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

I rise with great pleasure to speak on my bill, the Landholders' Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill. Sadly, this is the third time in the last five years that we Greens have introduced a bill to give landholders some rights against huge fossil fuel companies, whether they are multinational coal mining companies or whether they are multinational coal seam gas or unconventional gas fracking companies. It is about time that landholders had some rights to refuse damaging activities on their land—particularly on their productive farmland, which we know we have very little of in this arid nation.

This bill would also ban the dangerous and risky process of fracking—an experiment with our land, with our geology, with our water; an experiment that we do not well understand and indeed that has been banned in many other countries. This bill would give landholders some rights to protect their land, their water, their communities, their health, and of course the climate, from the ravages of coal seam gas, shale gas and tight gas. It would ban the dangerous process of fracking.

This is not the first time we have had this debate—2011 was the first time I introduced this bill. Sadly, five years on, we see very little progress in this chamber. What I am pleased about is that we have seen some progress in state jurisdictions. I want to start by congratulating the Victorian state Labor government for their ban on fracking. They have just introduced legislation for that in their parliament this week. Of course many of their Labor colleagues around the country, most of whom are in opposition, have adopted similar policy positions to either ban fracking or, at the very least, have a moratorium on it. It seems that the tide is finally turning, and it is not a moment too soon because right around this country communities are being ravaged by this unfair balance of power—effectively David and Goliath battles with the gas and coal companies.

I am from Queensland, of course, where we have been at the epicentre of this destructive industry, where communities in the Darling Downs, in the west, right throughout our state, have been the test bunnies for this dangerous industry. Some of our best food producing land has been turned into open-cut coalmines. Some of our best food producing land and some of our well-settled regional communities have been turned into fracking pads, where communities' health is worsening, where local GPs have been silenced by coal seam gas companies and where the state government continues to turn a blind eye to the community impacts while utterly ignoring risks to our groundwater and hence to our future food productivity. It is an abominable situation in Queensland, and the one good thing that has come out of this is that other states have learned from our mistakes.

We have seen an amazing and inspirational community movement spring up, led by the Lock the Gate alliance, uniting many community members who feel that no-one is listening to them. The National Party in this place used to claim to represent the bush but now they just take the mining donations, and the two big parties also take generous donations from the fossil fuel companies. They have been deaf to the calls of those regional communities who are saying, 'We don't want to be test bunnies, we don't want the health of our children risked, we don't want our water stuffed up so that we can't keep producing the food that you eat and that this nation exports.' I do not know what it is going to take for those voices to finally be heard. We have been trying for five years to give voice to those concerns and give those people a voice in this chamber.

Sadly, every time this bill has come on for debate I have received no support. The last time we brought this bill to a vote we had the Labor, Liberal and National parties join to vote it down. They did not want to give landholders the right to protect their land and their water and the climate and their health—they wanted to let the gas and mining companies rip, because they keep getting those very generous donations. It seems we have had some progress at the state level, but unfortunately there is very little progress at this national level. I note the speaking list for today—we Greens are speaking in favour of the bill, and there are speakers from the Liberal Party and the Labor Party. No-one else on the crossbench is speaking up for residents against coal seam gas and unconventional gas. I think people around the country would be very disappointed that this issue is one on which the Greens have basically been alone in championing the community's voice. It is about time representatives in both this house and the other house started to represent the people again and not just the vested interests that make very generous donations to their re-election campaigns.

This bill, if passed, would use the constitutional abilities of this parliament to give landholders the right to refuse gas exploration, fracking or massive coal mines eating up their land; land that in some cases they have been on for generations and that they wish to pass on to their family. The bill would also ban fracking. I have talked a little bit about why that is such a dangerous process, and I have mentioned that many other nations have actually banned it. It is a process whereby billions of litres of water and chemicals and a proppant, usually sand, are blasted down through wells which go through aquifers, in order to get to where gas is held in either coal seams, shale or tight rock. Those fracking fluids are blasted down at high pressure to create fractures in those seams or in that rock, so that the gas can then be released and sucked back up. This is effectively an experiment with our geology which pierces our aquifers on the way down. If you can think of a more dangerous process in the driest inhabited continent on the planet, then you are doing better than I can, Madam Acting Deputy President. I cannot think of a riskier experiment to take with our most precious resource—which is, of course, fresh water.

It is no wonder that Canada and many other nations have banned this process. It is also why many of the state administrations, some in government—and I congratulate them—and others in opposition, have said that they do not want take the risk with our most precious resource. I would like to see federal Labor follow the lead of the Victorian state Labor government, and finally endorse this bill after five years of opposing it. I commend our state colleagues, with the exception of Queensland, for the progress that they have made. It is now time for some consistency. If the Victorian Andrews government can see that fracking is dangerous, and Premier Andrews does not want it in his state, then surely the federal Labor opposition can look at the same evidence and—ideally—reach the same conclusion. I would urge them to do so.

As for the National Party; sadly, we know that they have abandoned the bush and that they now represent the big miners and the gas companies who make those generous donations. We do not even have any Nationals in the chamber at this time when we are talking about giving landholders rights to protect their land against coal-seam gas and coal. What an absolutely tragic falling from grace that party has had on this issue—and they know it, because people in the bush are not voting for them anymore. If they know what is good for them, and if they actually care about land and water, then I would hope for their support on this bill, the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill. But—sadly—usually either they do not show up or they leave before the vote. It seems that that will happen again today.

I have talked a little bit about Queensland, and I want to again express my disappointment that, whilst some of the Labor oppositions or administrations around the country have listened to the community, it is a real crying shame that the Queensland Labor government has not. In fact, they have enthusiastically opened up our state to even more fracking, right as the evidence is mounting that this is a dangerous practice, and one which we do not fully understand the health or water consequences of. Labor continues to approve hundreds of new CSG wells across the Darling Downs, like at Wandoan where they have just approved about 400 new wells on some of our best grain-growing country. Now, you cannot have coal-seam gas well pads, and the Swiss-cheese effect of well pads, pipelines, roads, diesel generators, and trucks in and out—you cannot have those things coexisting with food production. Indeed, some of the farmers have recently invested in precision agriculture for irrigation techniques. I commend them for that. But the CSG well pads interfere with the GPS technology on those pieces of equipment. It is impossible for those farmers to continue to farm in a sustainable manner—to farm at all—when their farm is pockmarked with CSG wells, pipelines, diesel generators and people crawling over the land at all hours of the day and night.

A couple of years ago, the resources minister in Queensland opened up 11,000 square kilometres of new land to explore for shale gas, threatening the Great Artesian Basin and the Channel Country. Clearly, when we are talking about the Great Artesian Basin, this is not just a problem for Queensland. This is a problem for the nation's water supply. We know that basin underpins much of our surface water supply. We also know that we have job-rich alternatives that can supply energy and do not risk—our land, our water, our communities, their health, the climate or the Great Barrier Reef—in the way that coal seam gas and other unconventional gas mining does.

The communities at Tara and Hopeland on the Darling Downs are still waiting for strategic air quality monitoring studies that were promised and then scrapped by the LNP government. They have not had a response or any action from the Queensland Labor government. Instead we hear statements from the Labor resources minister in Queensland that gas is the fuel of the future. Well, I have news for you: there is something that comes up every morning, goes down every night, does not cost a thing and does not make communities sick. That is where we should be investing our money. The new, exciting storage technologies for solar—whether they be molten salt, whether they be granite or whether they be batteries—can provide baseload clean power which is job rich and does not stuff up our industries or the health of our communities.

In terms of the climate, we know that the fugitive emissions from coal seam gas make it basically as dirty as coal. Many of the studies that have been done on shale gas in the US prove this point. Australia is quite early on in the studies that it has done into this issue, which is kind of alarming because you would think you would do those studies before you let the industry rip. But no, they are now belatedly looking at a small slice of that a good 10 years into the approvals that have flooded out from this government and the Queensland state government.

Fugitive emissions is the gas that leaks from those wells and pipes and in the course of the production and transport process for coal seam and other unconventional gas, and we have seen that those fugitive emissions have been estimated to be far lower than they should have been. A recent report by the Australia Institute shows that Australia's guesstimate—because that is all it is—of the climate impacts of those fugitive emissions is in fact far less than those of other nations. So our emissions factor is far lower than it should be, according to the science and according to the approach that many other nations take.

We have been waiting for four years now for the CSIRO research into fugitive emissions to properly study this. There has been one study that they have managed to complete so far, and they looked at 43 wells. We have about 6,000 wells in Queensland, and, of course, there are between 20,000 and 40,000 wells slated, according to international gas markets. It is unclear how many of those will go ahead, according to the strength of the community's opposition to those. So this single study looked at just 43 wells, and it did not even look at all stages of production. It looked at some highly prescribed parts of the production process, and the study itself concluded, 'Look, we have actually got to do more work before we can be confident in these conclusions. Don't extrapolate from this.' So we are still looking and we are still waiting.

GISERA—a geological body that is effectively a partnership between government and industry, because government underfunds it and so they need to go to industry for funding—have some interesting work underway, but they also have some coal and gas representatives that have effectively stacked their board. When you have research budgets that have five industry reps, three CSIRO reps and one government rep, with voting rights split 50-50 between industry and CSIRO as to who gets to decide on research, then, again, I find it very unhelpful and you can hardly call that an independent analysis.

I want to draw my remarks to a close, because we have some other speakers who would like to speak on this bill. I welcome that. It is great that we are getting some engagement. Let us hope that they speak in support of the bill, but I will not hold my breath. But I would like to take my chance just to congratulate the local campaigners in a handful of areas that have been resisting the might of these big, well-funded, cashed-up, politically-influential gas and mining companies—the little mobs of communities around the country that have the strength and courage to band together and say, 'No way. You are not coming on here to wreck my land. I want to keep growing food for this country, and I want my kids to have that option. I do not want you to poison our water.' I want to commend all of the campaigners in Victoria that led to the state Victorian government banning fracking this week. I want to shout out to the Northern Territory campaigners, many of whom are the traditional owners of the land. We have 80 per cent of the Northern Territory that is currently covered in oil and gas exploration licences. Much of that, of course, is Aboriginal land, and the campaign from those traditional owners, who have been joined by the graziers and other residents, has been absolutely inspirational. In the recent election this was a key issue, and the new Labor administration was forced, by the strength of that community voice and community opposition to gas and coal, to adopt a strong position for a moratorium, which we intend to hold them to now that they are forming government.

Unfortunately, the moratorium applies to fracking only during the production process, not during the exploration process, and we know that our groundwater does not make a distinction between production and exploration. So, we still have a way to go. And of course there is a proposal that is still on foot for the Northern Territory gas pipeline, which will plough through into Queensland and send more of our gas offshore to export markets, increasing the gas squeeze domestically and increasing the pressure on communities to be opened up for this dangerous process. So, I want to commend the Wakaya Aboriginal Land Trust for the resistance they have shown and let them know that we stand with them, that we have seen these campaigns win around Australia and that together we can win this one as well.

In the short time I have left I want to finish by commending the Queensland communities who have faced the brunt of this industry from the outset, with no support from government and with very little scientific information—because of course the government does not want us to know; if you do not look, then you can say, 'Oh, we're not really sure about the dangers; let's just push on anyway'. So much for the precautionary principle. I want to pay tribute to Helen Bender and her family, who lost their father, George Bender, a man I met on several occasions when he came and gave evidence at various Senate inquiries that I had often instigated or participated in. I want to pay tribute to their bravery and to their emblematic struggle, which represents the struggle that so many Queensland regional communities have had—whether they be at Tara, whether they be in the north drifts—who have stood up against the Queensland Gas Company and won and had fines for breaches of environmental conditions imposed. The health impacts on that family are devastating. Again, they represent just one family of so many that are facing the brunt of the inconsideration of this industry—the carelessness and the profit motive once again overriding communities.

It is time we gave these communities the right to say no to this dangerous experiment on their land and to stand up for their health, to stand up for our climate and to stand up for food production and the sanctity of water supply—that most crucial resource. So it is with great pleasure that I speak on this bill again today, and I would urge, again, the larger political parties not to just do what your donors want you to do. Just because they give you money does not mean the science is on their side. Please listen to the community and stand with them, protect their health, protect our land and our water and the climate from these dangerous fossil fuel industries. We have clean alternatives that can generate jobs and generate clean energy and they will not stuff up our agriculture, our reef or the health of our communities.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just heard another typical Greens political party campaign full of conspiracy theories, scare rhetoric and very, very few facts. But that is typical. I do want to get onto the bill before us, the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill 2015. But, before I do, this is a debate, and I want to comment on a couple of things Senator Waters said in her 18-minute address. I have 20 minutes, but I understand that Senator Siewert wants to speak, so I am going to restrict my 20 minutes to allow her to do so, because I believe in free speech and believe that everyone should have an opportunity—although I suspect that by giving way to Senator Siewert we will hear entirely different views on the subject. Nevertheless, I believe that all views should be put.

Senator Waters made some comments about the 'National Party'. Well, as people know, there is no National Party in Queensland anymore, and neither is there a Liberal Party; there is the Liberal National Party of Queensland. Senator Waters said—wrongly—that the Nationals are losing their sway in these country areas. I will again point out to Senator Waters—as I did to then Senator Lazarus, who, with Senator Waters, was going to make his career out of coal seam gas scares and conspiracies, but we know what the people of Queensland thought about that former Senator—that in the last state election the LNP was clearly in favour of the sustainable use of coal seam gas, subject to all the right conditions and concessions, which there clearly were. Before the election, all of the electorates in the Queensland state parliament in the south-west were not held by the LNP. There were two held by other parties. As a result of the election, every single seat in south-west Queensland, this area of the coal seam gas where Senator Waters says the LNP are losing sway, was won by the Liberal National Party. That is the No. 1 issue where Senator Waters's facts are not correct.

Senator Waters says this is a threat to the Great Artesian Basin. For several years I was the minister in charge of the Great Artesian Basin. I know how important it is to Queensland. I know that no government—Liberal, Labor, Callithumpian—would do anything that would in any way impact on the Great Artesian Basin.

I rarely agree with state Labor governments in Queensland, but I do give credit where credit is due, and the Bligh Labor government in Queensland and the Beattie Labor government before that were very cautious about coal seam gas but eventually came to a conclusion that it could be mined sustainably and safely. They put in a lot of processes that ensured that the gas could be extracted but in a very careful way. The Newman government continued that process. As I said, I do not think the Palaszczuk government has done much at all, but again I give credit where credit is due, and they have again encouraged coal seam gas exploration and extraction because they know it can be done safely and they know what an important element it is to the economy of Queensland and to the creation of jobs in our country.

Senator Waters also raised the issue of fugitive emissions and again, as the Greens do, tried to scare Australians that even a fugitive emission—a small amount of gas escaping—is going to change the climate of the world. As I keep saying to the Greens political party, the climate of the world has been changing since it was formed. I often mention that once it was covered in ice and now not much of it is covered in ice. The climate always changes. I believe in climate change; it has always changed. Has man done it? I do not know. I never get involved in that. But I do know that, naturally, over the years the climate has changed. But, even accepting Senator Waters's view on man's emissions, I again emphasise that Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. If carbon emissions are what is wrong then Australia contributes less than 1.2 per cent of it. The Greens would have us cut our emissions by 50 per cent, 100 per cent or whatever figure happens to be popular with the Greens these days, but, even if you cut our emissions by 100 per cent—even if we stopped every motor vehicle, shut off every light, closed down every factory in Australia—it would still not make one iota of difference to the changing climate of the world.

I have always said that, once Russia, China, America and India restrict their emissions, so should Australia. But, of course, we know that China is building new coal fired power stations. Probably they will have built one by the time I have finished speaking. Authoritative independent studies around the world from the OECD show that coal use around the world is again on the rise because it is being done in a careful way. It is being done because it is the cheapest form of power for the very poor around the world who currently do not have power. We in Australia have as much power as we like and we can make all these rules for other countries who have never seen electricity. But coal will continue to be used as the main source of power around the world, particularly in the Subcontinent and in South-East Asia, and it will happen because it is available, it is clean these days and it is cheap. It puts poverty-stricken countries in a situation that we in Australia accept as normal—that you will be able to get some electricity.

On the scare campaign of the Greens, if you need a scare campaign—no matter what it is—you somehow have to wind the Great Barrier Reef into it. The Great Barrier Reef is a resilient organism. It has been there for hundreds of thousands of years and it will continue to be there for hundreds of thousands of years. Governments—Queensland governments of all political persuasions, and, particularly, the federal government—have assisted in stopping run-off to the Barrier Reef—not the real cause of the damage up there. But sensible scientists, reasonable scientist, who monitor the Great Barrier Reef with federal government money and do a wonderful job, carefully understand what is happening, carefully manage it and carefully maintain it. But you will get a few scientists, who the Greens always promote, who have views on this that most of their peers find outlandish.

But, whether it is coal-seam gas or blowing your nose, if it is a problem to the Greens—and everything is a problem to the Greens—you somehow have to wind the Barrier Reef into it. I am not quite sure how the Barrier Reef gets into coal-seam gas mining on the west of the range, but that does not matter with the Greens. You just have to put the words into it anyhow and try to scare the people in Melbourne and Sydney who do not know better.

I have diverted a bit from the bill and I do want to give Senator Siewert an opportunity to speak. But having just briefly commented on some of the conspiracy theories and misinformation that Senator Waters presented in her speech, I just want to go to the bill. This is the third iteration of the same bill. I think Senator Waters introduced both bills in the 43rd and 44th Parliaments. They were exactly the same ideas. They did not attract the support of parliament then and I doubt that they will this time, because they are just not right. I have been to a number of presentations where you understand how this fracking occurs and you understand the care that governments require. But, more importantly, you understand the care and safety that major companies, which are good corporate citizens, put into it. I do not have time to describe it, but they put down two or three steel casing, fill them up with cement and leave them there forever. They have as much scientific evidence as you need that that is safe.

More importantly, you have farmers there and I have heard so many presentations by farmers from that area who think that this is all the best thing since sliced bread. I accept that Senator Waters was right that in the early days there were some cowboy operations out there looking for a gas and South-West Queensland. They are all gone, fortunately, and the people who are there now do it the right way. They work very cooperatively with the farmers. In fact, a lot of farmers have made a lot of money from compensation agreements they have reached with the responsible mining companies. You only have to listen to some of these people, and I have said several of them—farmers who have been there for five or six generations who think that coal-seam gas operations are the best thing that has happened to their area and to Australia. Not only does it produce jobs but it keeps the towns going. Their kids, who in the past have had to go to university in Brisbane and stay there because there were never any jobs in country areas of Queensland, now have jobs. So the kids are staying at home. The kids have the capital backing to be able to buy other farms and they welcome coal-seam gas, in the right way, with the right compensation, and they grow.

I am sorry I do not have them with me, but we have some wonderful photographs of grain crops growing up to about three metres away from, and completely surrounding, these coal seam gas wells. The best people to talk to—if you want to seriously get into this debate—are the farmers on whose land these wells are. You will find that the majority of them are concerned. In fact, there is a joke going around: the only farmers who are against it are the ones next door, the ones who did not get a well on their land and, therefore, did not get the compensation! It is only a joke—I am sure it is not accurate—but you hear that said often. So ask the real farmers, ask those out there, ask the townsfolk and ask the kids who get jobs. More importantly, ask the governments and the regulators who are in charge about the safety of these things and the enormous strides that have been taken to make absolutely sure that wells going in are safe and will always be safe. I have a lot more to say, but I will leave it there so that other speakers have the opportunity to contribute.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Waters said, the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill is the most recent bill in a series of bills that she has brought forward on this issue. I think it is important, particularly after the last contribution, to indicate that the Senate has taken the bill extremely seriously. The Environment and Communications Legislation Committee—I am sorry I was not on this particular legislation committee—looked into the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill 2015 over several months in 2015. There were a wide range of submissions received by this committee, as well as individual statements by many people. I think well over 200 people contacted the Senate to talk about their views on the bill. It is fair to say that there are widely conflicting views about this bill. Nonetheless, I think it is absolutely critical to understand that this discussion is important, it is valuable and it is serious.

Senator Waters, you will not be happy with the contribution that I am going to make, because Labor does not support the bill in its current form. In the 10 minutes that I am going to talk about it, I want to focus on two of the clear areas where there are differences of opinion. One issue is the use of Commonwealth laws in this space. This took up a degree of debate during the Senate committee inquiry. A number of organisations and people talked about whether using a Commonwealth act was the right approach to an issue which is very personal and very important. I know people hate to hear politicians at the federal level say this, but we do believe it is the jurisdiction of the states to look at these issues. It is a problem when parliamentarians at different levels say, 'It is not us. Go to someone else,' but in this case we strongly believe that the issues around access to land in this space should be appropriately looked at by the states.

In fact, many states made this point very strongly in their submissions to the inquiry. South Australia came forward and questioned whether the bill would be constitutionally valid. They explained that, although there were laws in their jurisdiction that enabled landholders to object to unreasonable access and that provided compensation for economic loss, this must be owned at the South Australian government level. The Northern Territory government also spoke out very strongly in its submission, saying that the proposal in this bill would be:

… undesirable and impractical because it would impact significantly on State and Territory budgets, and potentially remove primary producer families whose ongoing stewardship of the land is essential to its productivity.

You would be unsurprised to know, Deputy President, that the department of agriculture made a very strong statement about where the jurisdiction should lie in this space. They said:

The Bill is not an appropriate use of the Commonwealth's constitutional powers.

Importantly, they went on to say:

While the department supports better land access arrangements for landholders, we believe that this should be progressed at the state level.

A consistent theme in the arguments that the committee heard at the time was the need to enshrine very strong relationships between the landholders and the different organisations that were seeking to mine their lands for any purpose. The department of agriculture said that creating strong relationships between landholders and gas companies will help to not only address many concerns of agricultural stakeholders but also promote responsible development of gas resources in a way that can benefit regional communities. They talked about gas because this legislation is looking most clearly at gas. I want to restate the Labor Party position that we believe that strong relationships, open communication and, most importantly, respect for different points of view should be the basis of discussions about any use of land for mining.

Certainly, it is very clear that in the past there have been difficulties with the interaction between landholders and people who are wanting to mine on their land. Senator Macdonald talked about the people with whom he met who were so happy about the use of their land for mining and how they welcomed people into that process. It is clear that that welcome is not shared by everyone. Some of the submissions received by the Senate committee were very strong in their belief that they should have the opportunity to say no to anyone coming onto their land to access it for any purpose other than what the landowner wanted. This has been a longstanding and vexed point. It is clear that this is the situation that we have been facing in the Constitution from the start.

The effect of this bill is to change the basic premise of the way that we define resources in the country, and that is that resources below the ground belong to the nation, not to any individual landowner. By forcing companies, as this bill would expect, to seek the written permission of landholders to explore changes that dynamic. The implication that landowners own what is underneath the ground and not just what is on top could have unintended consequences in terms of the royalties paid to state and Commonwealth governments. The economic profits—and I know that Senator Waters referred to it in her contribution—in this process are very real. As we can see from the point that was made in the committee, the idea of unintended consequences in terms of royalties to governments was raised. There was significant evidence about the economic value of mining in our country. There was a quote from Deloitte Access Economics estimating that the minerals industry contributed $165 billion in company tax and royalties to Australian governments between 2004-05 and 2014-15. The argument around the impact on jobs in this area—and I know this, coming from Queensland—is very often quoted and the figures vary. And I am not always sure that they are accurate. The resources industry estimates that they employ around 200,000 people in Australia. Certainly, the mining industry is absolutely essential to our economy and the way it operates, and we need to be aware of that when we are looking at any legislation which would impact on that process into the future.

The committee accepted that this was a vexed issue, and I will not go into it any further because of the time for the discussion around fracking. Again, this has been played out in the community over very many years. The submissions tended to go down two paths. One group, which rejected the use of fracking completely, pointed out the environmental loss and, in particular, the threat to our water. Another group, which was in favour of the legislation, talked about environmental safety, the scientific advances, the strong restrictions around the usage and the differences between the way that fracking operates in Australia and the way that it operates in parts of America. That has been the subject of a lot of film commentary, which I think has caused a lot of fear and concern in the community.

Labor continues to support mining as it operates now. We put on record our concerns about the environment and the fact that any proposal needs to have the full environmental regulation and investigation process around it. We do understand the strength of feeling in some parts of the community about the fear that there could be longstanding causes of concern, but we believe that at the current stage there has been an effective balance established, and as long as the scrutiny continues we support access, with communication, to landholders' land. As such, we will again disappoint Senator Waters and not support her bill.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill 2015. I am sure that will come as no shock to people in this place. The Greens have been calling for a ban on fracking nationwide and for the right of landholders and traditional owners to say no to coal and unconventional gas on their land for a long time. We seek to legislate this in this bill. We believe they should have the right to refuse the rampant expansion of what is a dinosaur industry across the landscape and across Australia. A large number of farmers and citizens across this country are extremely concerned about the impact that exploration and production of unconventional gas is having. Fracking threatens our land, landscape, wildlife, clean air, clean water, clean drinking water supplies, not to mention, of course, the impact on climate change.

Coming from Western Australia, and having been involved in leading an environmental organisation in Western Australia for a long time, I am well aware of the impacts of the oil and gas industry on our landscape and environment. It is important that we note in this debate that in Western Australia we are talking not about coal seam gas but about shale gas, much of which lies below the wildflower and key farming area in the midwest. If anyone has not been to Western Australia to look at our wildflower region, I would strongly advise people to do that. Our Deputy President will be well aware of the beauty of that landscape.

Our world famous wine region in the south-west of Western Australia is currently facing the onslaught of onshore gas, with some fracking in the mix there as well. I can tell you what—that is the biggest threat to tourism and production in the south-west. People do not want to be driving down to the south-west of WA to see a gas rig cutting up the landscape. They also do not want to be seeing seismic lines and our bush being hacked up any more than it already is in the south-west. Then there is the area around our truly beloved Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, and the Canning Basin that sits on top of hotspots in the West Kimberley. Not only is this very important land to the Aboriginal community, obviously—they have control over much of that area—but it is also growing in tourism value as well.

The Greens would hate to see these areas damaged or destroyed. Onshore gas development involves extensive land clearing, contrary to the myths that are perpetrated by the industry that the impacts are minimal. I myself have been there several times, most recently up into the midwest, and have seen the destruction that has been wrought in some of the most beautiful bushland in the midwest. There are seismic lines through Beekeepers Reserve and just north of Beekeepers Reserve. There are grids of clearing through that area, rampant destruction through creek lines, which is unrepaired, and spread of dieback. I have spoken at length in this place about the impact of dieback on our native vegetation in Western Australia and how there is the potential there for a large amount of destruction.

There is exploration with people wanting to produce and frack right near the Lesueur National Park. It is an area where the community—local farmers, environment groups and unions—combined successfully to campaign on in the 1990s to protect and stop a coalmine—a dirty, polluting coal-fired power station shock, horror!—which we did stop and got that area put into a national park. Now everybody up there would never even think of having a coalmine.

This is what we are saying: think of the future. Do not destroy this area that is so important. In fact, because of the Kwongan heath vegetation, there is talk by scientists and community of needing to list that area, for example, in a future World Heritage listing, because it is such an important vegetation type and landscape. That is for a significant period down the track, but that is how important that vegetation is.

The process of fracking uses an excessive amount of water, particularly for the shale gas that we are talking about in Western Australia. Each frack in just one well requires between nine million and 29 million litres of water. Let me tell you: in Western Australia that is a significant amount of water. With one well having the potential to be fracked up to 10 times in its lifetime and with the potential for there to be tens of thousands of wells spread across Western Australia, it is obvious that, in a state as dry as ours, you cannot sustain such a water-intensive industry. Fracking also has an impact on our air and has been linked to increased risks of cancer, asthma, headaches and nosebleeds. Air close to fracking sites can contain an alphabet soup of toxins, including benzene, toluene, hydrocarbons, methane, ground-level ozone and other elements. There is also the risk of groundwater contamination by radioactive mutagenic and carcinogenic materials. Even tiny amounts of these chemicals can make water toxic and can result in our critical and crucial groundwater resources becoming unstable. I repeat: in such a dry state as Western Australia, that is particularly important.

Some argue that unconventional gas can be a replacement energy for dirtier fossil fuels such as coal. That is a flawed argument. We are now moving ahead in leaps and bounds in terms of renewable energy. In fact, in April this year the Western Australian Minister for Energy, Mike Nahan, acknowledged that there is 100,000 megawatts of overcapacity in the south-west interconnected grid and that household PV would meet daytime energy demand within a decade. This is really, really important in WA. As I said, I used to be the coordinator of the Conservation Council. We worked for years on renewable energy. When the government in the 1990s was trying to build its next fossil fuel dinosaur electricity generator, we were saying: 'This is a flawed investment. PV is just taking off. It will go ahead in leaps and bounds.' The government of the day ignored that and went ahead and built a new power station. Shock and horror, now they seem to be shocked that in fact household PV will generate—I will say it again—enough energy for daytime use within a decade.

So why would you go ahead and continue to invest in more fossil fuel? Unconventional gas is a fossil fuel. The reason they want to rush this through is that they think they have a tiny window to make a little bit of money before renewables clean out fossil fuel energy. That is why they want to rush this through—they want to stampede landholders' concerns for climate change, because they want to squeeze every last dollar they can out of fossil fuel before renewable energy takes over the market completely, like it will in Western Australia within a decade. Given the evolution of photovoltaics, it could well be even before a decade is out.

The effects of climate change are already highly visible in my home state of Western Australia. We have always been the state that knew that climate change was going to hit us first and very hard. The models have been predicting that for a long time, and that has not changed. In Western Australia we are already experiencing extremely long, hot summers, more devastating bushfires, ocean warming and acidification, and changing rainfall patterns, which are accelerating. We are already seeing that in Western Australia.

The Paris agreement signed by Australia commits to holding the increase in global average temperature to well below two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit temperature increases. By facilitating—and this is what this government does and so do some state governments—unconventional gas and more production of other fossil fuels they are impacting on our ability to meet that commitment. Recent analysis indicates that most of the fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to meet a two-degree target. They need to stay in the ground, which is also why we need this bill.

Farmers are deeply concerned about the impacts of this destructive industry on their operation. It is agriculture as an industry that we need to prioritise because we are going to need that into the future, whereas the fossil fuel industry will not be there into the future. This bill gives farmers the right to say no, and it bans fracking in Western Australia. It will stop our mid-west from being fracked. It will protect the Kimberley. It will stop areas in the southwest being fracked. It will give farmers and landholders right to stop oil and gas exploration. Committing resources to explore for more gas resources is nonsensical and should no longer be considered an option.

We should be investing in new infrastructure to ensure transition from coal and gas to renewable energy. The Greens in Western Australia have a plan. We call it Energy 2029. We can achieve 100 per cent renewable energy in Western Australia by 2029. We have costed it. It will work. It needs a commitment to achieve it.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has expired.