the private member's bill that he is putting forward. We do not think that is the right course. But it is an important issue that he raises, and so we are legislating so that these water issues can be the subject of in-detail federal government environmental assessments.