Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. What progress has the government made in introducing a new water trigger into national environmental law? How is the government addressing community and stakeholder responses to this?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for the question. This morning I introduced the amendments that I referred to yesterday into the parliament, so they are now before the House, and I presume over the course of next week we will have the opportunity to debate them and work through them. They are exactly as I described yesterday, in that the window is a very tight window for the water trigger. It will only apply to those projects which are large coalmining operations or coal seam gas operations.

As to the stakeholder response, I want to put very squarely a rejection of claims that have been put out by the National Farmers' Federation, where they have claimed that in some way a minister would be able to extend the new water trigger to have an impact on the ordinary operation of farmers. No farm dam, no irrigation operation, none of the ordinary operations of farmers, in any way is impacted by this. But, if a coalmining operation or a coal seam gas operation were to have a detrimental effect on the water resource then this would provide a very substantial protection for those farmers, which is why the New South Wales farmers have come out in favour and why the arguments which are being put forward by the National Farmers' Federation certainly do not in any way ring true and do not in any way match the concerns that their own constituents and membership have been putting on the ground for a very long time.

A further stakeholder reaction, though—possibly one of the more hysterical stakeholder reactions—came from the Queensland Premier. Unsurprisingly, on every occasion when you do something in favour of the environment, the Queensland Premier stands opposed. Whether it is protection of koalas, protection of the Great Barrier Reef or protection of underground water, the reaction of the Queensland National Party is exactly the same every single time, even to the point where the Queensland Premier, when he took to Twitter getting all emotional about it, wanted to describe the new change as simply 'green tape'. Let me make it clear. Members of this side of the House, and indeed members of the crossbench, when we talk about protecting the Great Barrier Reef, do not see it as green tape. When we talk about protecting iconic species like the koala, we do not see it as green tape. When we talk about the impact on water resources, whether it be underground aquifers, whether it be surface water, it shows the height of environmental vandalism, instead of seeing the benefits of this—whether they be for our agriculture, for our wetlands, for our forests, for our rivers—to simply see it as nothing but green tape. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the importance of water—surface water, underground water—in a dry continent like ours.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.