Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Over the past six months, a widespread and committed movement has grown throughout Victoria. It is a movement driven by concerned landowners, farmers, families, vignerons, environmentalists and concerned community members—ordinary people banding together to protect themselves from the threat of coal and coal seam gas.

Victoria is currently experiencing a rush of exploration for unconventional gas, and huge swathes of the state are under coal, coal seam gas, shale gas, or tight gas exploration licenses. Unconventional gas extraction, through techniques such as fracking, pose long-term risks to our climate, to underground and surface water resources and to food and agricultural production. Both the CSIRO and the National Water Commission, the federal government's own independent expert adviser on water, have stated that fracking's impacts on underground water levels, the amount of emissions and the long-term impacts on local environments and farmland are poorly understood.

Common sense would assume that governments would protect communities against experimental mining projects until they were proven safe for people, land and water. Instead, there is a relentless push to set out on this path across Victoria without a full examination of the facts. The good news is that, faced with the imminent threat of large-scale mining, Victorian communities are coming together to declare their towns 'coal and CSG free' in what is an extraordinary example of community organising right across Australia. By knocking on close to 4,000 doors across regional Victoria, having conversations and providing people with up to date information, communities are uniting to fight for an end to unconventional gas approvals and to ensure the protection of their health, land and water.

This approach to community organising is modelled on the Lock the Gate work done in the northern states, where coal seam gas has already devastated communities. It is basic grassroots organising: town hall meetings, stalls and door-to-door surveys of entire neighbourhoods. In all surveys so far, well over 90 per cent of residents have opposed unconventional gas exploration. We have seen 11 communities declare themselves coal and coal seam gas free and there are at least another 10 in the process of declaring. Whilst the declaration is not legally binding, it sends a powerful message that gas and oil companies no longer have a social licence to operate in the area. It is a declaration that the community will defend themselves from the invasive, rampant and reckless coal seam gas industry.

In Victoria, the anti coal seam gas movement has spread far and wide. From Gippsland to the Otways, as far west as Portland and right into coalition heartland. In these communities people are asking: where are our representatives? Where are the Nationals? Where is the Victorian Farmers Federation? They appear to be missing in action.

The Victorian government recognises that mounting numbers of farmers, rural residents and community groups are opposed to fracking. Fearing a political backlash at the upcoming state election, they have extended a moratorium on fracking until July 2015. A moratorium is welcome, but beyond this date landowners are left in the dark about their rights to refuse mining companies access to explore and mine their land. Landowners have been sharing their stories with my office, and they are moving stories. They are urging us to help to protect their properties so that they may hand them down to their kids and their grandkids. Take Helen Henry, for example, who grew up on a farm in Gympie and who now resides in Hamilton. She describes the complete lack of information from the industry about onshore gas. She says:

If we put forward a new drug, we had to prove its safety—but not here. Despite the risks to farming, to our health and to local economies they are excused from having to prove that it is safe.

We have heard from a meat and wool farmer and mother who lives in a town near Port Napier. She says:

If it happens and we didn't have any say in it and they started drilling, we'd have to take the kids and leave the family farm. It's the last thing we'd want to do but we don't see how agriculture and mining can coexist in this way. We know it impacts on groundwater and we rely on a bore and a spring fed dam. If it becomes contaminated, how will it affect our meat? There are so many unknowns.

We heard from Michael Green who lives in a small Victorian country town that is prone to drought. He says:

Our area is renowned for its tourist attractions. It relies on the tourism industry and eco-tourism, on its vineyards and its gourmet value-added food production. All this is threatened by fracking. Fracking is incredibly short-term and short-sighted, and considering our wealth of sunlight, wind and waves, we should be looking at these sustainable non-polluting alternatives and not destroying our ecology.

Mike Scott, whose mother grew up working the family's dairy farm in a little place called Old Bar near Taree and who now lives in Melbourne, says:

As a young kid I visited my Grandmother there for school holidays and she would share stories with me about the farm. You may know that this industry has devastated farmland in the Pilliga and the Northern Rivers, close to where my family still lives today. It has expanded unconfined into Queensland and the Northern Territory, and it continues its spread throughout Australia. The mining company, Lakes Oil, which is owned by Gina Rinehart, is trying to expand into Gippsland, the Otways and the surf coast of Victoria.

He goes on to say:

I now live in Melbourne and about three years ago, I had to choose whether to become more active and participate as best I could in stopping this ferocious industry, or turn a blind eye and switch off. I chose to fight.

There are many, many more stories but, in summary, they say this: 'We do not need this industry.'

We do not need this industry. Australia's energy use has declined each year since 2010. We have seen the rapid uptake of rooftop solar. We are seeing other resources like wind energy expand at a rapid rate. Short-term profits rather than necessity are driving the proliferation of the unconventional gas industry which threatens the long-term viability of Victoria's farmlands.

I know that some people in the chamber will argue that this is a state responsibility, not a federal government responsibility. That is cowardice. The threats posed by coal and coal seam gas extraction are not confined to state boundaries and there are a number of things that the federal parliament can do to prevent this long-term harm. The Greens are trying to do those things. We just need the political will.

Recently my home town of Deans Marsh declared that the overwhelming majority of residents wish to keep Deans Marsh and Bambra gas-field free. Residents there have chosen an ecologically sustainable future underpinned by food production, agriculture and tourism over the short-term economic promises and long-term environmental harm caused by unconventional gas. The Greens have been a strong and consistent voice against the unconventional gas industries and we intend to continue to campaign alongside inspirational community movements like Lock the Gate Alliance, Gasfield Free Deans Marsh, Frack Free Grovedale and the many other organisations that are springing up right across Victoria. The Greens will fight for an end to unconventional gas approvals in Victoria. We will fight for the right for farmers and other landholders to say, 'No, this is my land. You're not welcome here,' and for stronger environmental laws to better protect our natural environment.

When I attend community meetings near my home in places such as Winchelsea—where many people packed the local hall recently—I see farmers, teachers, families and business owners united in their opposition to fracking. I thank each and every one of them for the vigour with which they are defending the environment and agricultural land and assure them that, when it comes to opposing unconventional gas mining in Victoria, the Greens will stand with you.

Senate adjourned at 19 : 50