Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012. In Queensland the coal seam gas industry has seemingly exploded overnight and currently represents around 90 per cent of all gas used in Queensland. It is an industry that is continuing to grow substantially. In Queensland we can expect to see some 18,000 jobs come from the coal seam gas sector and potentially $850 million in revenue each year.

Despite the rapid expansion of this industry there is contention surrounding the environmental impacts of coal seam gas mining and how these might be best managed for all stakeholders. The mining industry and the farming community have a long history of working together in Australia, which has allowed both sectors to prosper. Yet despite this, extensive public debate has surrounded the growth of coal seam gas mining and large coal mining and parts of the community hold grave and often legitimate concerns about what impacts this mining might have on our environment, particularly on our water resources and our prime agricultural land. There are very real environmental impacts resulting from these types of mining. In the past, we have seen problems with aquifers, including the drawdown and the depressurisation of aquifers. The integrity of aquifers needs to be investigated, but this is a manageable issue. Less manageable is the risk of subsidence of the surface land. The process by which coal seam gas is extracted requires an extensive amount of water, and the by-product of this is about 1.8 million tonnes of salt each year.

But of all the concerns raised by the community, water contamination is one of the most frequently raised. Whole bodies of water have the potential to be contaminated, becoming unviable for use, either for general consumption or for farming. It does not take a scientific expert to understand what implications this can have for a family that loses its livelihood, for a farming community that loses its purpose or for a country that loses its ability to support itself with produce. Three types of water contamination can occur. The first occurs through an injection of chemicals during the fracking process, the second is from naturally occurring chemicals in coal seams leaching into the water supply, and the third is through the removal of quantities of water from aquifers or coal seams.

Water contamination is a real threat, but it is one that can be avoided, and it is one that this bill seeks to address. The primary purpose of this bill is to establish an Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development. This committee will be an independent voice in the highly charged decision-making process about mining applications. This committee aims to make a positive step towards improving public confidence in the environmental integrity of the industry—confidence that is needed.

The role of this expert scientific committee will be to provide detailed scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining projects that come before the committee as well as to commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions. This advice will be provided to federal, state and territory governments that are signatories to a national partnership agreement. These signatories, which include my own state of Queensland, will be required to seek the advice of the committee when considering applications before them for coal seam gas and large coal mining developments when they have a significant impact on water resources.

The scope of the committee will be specific, although in certain circumstances there will be the opportunity to provide advice outside this scope. The committee will be tasked with providing advice on applications in the areas of high potential impact from coal seam gas or large coal mining developments. The committee will then provide this advice to the environment minister. The committee will also provide expert scientific advice on mining proposals that may have a significant impact on water resources, and this advice will be provided to the relevant government minister—whether they be a state, federal or territory minister.

Research is a key priority for this industry. With extensive confusion and a lack of knowledge surrounding the process of mining, more information is urgently required to inform future application decisions and the public debate. Research findings will further increase the quality of the advice that the committee is able to provide to stakeholders. For this reason, the committee will provide advice on research priorities for this sector that will steer the direction of research into areas that will contribute most value to scientific expertise. In line with this, the committee will also hold the power to publish information about improving the consistency of research in this sector.

While I support the goals this bill seeks to achieve, I do not believe it will truly provide the quality of information that is the authors' hope. Expert knowledge is desperately required in the decision-making process. But what determines an expert? Does a school science teacher qualify if he has studied geology? Under this bill, he just may. But understanding the environmental implications of coal seam gas mining and large coal mining in different environmental landscapes is a specific field of knowledge, and the consequences for failing to understand these environmental implications are far too great to risk misinformed advice. The advice that the committee provides needs to be of the highest standard, with great scientific accuracy—advice that can only be provided by individuals who are advanced experts in fields of study related to these processes.

This bill also does not limit the scope of scientific fields that members of the committee could have. For a committee that is providing advice on extremely specialised cases, it follows that the scientific backgrounds should be equally specialised. Geology, hydrogeology and hydrology are relevant to and focussed on the implications of coal seam gas mining and large coal mining. It is logical and sensible then that the committee members should have expertise in these fields. Information gleaned from other fields may be superfluous and only confuse and complicate the committee's advice. It is for this reason that the coalition has proposed an amendment to the bill. The amendment suggests that in order for this committee to fulfil its purpose, both to provide public confidence in the application decision-making processes for these mining applications and to provide specialised expert advice, the bill should require a majority of the members not just to have qualifications in the relevant fields, but to have advanced qualifications and expertise specifically in the fields of geology, hydrogeology or hydrology. This amendment will create greater transparency and accountability for the committee as it goes about its work, inspiring confidence from the public and from stakeholders that its advice is scientifically accurate. It seems that those opposite believe that the difference this amendment makes is trivial. I can assure you it is not trivial. This committee is being established to tackle development applications with serious implications for both the environment and the economy. The purpose of this committee is to provide expert scientific advice about the environmental implications of mining applications. The subject matter is specialised and has enormous community importance. Any environmental deterioration or implications as a result of coal seam gas mining or large-scale coal mining will have long-term consequences for farming and the goods farmed on this land as well as for regional communities and for our ability to be able to support our country with produce in the future.

So the difference that the proposed amendment requires is in no way trivial. I believe—and, I venture to say, so too would many other Australians believe—that maintaining the integrity of our environment, including our water resources, is highly critical. I for one want to have confidence that the people installed on this committee are the best in their fields with the most up-to-date, relevant information at hand and that they have the experience to back it up. I want to know that our farming land will be maintained for generations of future Australians to support our growing population into the future, and I want to know that the people making the decisions on this issue are the best in their field and are able to make the best decisions possible.

My home state of Queensland faces many challenges both now and into the future in the way it manages its natural resources. As a state we are rich in energy and resources, and these resources have come to play an important role in Queensland's economy. But, as I have said in this place before, our country will face challenges into the future, including the challenges of restructuring our economy post the current mining boom. As a nation we must meet these challenges from a position of strength. We must take advantage of the opportunities we have now without becoming solely dependent on our energy resources to provide for our future.

These advantages include coal seam gas mining and large-scale coal mining. While these resources have a part to play in our economy and the ability to generate wealth, we cannot approach mining these resources with rose-coloured glasses. It will cloud our ability to make decisions on a case-by-case basis according to the environmental implications of projects. We cannot continue in the same direction that Queensland's economy was heading in under the stewardship of the Bligh Labor government—that is, an increasing dependence on the wealth created from mining of our resources.

The coalition does support the expansion of coal seam gas where it is in harmony with the rights of landholders and where it is not a present risk to the protection of prime agricultural land—that is, when we can be certain that there will be no adverse environmental impacts on agricultural land. It is for this reason that this committee will play an important role.

I take this opportunity to give my congratulations to the new member for Pumicestone and my state colleague, Ms Lisa France, who was recently appointed Queensland's Assistant Minister for Natural Resources and Mines. I look forward to working with the member for Pumicestone in her capacity as both a local member and an assistant minister on the important issues I have just spoken about: preparing for Queensland's future, taking advantage of the current mining boom and preparing our state and our nation for a post-mining boom economy.

In conclusion I say that it is important that pragmatism prevail in this debate. Ultimately, if there is a significant economic advantage to be had as a nation—advantage that does not have an adverse effect on the environment—then we must take hold of that opportunity. When in certain circumstances adverse effects arise that have the potential to affect our prime agricultural land, an appropriate check and balance must be put in place to ensure that such effects are not felt. This pragmatic response is exactly what the coalition seeks to make. I commend our amendments to the House.

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