Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to stand up and say that I will not be supporting this motion. Respectfully, I want to outline why: in part B of the motion we are calling on the government to stop approving coal seam gas projects, and, with respect, the federal government's role in coal seam gas project development and approvals is limited.

Senator Waters, I want to touch on something that you briefly mentioned. The water trigger was brought in by the Labor-Greens coalition, but the Labor Party never employed it—not once; not once on any coal seam gas issue. Conversely, this government, because of our commitment to using science and an evidentiary basis in the policy decisions we make, has applied the water trigger to over 50 projects since taking office—that is 50 projects. Moreover, the Independent Expert Scientific Committee has approved 15 scientific reports informing bioregional assessments and 20 scientific reports on risk to environmental health from chemicals, ecosystems, water and aquifer connectivity. We are actually looking at and researching exactly the questions that this motion goes to.

I also want to put on the record the National's perspective. The Greens love a good coal seam gas notice of motion and to make a big song and dance about the National party's perspective. We have been incredibly consistent on this issue. I would like to take the Senate back to November 2011 and the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee's management of the Murray Darling Basinreport and the interim report of that particular committee on the impact of mining coal seam on the management of the Murray Darling Basin.

The report canvassed a variety of issues around this. It was a very comprehensive report which involved excursions and a lot of witnesses appearing. It went for a long period of time, and it was very ably chaired by Senator Bill Heffernan. It went to the impact of water, land access and land use et cetera, and it had a comprehensive list of recommendations, which I recommend to senators who are interested in this to have a look at.

Let's go to the additional comments—the National Party made it very clear in their additional comments to this report that we absolutely support the fact that the agricultural landowner has a very clear right of a significant return on any coal seam gas development in their area. When we go to the additional comments from the Australian Greens—let's have a look, Senator Canavan. As Senator Waters is so impassioned about landholder rights right now, let's look at when she actually signed the additional comments. Her recommendations went to (1) assessing greenhouse gas intensity; (2) to greenhouse gas accounting; and (4) to rigorous independent monitoring of greenhouse emissions. There is not one word in the recommendations from Senator Waters, about landowners and their right to veto, their right to an adequate return or the ensuring that the landholders' community, more broadly, has a right to absolutely benefit from any development in their area. No. So, three years later, during a state election campaign in New South Wales and a by-election in Victoria, we have Senator Waters making hay—or attempting to make hay—with coal seam gas issues. Unfortunately, Senator Waters as a Victorian National—