Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, that is right, and sometimes we are a little bit socialist too, Senator Carr, that is true—sometimes, but not in this situation. I applaud the Greens because they are calling for more rights for landowners, and I think that is a good thing, and so do the Victorian Nationals as well. They have adopted a policy since the state election of ensuring that landowners have the right to say no to coal seam gas extraction on their property, and I applaud that. It is a good policy. It is something we should see more around the country, and I will put on record that I support that.

What I do not support in coming to this particular motion we are debating today is in section (b) of that motion, which calls on the government to do certain things, and presumably that means the Commonwealth government. I think we should act with great caution and trepidation in making laws in this place to cover the whole country on an issue which is well within, and very clearly defined within, the remit of the state government under our Constitution. They are tackling a very difficult issue. It is a wicked issue. It is hard to balance the needs of the state government for revenue and royalties, the regional areas for development and, obviously, the landowners for their property rights.

We certainly do not have a mortgage in this place on good policy. I think we have seen many examples in the last decade where the Commonwealth government has tried to come in and say, 'We know the best way. We know what we should do,' and we have ended up creating a lot more problems than were there to start with. There is plenty of opportunity for state governments and state politicians and state election campaigns to deal with these issues, and if there are members of the Senate here that feel so passionately about this issue, they should have gotten elected to a state parliament. They should have stood for a state parliament in a state seat and be progressing those issues in the appropriate place.

That does not stop us, of course, from expressing support or opposition to certain state policies, as I have done here today, but it should be the responsibility of the Commonwealth executive government to deal with this. I particularly think the Commonwealth government could potentially have a role in establishing a royal commission, which is item (b)(ii).

I did listen to Senator Lazarus's contribution earlier and, while I am, like Senator Williams, very concerned about some of the evidence he produced, I have been to these areas—to Tara, to Miles and to Chinchilla—and I am not sure that the evidence is quite there yet to support a royal commission into these issues. We had a Senate inquiry only a few years ago—Senator McKenzie mentioned that earlier. While some of that evidence was also presented to that committee we did not make a recommendation for a royal commission. Most of the recommendations from that report dealt particularly with environmental issues that arise with this industry and made sure that the Commonwealth government had appropriate regulatory and oversight arrangements in place to deal with those issues. I thought those recommendations were largely on the mark. While they were not adopted in specific form by the then Labor-Greens government, they did lead to the establishment of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and a water trigger under the EPBC Act.

So, that has led to greater oversight for the environmental concerns. As Senator McKenzie said before, no party actually called for a complete blanket ban on coal seam gas in that inquiry, including the Greens, who wrote additional comments. The National Party also made some additional comments through Senator Fiona Nash and then Senator Barnaby Joyce—they were the only party to actually recommend that greater returns go back to the landowners. The recommendation they made said that maybe one per cent should go back from the wellhead revenue to landowners. That was a very moderate recommendation.

We have looked into this issue. The Commonwealth government has increased its regulations. It has a system set up now for additional research and evaluation of coal seam gas applications. I do not actually think that since then—since we established the water trigger—that any coal seam gas extraction projects have been approved. I might be wrong on that, but I do not believe so. We have three projects approved in Queensland and I believe all of those were done in late 2010, before the water trigger came into place. There is another project seeking approval at the moment in the Scenic Rim area of Queensland, but it has not been approved, and there are some others in New South Wales as well. So I do not see the need at this stage for any larger consideration of this issue by the Commonwealth government. It seems that we have increased our oversight and regulation.

It is appropriate that while I have spent my time mainly talking on the issues for landowners and property rights—as you would expect me to do as a National Party senator—I do not shy away from the fact that there are very large environmental issues here. The water resource is a public good and we have a public responsibility to ensure that it is not damaged. That is why we have the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and that is why the state governments have their own environmental laws.

I just want to finish on the point that sometimes I feel that the Greens are great supporters of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—it is supported by all parties in this Senate—but that often they do not want to support the decisions of the umpire under that act. It is one thing to support the provisions of the act but when a decision comes under that act—like to approve coal seam gas projects or to approve projects in the Galilee Basin—that does not agree with what they like then they want to take it to the courts and disagree with it. If you want to pick an umpire—if you want to play a game of footy and you pick someone to decide on the rules—you do not then disagree with the decisions that are made because of those rules.