Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

You just did interrupt me, Senator Macdonald. I rise to speak about the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee's report, which was tabled earlier today, into my bill—the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Protecting Australia's Water Resources) Bill 2011—the aim of which is to better protect water from the ravages of the mining and coal seam gas industries. It is with great shame and disappointment that the committee has recommended that the bill not be passed. Once again, we see both of the old parties colluding to make sure that the federal government takes no responsibility whatsoever for acting on coal seam gas and protecting our precious and ancient water resources from coal seam gas and other mining.

My bill proposes to improve and increase the environment minister's power to better protect water. What environment minister or government would not want the power to protect water from various impacts? It is lost on me. Surely, in the driest inhabited continent on earth, water should be treated as a national resource. I genuinely do not understand why the federal government still thinks that it is not their business to properly protect our national water resources, particularly given that the states have demonstrated time and time again that they are failing to protect our farmland, our rural communities and our environment from the risks of the rampant coal seam gas industry.

You only need to look at the example of the contamination in 2009 of the Springbok aquifer—in my home state of Queensland, on our beautiful Darling Downs, our best food-producing land—from fracking to know that fracking is not safe. Why is the federal government still doing nothing about that? The examples continue. Following the terrible floods in Queensland just over a year ago, we saw massive pollution of our rivers from both mining pits and coal seam gas evaporation ponds. There was massive environmental damage, and still the feds do nothing. Most recently, we saw a terrible spill in the Pilliga State Forest of New South Wales caused by a dodgy—if I may use that word—previous operator. Again, the feds still think that the states are doing a fine job and that the feds should not be bothered to do anything about it. I, and in fact 67 per cent of Queenslanders, beg to differ. A poll last week showed that that percentage of Queenslanders do not support coal seam gas and that they are rightly worried about our lack of knowledge about the long-term impacts of this industry.

I now turn to addressing some of the complaints about the bill made by the committee in its report and to talk about why I think the bill is an excellent idea. First of all, our surface and groundwater systems are ancient. We do not properly understand how they are connected and we certainly do not understand the impacts that coal seam gas and other mining is having on them now and may have on them in the long term. There are big threats to our water, our land and our environment. There is an incredible level of uncertainty. National bodies like the CSIRO and the National Water Commission gave evidence in the inquiry into the bill, and they have put out various public statements saying, 'We do not understand the long-term impacts of coal seam gas on our water, and we do not understand enough about the hydrological connectivity of our groundwater and surface water systems to know whether or not fracking and other aspects of coal seam gas are safe.' These are big warning bells being sounded by our most informed expert bodies. You would think that the government would listen to those expert bodies—certainly they should.

A number of charges have been levelled at the bill, and I will address the key ones. Once again there is a tendency to say, 'The states have this all covered; it's not a problem—go back to sleep everybody.' Unfortunately, the states are not managing this risk properly. I cited some of the examples of where state regulation has not protected our water resources and our rural communities. CSIRO, as I said, has highlighted the uncertainties about coal seam gas. In their evidence to the committee they stated:

As it is a relatively new industry, whilst the processes are understood, it takes some time to understand the properties associated with any hydrogeological setting … In a situation where you have done extraction for a limited amount of time, you are working with less information and the uncertainties are higher.

That is the first reason that the federal government should be involved in properly protecting our water resources—we simply do not have enough information. It is not okay for the feds to say, 'Because we don't know what we don't know, we're not going to do anything.' That is a really flimsy excuse. The second point—you have heard me say this before, Mr President, and I am sure I will have the opportunity to say this many more times in this chamber, unfortunately—is that there are serious gaps and shortcomings in the states' and territories' regulation of this matter. We heard a lot of evidence in the hearing into this bill from various experts, in fact we heard from a body of national lawyers as well as some conservation activists, about the various loopholes in state laws. They demonstrated—very amply, I thought—that the states are simply not doing their job of protecting the environment and protecting our water resources.

I express in particular my disappointment at the position of the National Farmers Federation. They did not back the bill because they were concerned that at some point in the future another bill might come in which would somehow regulate agricultural water use. This bill does not do that. It is squarely confined to regulating the impacts of mining on water—and, of course, mining includes coal seam gas in the definitions. So I found it a little disappointing that the Farmers Federation were, I think, acting against the interests of their members in recommending that the bill not proceed. In fact, many farmers have told me that they do want the federal government to play a better role to protect water and that my bill is in fact precisely the means of doing that. So I have a bit of a bone to pick there with the National Farmers Federation.

I turn now to the assertion the committee makes that somehow the federal government's most recent announcements are adequate in this space. I wish they were. A number of announcements have been made. First of all, there is a proposal for national harmonised regulation for coal seam gas through COAG. That is all well and good provided you are not harmonising to the lowest common denominator. The Greens will be watching with great scrutiny to make sure they are not harmonising to the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately, we will probably be watching for a very long time. As everyone knows, COAG processes are notoriously slow, and that is another major concern. The coal seam gas industry is absolutely barrelling ahead, yet the government is saying, 'Never you mind; COAG will deal with it.' But don't hold your breath people; it is going to take too long, and we are going to see devastating impacts in the meantime. I do not think that the slowness of COAG's processes is a valid excuse for doing nothing.

The other assertion that the committee adopts as to why we do not need this bill is that the agreement the Prime Minister reached with Tony Windsor MP to establish an independent expert scientific panel is, again, going to somehow solve all our problems. We think that this panel is a really good idea and that it is a great first step. We support the fact that they are going to be providing advice to government, and we support the fact that they will be doing bioregional assessments of priority areas. I am interested to see how those areas are chosen. No doubt they will be in marginal seats. Be that as it may, we think it is a great first step. But the problem is that that panel will not be able to advise the federal government. The panel will simply be advising the states; the federal government does not have the power to look at these water impacts, because my bill has not yet been passed. That is the very point. It is all well and good to say, 'Let's provide science based decision making'—and we completely support that—but this is just another pretext for the federal government to wash its hands of properly protecting our water resources. I am afraid that I do not think anyone is going to be fooled.

I finish by pointing out that, despite the committee's report that the bill is unnecessary and duplicative, a water trigger is in fact what the Prime Minister herself proposed in the event that this COAG agreement does not come off. I found it somewhat perplexing that the report found the bill was unnecessary when it is indeed a foreshadowed policy outcome of the Prime Minister's own undertaking in the event that those COAG processes do not come to fruition.

I look forward to the debate on this bill when it comes before this chamber. The Greens have long been advocates for strong national protection for our water resources, which do not respect state borders. The states are not doing a good job of protecting our water, and they are unfortunately selling out our rural communities to turn a buck from the mining industry. The Greens will continue to advocate for better and stronger federal protection for our water resources.