Glenn Lazarus (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to table 16,284 further signatories to the Australian Conservation Foundation petition to reject the EPBC amendment bill 2015. The online petition received a total of 105,252 signatures, including 16,284 that did not supply an email address. Therefore, these were nonconforming.

I think that the tabling of these further responses is in the interest of democracy to fully reflect how many people across the community are feeling about the need to protect Australia's farms and agricultural land from the scourge of CSG and other mining activities. The people of Australia do not want a dirty great coalmine in the middle of their food bowl in the Liverpool Plains. They certainly do not want any more of our water being contaminated by CSG mining. Appeals are the only way that people of Australia can try and stop the destruction of our farming land. The EPBC amendment that the government is trying to ram through the Senate will remove this right.

I, along with thousands of people across the country, oppose the EPBC amendment. I move that the additional signatories be accepted.