Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago I visited the town of Narrabri, where the traditional owners, environmental groups and others are fighting the Narrabri Gas Project. I was honoured to spend two days with the traditional owners to learn firsthand about the impacts this project will have on their land. The traditional owners strongly oppose the gas project and, so far, their opposition has largely gone ignored by Santos.

Recently, the National Native Title Tribunal declared that this project would go ahead without traditional owner consent. How this is even impossible is beyond me. It flies in the face of the principles of free, prior and informed consent and is a devastating outcome for the traditional owners. But we know they will continue to fight this project. This project not only threatens the sacred Pilliga forest but also water supply in the area. Many communities rely on bore water, especially during the drought. Santos wants to go straight through the Great Artesian Basin to the Gunnedah Basin, beneath which there is no connection between those two basins.

The Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest freshwater basins in the world. It is, in fact, the largest in Australia and lies beneath Queensland, the Northern Territory, New Wales and South Australia. It is a vital resource for 180,000 people, 7,600 businesses and 120,000 towns. First Nations communities have relied on this basin for thousands of years and maintain cultural, social and spiritual connections with the springs and their associated ecological communities and landscapes. The Gunnedah Basin contains water that is older and more toxic, and if the water from this basin were to contaminate the Great Artesian Basin it would be catastrophic for that region.

This project simply cannot go ahead. The risk to the region's water supply and impacts to the Pilliga are too great, not to mention the fact that we cannot open any more new coal and gas projects.