Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to BHP Billiton’s feasibility study into mining a 500 million tonne coal deposit on the Liverpool Plains west of Werris Creek. Is the Prime Minister aware that not only does the area proposed include some of the best black soils in the world but also mining could involve damage to precious groundwater aquifers which are part of an interlinked groundwater system in the Murray-Darling Basin? Prime Minister, given that there is virtually no research in Australia or globally into mining in the high water bearing gravels and, as your parliamentary secretary has indicated recently, there is little knowledge of the linkages between groundwater and surface water systems and that this mine could be the forerunner of many in the Murray-Darling groundwater system, would you give due consideration to supporting an application for funding to the National Water Initiative being made by catchment groups for an objective, independent assessment of mining in water bearing gravels?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not pretend, in answer to the member for New England, to be across all the details of this; I am not. I will take the question on notice and make some inquiries. I will consider what the member has put. We are interested in mining and we are also interested in understanding the impact of mining on aquifers and water systems—and certainly those that are linked to the Murray-Darling system, which is so important to eastern Australia and in relation to which there has been too little progress made over a long period of time. I will take the question on notice and get back to the member for New England as soon as I can.