Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(1) Schedule 1, page 8 (after line 9), at the end of the Schedule, add:

12 Aquifer drilling—moratorium

(1) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person takes an action; and

(b) the person takes the action for the purposes of, or in connection with, coal seam gas mining; and

(c) the action is, or results in, drilling through or into an aquifer; and

(d) the drilling occurs before the earliest of the following:

(i) 5 years from the commencement of this item;

(ii) the conclusion of the full 5-year research program of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development.

Penalty: 2,000 penalty units.

(2) Subitem (1) applies only if:

(a) the person is a corporation to which paragraph 51(xx) of the Constitution applies; or

(b) the action is taken for the purposes of trade or commerce:

(i) between Australia and another country; or

(ii) between 2 States; or

(iii) between a State and a Territory; or

(iv) between 2 Territories; or

(c) the action is taken in a Territory.

(3) Subitem (1) does not apply if the action is taken to facilitate scientific research to better understand the interaction of groundwater systems and the impact on those systems of coal seam gas mining.

(4) This item has effect despite any provision of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 or any other Act.

I will speak only briefly to this. When the bill passes to the other place, Senator Larissa Waters, who has been so actively involved in the campaign in Queensland, and Senator Rhiannon from New South Wales are going to speak more fulsomely. I first of all acknowledge the efforts of the member for New England in bringing this legislation to this place. A lot is said about minority parliaments, but one of the reasons that minority parliaments get outcomes is that issues that might otherwise go into the too-hard basket or might not find their way onto the agenda because of the role that certain vested interests have—such as in development, in agriculture and mining—can be brought out and debated.

Although there are a number of ways the Greens could suggest this bill would be improved—I will go through some of the things we would do, and what we have put before the parliament that we think would be better solution—I just want to acknowledge the debate and the hubbub about this current parliament. People are going to look back on this parliament at the time of the next election and acknowledge it has been a time of great reform and some significant gains. It is good that we are now having a national debate about coal seam gas.

The amendment that I am proposing is to impose a moratorium of sufficient length to allow the scientific research that we have heard about to take its course and to give us the proper base of scientific knowledge that we need to make informed decisions. It is our understanding, based on advice from the department, that the work program of this bill's independent expert scientific committee really needs a full five years to get to a proper level of scientific knowledge. So this amendment proposes a moratorium for that five-year period, with the option of lifting the moratorium should that work program be completed earlier.

As the Greens, we say that this is exactly the time that the precautionary principle should apply. The industry is expanding rapidly across the east coast, despite a serious lack of knowledge about the risk that CSG drilling, fracking and gas extraction poses, particularly to our groundwater systems. It is simply not acceptable—and we believe that our communities and our environment deserve better—to proceed in the absence of this knowledge.

The Australian Greens have suggested that there are a number of ways that this industry could be better regulated. Senator Waters has a bill before the Senate proposing that a water trigger be inserted into the EPBC Act—into our federal environmental laws—so that we can ensure that the full impacts on water systems from coal seam gas mining can be considered by the federal environment minister. Senator Waters has also proposed a landholder rights bill to allow people to say no to CSG mining on their land where the risks are still unknown, something that for a brief, fleeting period was supported by others in this place until they changed their position. The Greens have also proposed two motions in the Senate calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining.

We will be supporting the bill and debating these issues further when it comes to the Senate, but it would seem to be eminently sensible to use this opportunity, where it is on the national agenda and where we have the opportunity to progress with legislative reform, to say—as we have said before—that if there is 5,000 years worth of gas there, then waiting an extra five years while we work out the state of that e scientific knowledge will not hurt anyone. In fact, it might avoid a great deal of harm. So I commend the amendment to the House.

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