Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 7375, moved by Senator Waters, be agreed to.

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

Given that we were rather rushed last night in the five minutes we had to discuss this amendment, I will recap: the amendment would allow landholders the right to say no to coal and coal seam gas mining on their land. Many communities across the east coast are now banding together to demand that right. Today a poll has been released showing that 86 per cent of New South Wales residents want the right to say no; they want to be able to lock the gate and to be not breaking the law when they do so.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge in the public gallery some members of the Lock the Gate Alliance. The alliance has been very courageous in the stand it has taken against this industry, which, as we know, threatens groundwater, threatens the climate and of course threatens the reef, and is impacting on rural communities—and increasingly on urban communities as the coal seam gas industry encroaches on the cities as well. We are honoured to be moving this amendment to give those communities the right to lock the gate and to do so lawfully.

As I outlined last night, this amendment does not change the ownership of the resource, it is perfectly constitutional and it does not lessen any of the other environmental requirements. This is purely an amendment to strengthen the bargaining position of communities and allow them to lock the gate against this dangerous and risky industry.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to say how critical this amendment is, particularly for the future of rural and regional Australia and particularly for areas that will be growing our food in the future. It is disgraceful that permission has been given for coal seam gas exploration when the precautionary principle would have told you they have no idea what the impact on groundwater or the Artesian Basin will be, yet they have allowed this to proceed. Furthermore, they have no idea how much fugitive emissions of methane are going from those coal seam gas sites into the atmosphere.

I started my political career supporting the farmers at Wesley Vale against the North Broken Hill pulp mill. I have been out with Senator Waters. I have been out in New South Wales with Kate Fairman and Jeremy Buckingham—they are members of parliament there. I have been to the Felton Valley, I have been to Moree, I have been through Lismore and I have been out onto the Liverpool Plains. Everywhere I go, farmers say to me that they cannot believe that they have been sold out so badly by both the Liberal and the National parties, who have told them for years that they support them in what they do. Yet, when push comes to shove, those parties are selling out to the coal industry and the coal seam gas industry against the best interests of protecting agricultural land and water into the future.

I have been on some of those properties and it is very, very clear—particularly with those black soils—that you will get massive erosion if you allow the infrastructure for coal seam gas onto those properties. But, apart from anything else, farmers and farming communities ought to have the right to say no. The anger out there is extreme because the political process has said, 'Where the most votes are counts the most.' They have changed the law to protect communities where there are votes, like Western Sydney, but they have left rural communities high and dry. I can tell you that people recognise—as Lester Brown has said many times—that in this century food security is a major challenge: those responsible for producing food particularly need to do it in the face of extreme weather events and in the face of agricultural land being lost to urbanisation and other pressures. We must protect this land and we must give farmers the right to say no to coal seam gas and coal on their properties.

This is the era— (Quorum formed) As I was saying, Lester Brown has recognised that food is the new oil in this century, and land and water are the new gold. It is about time that in Australia we recognise the pressure that the environment is under and we protect our land, water and rural communities. I think this is a critical amendment to give farmers the right to say no. We have heard from the Leader of the Opposition—depending on which station he is being interviewed on at the time—that sometimes he supports farmers rights to say no and at other times he does not. It is about time we actually had this tested in the parliament. This is going to be a very significant vote as to whether people actually do want to support farmers being able to stand up.

When I was out on the Liverpool Plains, I met a gentleman who was 70 years old; his name was Bill. He came down to talk to me and he said he had spent his 70 years building up his property to the state that it is in now. It is a very beautiful property and he said he never expected that he would have to spend the rest of his life defending it. That is a pretty powerful statement for a farmer to make. He has coal seam gas next door. Other communities, like at Moree, have locked the gates—and good on them. Communities around the country are trying to do the same.

They are up against it because of the power of the fossil fuel lobby. When you look at what has happened in New South Wales—with ICAC in particular—and you find out how many of these permits have been granted and what the conditions of those are, you really have to scratch your head and ask, 'Why haven't they been revoked, in light of how they were granted in the first place? How is it possible that farming communities are being wrought asunder and yet the people who have facilitated this are getting away with it?' As far as the government is concerned, it is very late for Tony Burke—now the minister—to be concerned about it after he approved every coal seam gas project that came across his desk until now, including the Gloucester facility. That is why the Greens have argued strongly that these laws should apply retrospectively, particularly to those projects that have not actually been started. And they should be applied retrospectively to those that have started, to the extent of them being forced to report on the water and atmospheric impacts of the fugitive emissions coming from those projects.

There is no excuse. Eighty per cent of the fossil fuel reserves should stay in the ground if we are to be serious about global warming and constraining global warming to less than two degrees. That means no more new fossil fuel industries. It makes no sense to be driving a fossil fuel industry at the end of the fossil fuel age. You cannot stand up in here, day after day, and say, 'I believe the climate science,' and in the next breath give the go-ahead to the biggest coal mines and massive coal seam gas facilities from one end of the country to the other. It makes no sense. It is totally hypocritical. You either believe this climate science and get on with rolling out 100 per cent renewables and protecting agricultural land and water or you accept the fact that you are a climate sceptic, that you do not believe the climate science and that is why you want to drive the fossil fuel industry.

But you cannot have it both ways, and it is about time people started to face up to that. We are seeing the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef as I stand here, as a result of new coal ports. We have the government and the coalition driving the opening up of coal in the Galilee Basin and the Bowen Basin. The Galilee Basin alone, if it were a separate country, would be producing seven per cent of the world's emissions when that coal is burned. It has to stay in the ground. It is not only a bad thing for the atmosphere but a bad thing for economic development. We cannot have people investing in companies when we know that the share value is going to be written off, because the value is based on reserves and these reserves are not accessible if you are serious about the climate science. Let us get back and protect our farmers; let us give them the right to say no.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition will most definitely be opposing this amendment of the Greens. I inform the Senate that we do so because the words of Senator Waters and Senator Milne, in suggesting that this amendment does not in any way change ownership, ring quite hollow when you look at the actual wording of the amendment. The amendment states:

The Minister must not approve, for the purposes of the controlling provision, the taking of the action, unless the Minister is satisfied that any owner, and any occupier, of land that would be likely to be affected by the taking of the action:

(a) has obtained independent legal advice; and

(b) has obtained independent advice in relation to the likely impacts of the taking of the action; and

(c) has freely given informed consent in relation to the taking of the action.

This amendment would have two consequences that obviously spring to mind. The first is that an owner of the immediate property in question would be able to block access indefinitely, with a blank cheque, for as long as they want, until effectively they have extracted the price that they want for such access. That is what the effect would be. Unlike the historical provisions that I will turn to in a second in relation to how state laws around access have been governed for a long time, this is a blank cheque to block action with no automatic recourse to mediation, no opportunity for any type of fairness of recognition that the states' ownership of the minerals or the resource or the petroleum resource comes into play in the consideration of things. By giving the title owner, the landowner, that blank cheque to block access, you effectively give them a blank cheque to extract whatever price they want for the minerals that are in the ground.

Secondly, I highlight the fact that this amendment talks about any owner and any occupier of land that 'would be likely to be affected' by the taking of action. Those are important words, because we are addressing in the totality of the bill before the Senate amendments that relate to water resources and the protection of those water resources. Fundamental to the recognition that we must protect those water resources is a recognition that those water resources stretch across title boundaries into adjoining properties. The coalition acknowledges there must be appropriate science and research for the protection of those resources, but this amendment would lead to the possibility that not just the owner of the land on which the exploration or development activity is taking place would have to give permission but potentially adjoining landowners would also have to give permission. You could have a situation where the landowner in questioning extracts the price they want and are happy for it to go ahead, but adjoining landowners find themselves with the opportunity to block access until they extract a price that they are happy with.

This flies in the face of the entire understanding of land-use management in the history of the Australian Federation. Throughout that history it has been recognised that land-use management decisions lie with state governments. That is the fundamental understanding that has existed. The words 'lock the gate' that are thrown around emotively at times—and I know they have been used as a campaign slogan in this very emotive debate—are a demonstration that this is about a desire to stop development. Senator Milne talked about the fact that the coal has to stay in the ground for climate change reasons—a demonstration that the Greens' involvement in this space is driven not by genuine concerns for landowners, farmers or those who might be affected by these developments but by broader political objectives of the Greens political party.

As I said, this goes against the longstanding practice of states in their exclusive regulation of this area. Those longstanding practices have evolved over the years in recognising that there should be some firm processes in place for how landowners give consent and how such consent is given fairly. It tries to balance, at the state level around Australia, a recognition that, whilst the resources in the ground may belong to the state, there is an issue around the landowners and that landowners need to be reasonably respected and treated in a fair way for the giving of consent.

In New South Wales, such things date back to before the Mining Act 1906, which dealt not just with gold and other minerals but also with mineral oils or petroleum in outlining the types of provisions for obtaining landholder consent. The Mining Act 1906 was updated in relation to petroleum and gaseous products in 1955 with the passage of the Petroleum Act 1955 in New South Wales. Section 50 of that act contains the following provisions:

50. The holder of any licence or lease under this Act shall not carry out any prospecting or mining operations or erect any works on the surface of any land which is under cultivation unless the owner or the owner and occupier, as the case may be, of such land has or have consented thereto:

Provided that—

(a) the Minister may, if he considers that the circumstances so warrant, define an area of the prospecting or mining operations may be carried out or works may be erected, and may specify the nature of the operations to be carried out or the works to be erected, but before any such operations are commenced or works are erected, the warden shall assess the amount to be paid as compensation for any loss of or damage to any crop on such cultivated land;

(b) cultivation for the growth and spread of pasture grasses shall not be deemed to be cultivation within the meaning of this section unless, in the opinion of the Minister, the circumstances so warrant; and

(c) in the case of dispute as to whether land is or is not under cultivation within the meaning of this section the Minister's decision thereon shall be final.

So, a process has long been established and was set out there in the Petroleum Act of 1955 at the New South Wales level. That provided for the fundamental decision that owner or occupier should provide consent but, equally, a mediation process was in place there where the minister provide consent if it could be agreed to and there should be independent assessment of appropriate compensation to be paid.

In 1991 the Petroleum Onshore Act was passed in New South Wales and replaced the 1955 act, but it contained in s. 71 an almost identical provision in relation to land under cultivation and similar activities. In 1994 there were amendments that removed the requirement for landholder consent in relation to exploration licences and assessment leases but not in relation to production leases. These are important distinctions—and distinctions that I will be moving further amendments in relation to—that clearly separate the treatment of exploration or assessment activities from production activities.

The amendments also inserted a new part 4(a), with similar land access provisions to those introduced into the Mining Act of 1989. So, we had a new part 4(a) of the Petroleum Onshore Act 1991 that provided that the holder of a prospecting title may not carry out prospecting operations on any private land otherwise than in accordance with an access agreement (a) agreed between the title holder and the owner and occupier of the land or (b) determined by an arbiter. Since 1994 these provisions have been slightly amended but essentially remain in force in New South Wales, as do similar provisions in other jurisdictions.

When the Greens come to this place and others go to the other place to argue that somehow there is not a process in place that respects the rights of landholders, that is simply a falsehood. There are laws in place—long-established laws, century-old laws at a state level—that very clearly respect the rights of landholders whilst also respecting the right of the state to access the minerals contained within the lands. That recognises that those minerals are an important asset of the people of the state, not just of the individual landowner. Those laws have sat there for 100-plus years in Australian history, and longer if you go to the individual jurisdictions and longer still in places overseas. Such laws recognise that appropriate processes which ideally cover an access arrangement between the licensed company, which is developing the mineral resource and extracting the mineral resources, and the landowner. If that cannot be achieved—if the landowner cannot reach reasonable terms with the licence owner—then the state steps in via arbitration and establishes what those fair terms should be.

The Greens' amendment would simply turn this long-established practice at a state level completely on its head and suddenly there would be a situation where not just immediate landowners but other landowners on surrounding properties would have a complete right of veto and the federal environment minister would sit above all of the different ministers and authorities at a state level to have the final yea or nay say, with no process in the Greens amendment for how disputes might be arbitrated.

We on the coalition side recognise that there is a genuine concern that exists in many communities about how provisions such as those I have outlined are applied in the states. There is a real concern to make sure they are applied transparently. There are genuine concerns too about the way governments, like the New South Wales Labor government, may have given out some mining leases. That reeks of corruption and no doubt will be proven to be acts of corruption. But that does not mean that for the entire Commonwealth of Australia we should turn a century-plus of established law-making on its head. That would potentially shut down the appropriate management of mineral resources around Australia and, in doing so, shut down exploration, assessment and production activities that may likely be undertaken in the future. Essentially, that would be the outcome of the amendment proposed by the Greens.

I trust that the government will equally be opposing this and will oppose it with a similar concern—not just for its effects on an industry that is important to Australia and not just to trample on the federation and the rights of states that this amendment undertakes but to recognise that there is an appropriate balance to be achieved here. Such a balance should ensure that landholders are rightly compensated where access to their land is granted as part of a mineral or petroleum licence and that communities rightly receive a level of support and recognition for the way mining or petroleum development impacts on those communities. The balance should also make sure the people of a state receive the benefits of the utilisation of the resources of that state. They are the things that need to be balanced. They are the things that should be balanced in state laws, not through some blunt, crude amendment such as this one proposed by the Greens today, which I trust the chamber will rightly reject.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The issue here is that of course we acknowledge that landholders have an absolute right to what is present on their land. But, by reason of state governments over such a long period of time stealing hydrocarbonist materials from underneath their ground, they have lost those rights. They have lost those rights by reason of state government actions. In Queensland they lost them with the 1915 Petroleum Act. In South Australia, where Senator Birmingham is from and you too, Temporary Chairman, they lost them in 1971. In the Territory they lost them in 1953. In New South Wales Neville Wran gave a splendid second reading speech on how he was stealing those rights in 1983. That was quite recent. So it is very clear that, when people say that landholders never had the rights to coal, gas and oil underneath their places, that is not correct. They have never had the rights to silver, gold and iron ore, but they have had the rights to hydrocarbonist material. The problem is that to restore those rights you have to restore them at a state level. You cannot restore them at a federal level; you have to restore them at a state level.

I think it is a great idea to give those rights back to landholders at a state level from where they were stolen. That would obviously give landholders a vastly greater say in what is happening. I would presume, much to the dilemma of the Greens, that far from stopping the further development of mineral resources it would actually assist the further development of mineral resources just like it does in Texas and other places. We can see that once people realise there is a substantial return that gives their family a better standard of living they are more than willing to engage with the mining companies. What is happening at the moment is that they are getting ripped off. We have said this quite clearly a number of times. We did in the 2011 Senate inquiry, which I wrote the extension of terms for, to deal in a transparent way with coal seam gas.

It is important to understand the principles that the National Party stands behind. No. 1 is: do not go onto prime agricultural land. No. 2 is: do not destroy aquifers. Even though my political adversary put forward a bill for $150 million for further investigation and you would think prima facie that we would be fighting against it, I fought to make sure it was agreed to. No. 3 is: do not go next to people's quiet enjoyment. That is a term borrowed from rental tenancy agreements. No. 4 is: make sure a return goes back to the community. Royalties for Regions—who came up with that policy? It was the National Party. No. 5 is: there be a baseline agreement that one per cent of the returns from the well head go back to the landholder. They were additional comments signed off by the National Party. This gives a clear understanding. That would mean in some areas, where it is not prime agricultural land and it is not going to destroy aquifers or be next to the quiet enjoyment of someone's house, a person gets a chance for a fair return.

The best well in Queensland, in Roma, returns $1 million a day. A one per cent return per year from that well would be around $3.3 million. That would be a great return for that landholder. That would be a great return for the town of Roma—or for Wallumbilla, Dulacca or Injune. It would give people the capacity to get a real return back into their local community. The person most likely to spend that money would of course be the landholder on whose property the well is. A very average well returns around $30,000 to $40,000 per day, so you are looking at in excess of $100,000 a year per well.

These are the sorts of things that would deal with so many arguments. What are they getting at the moment? We found one person who got a slab of beer. One person got $240 a year. Some people thought they were really getting ahead when they were getting $1,500 a year. It was only the Senate inquiry that brought transparency and gave a clear understanding of just how much was involved and how people should be getting a fairer return.

In the state of Texas in the United States of America they get 25 per cent of the gross at the well head. Then the federal government comes and taxes the landholder and then the state government comes and taxes the landholder. Do they have any problems with access agreements? Surprisingly, no. They have no problems with access agreements whatsoever. In fact, if you find a shoe box you will find an oil well or something sitting on top of it, because people are making quite a substantial return out of it. I think once this logic is taken on board, not by the federal government but by state governments and the mining companies, then a lot of these problems that have been dealt with here will be ironed out.

However, I do not think changing over constitutional law at a federal level is going to work. I do not quite know how that one is going to work today. What we have here, as always with the Greens—because I do not think this has not been supported in the lower house by any in the Labor Party or by the Independents—is a classic case of a form of a wedge. They do it for the purposes of saying, 'We'll work on the presumption that nobody actually knows what this is about.' At first blush they will say, 'This is just what we are looking for.' But the reality is that not only would it be constitutionally unviable; it just completely belies the historical facts that sit behind this thing, which is that you are looking for rights that are held by the states. You are trying to put conditions on them at a federal level and that is just not going to work.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to add some comments to this and ask some questions. Senator Milne said that food is the new oil. I tend to agree with her. Food is vital. But it always amazes me when we see properties like Toorale Station, with 93,000 hectares of good food-producing country, locked up, bought out and made into a national park to burn. That is what will happen to Toorale Station. It will burn, as sure as I am speaking here now, with no management, a lack of hazard reduction, fuel on the ground and no grazing. They say, 'Let's just lock the property up and let it burn.' As sure as I speak the rain will fall, the grass will grow, and then we will get the dry time. Then along comes a thunderstorm and the lightning will set off the fire on 93,000 hectares of country that has not been grazed for years. There will be up to 100 or 150 tonnes to a hectare of fuel, just like it was in the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, where half the country burned—it just happened in national parks. Of course, you cannot allow grazing in national parks; that is not allowed following the Greens' pressure on Minister Tony Burke. The coalition government put cattle into the alpine country to reduce those very fuel levels.

We see it in the Pilliga, between Narrabri and Moree, where the country has been locked up for national parks. It used to be forest. It used to be managed. It used to be grazed. And we see the hot fires go through with so much fuel, getting up into the crowns of the trees and killing them, where the koalas are literally cooked. If there is a huge fire on a hot day the strong wind goes through these huge fuel levels.

We have the irony of the Greens, where food is the new oil, and they say, 'Let's just lock up our food-growing country in the national parks. Let it burn! Let it destroy the environment!' Around 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was estimated to come out of the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. But we have a carbon tax to reduce our carbon emissions. This is crazy! Let's let the country burn! Let the animals be killed and sizzled—koalas, native species, you name it! I find it quite amazing.

It is a fact that this country needs energy. When Senator Milne and the Greens can convince me that you can power a 9400 model John Deere tractor at about 380 or 400 horsepower, towing a 60- or 70-foot wide air seeder with a fertiliser and grain bin—when you can power that tractor with a solar panel on the roof of that tractor, I am going to be simply amazed. We need diesel to power that tractor. Perhaps the Greens want us to go back to the Clydesdale horse days with a single-furrow mouldboard plough, walking alongside. Shut the machines down! We need energy and here we have clean energy in Australia—gas—with fewer emissions, and it is not imported. So let's shut down gas! The current situation in New South Wales is that 95 per cent of the gas is imported into New South Wales. But let's close it all down. Then when people are knocking down the doors in my office asking, 'Why is gas so expensive?' I can say, 'Blame the Greens,' and lock the gate on others for shutting down industries. We have made it quite clear where the Nationals stand on this issue.

I am disappointed that Senator Milne has left the chamber, because I wanted to ask: if this amendment went through the Senate, where the farmer could say no to anyone going onto the property for mining projects, coal seam gas or whatever, how is it going to be enforced at a federal level when the land is controlled by the states? I want an answer to that. How are you going to enforce it as a federal law? I find that simply amazing. This is not about the farmers having a say, this is about a political wedge. That is all this is about.

When I talk to the large gas companies in Australia, they say they do not go onto properties when the farmers say, 'We don't want you here.' That has been the message clearly put to me. What I am saying is that we need energy. We need gas. We also need to look after our environment for future generations. One of the most, if not the most, important parts of our environment is the very topsoil that grows our food, not only for the 23 million Australians but also for millions of others around the world relying on the food production here in Australia. It is all very good to say, 'Let's shut this down, let's shut that down, let's go back and live in a cave and we'll issue three sticks of wood for a week—that's your quota to keep warm and do your cooking.' But that is not the real world. We live in the real world, where we need energy and we need to produce.

My leader in the Senate, Senator Joyce, just made quite clear to the Senate the policy that was released in November 2011: look after the land, look after the water, look after the environment, give a fair go. And here are the Greens looking for a wedge. How are we going to enforce this law? The minerals are owned by the states—the Crown—and the Rann government stole that off the farmers in 1981 or 1983 in New South Wales, with no compensation, just like when they shut down the farming country with the Native Vegetation Conservation Act. I was very pleased last week to hear Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner addressing that crazy issue.

I can give you an example about the food bowl, as Senator Milne said. If you have a farming country in New South Wales and you do not plough it for 10 years, then you are not allowed to plough it again. If you plough a good country you will get a tonne to the acre of wheat—you will yield 1,000 kilograms of wheat. Or you can leave it as grazing country under the native veg act and you might rear 20 or 25 kilograms, perhaps five kilograms of wool. Here we have the food bowl producing food, but under the Greens plan—and Senator Bob Carr, when Premier of New South Wales, said it would be the greenest government the state has ever seen—we have shut down the farmers from growing food and being productive. And what was the compensation? The compensation was zilch. Make the property owners pay for the environmental issues.

So do not ever talk about food being the new oil when the Greens' history is of shutting down the production of food in New South Wales. The history proves it. Thank goodness the New South Wales government is, after its inquiry, about to address that issue and bring some fairness back into the whole environmental debate in New South Wales. The landowners have been caned by the Greens; Senator Bob Carr; the minister—as John Laws used to refer to him, Kimberly Maxwell Yeadon—who we thought had a very capable staff; and Senator Penny Wong. This is the group hanging together, saying, 'Shut down the farmers, don't give them any compensation and don't worry about producing food.' That has been a problem in this country for too long.

We take our supply of food for granted. Around the rest of the world we see subsidies given to the farmers, and we have to compete against them. The point I make—and we made it quite clear—is that we need balance. We need energy, or you will take us back to the Clydesdales, walking behind the horse with the single-furrow plough and a couple of Clydesdales hooked together—a very slow process.

We have become a modern machinery farming enterprise, with huge production. We will not be going back to the horses. We will use energy. We require energy, and diesel will be part of that energy. Let us just shut down our local clean energy in gas and import diesel. Is that the plan? Is that the balance of payments plan? Is that the environmental plan? Is it to close down the clean energy and gas being produced in Australia? As I said, this amendment is simply a wedge piece by the Greens.

I wish Senator Milne were here to explain how they are going to enforce this. No-one takes more pride than our farmers and those who have lived all their lives in rural Australia and been on the land. I wish Senator Milne were here to answer this question—or perhaps Senator Waters might. How is this going to be enforced? If this were to go through, what law can the federal government enforce when the control of the land is under the Crown? Are they just going to change the Constitution with the wave of a stick and perform magic? We all know how hard it is to change the Constitution. That is the very point I make. I am sure my colleague Senator Birmingham has more to add to this.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I indicate my support for this amendment with some reluctance, because it seems to me that the status quo is not adequate. Senator Joyce did point out very well that there is a complete lack of balance of power between the farmers and some of these companies that buy in coal seam gas, that some people receive something like a slab of beer in extreme cases, when many millions of dollars are being made from these wells.

In terms of the constitutional issues which Senator Williams and, I think, Senator Birmingham as well referred to, I do not think there is an issue about the Commonwealth's ability in using this act or other powers, including the corporations power, to effectively legislate in this field. I note that the numbers are not with the Greens with this amendment, particularly in relation to the issue of informed consent on the part of a farmer for their land to be used in this way. I also note the very good history that Senator Joyce set out whereby farmers did have these powers to veto hydrocarbon exploration on their properties many years ago, but that was taken away.

My plea to the coalition, given the work that Senator Joyce and Senator Williams have done on coal seam gas, is to at least consider supporting parts (a) and (b) of this amendment. Those parts of the amendment ensure that a landowner has obtained independent legal advice and has obtained independent advice on the likely impacts of the taking of the action. I would have thought that, at the very least, the coalition should be going down that path because that is entirely consistent with their position. Having said that, my preference is to support the Greens amendment, because having informed consent is something that ought to be pursued in the absence of any other remedies for farmers.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In closing, the proposed amendments require landholders and occupiers to consent before the environment minister can approve a project under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in relation to the proposed water trigger. The proposed amendment would, in effect, allow a single owner or occupier of land to veto approvals of coal seam gas or coalmining development under the EPBC Act and in relation to the proposed water trigger. The government's advice is that there is constitutional uncertainty and risk associated with the proposed amendment and therefore the government does not support the proposed amendment.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the government's commitment to oppose this amendment. I welcome very sincerely the fact that the government has corrected the record with regard to the advice that we heard yesterday that there are no constitutional impediments to any of the amendments before the Senate. Very clearly, there would be constitutional impediments in relation to this amendment proposed by the Greens. Very clearly, the Commonwealth would find itself going straight to the High Court from action taken by the states were this amendment to be adopted as legislation.

We should not forget at all, in looking at this amendment, that were it to be passed it would be a complete subversion of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, because the EPBC Act deals with environmental approvals. It deals with setting out the types of standards for maintaining appropriate matters of national environmental significance and protecting those matters when allowing developments to proceed, whether they be building developments, mining developments or whatever the nature of those developments might be. Nowhere else in the EPBC Act does it seek to or attempt to use its powers as some type of land management provision. That is what the Australian Greens are seeking to do with this amendment. They want to take and expand Commonwealth powers and the powers under the EPBC Act into a whole different world of activity by dragging them into approving and assessing whether or not landowners have given valid consent to the use of their land. That is a whole different realm to the consideration of whether or not an action or a development actually has an impact on the land in terms of matters of national environmental significance.

We need to appreciate that this amendment, along with further amendments to be addressed by the Greens—which I note the government has yet to rule out—would expand scope into national parks and otherwise. It is really a type of Trojan horse amendment by the Greens to expand the nature of this bill quite dramatically, beyond its initial intent. In many ways, I would question the validity of an amendment like this before the chair, because it goes so much further than the intent of the bill under question, and it goes so much further than the base and intent of the act that this bill seeks to amend.

As I outlined previously, there are arrangements in place with regard to how land access is provided for developments—land access in relation to both exploration and production. As Senator Joyce rightly pointed out and added to my remarks, the evolution of these access arrangements at a state level has been undertaken for more than a century—and the arrangements have changed over time—but a common theme and thread is that the minerals and resources in the ground have been recognised to be the minerals and resources from which the wealth that should be shared by the people of the state is generated. The Greens, by seeking to pursue an amendment like this, are attempting to deny the people of every state in Australia the opportunity to share in those resources and the opportunity to benefit from the wealth that the development of those resources can provide. The fact is that the development of those resources can be used to fund schools, can be used to fund hospitals and can be used to protect the environment in other ways.

Progress reported.