Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, I thought you said 'Minister'. Thank you for that correction. It would be nice if we had more senators with the title 'Ms' in this place, frankly. We need more women in parliament, but that is a matter for another night. Ms Elliot has resigned, allegedly to fight coal seam gas in her community. That is great, but her focus is now on the state government, who, she says, are not doing enough—and that is true: they are not doing enough—but how convenient it is that she leaves the federal government, her own government, out of the picture entirely. Again, the minister has approved every coal seam gas project that has come across his desk.

I thought it was somewhat amusing that Minister Albanese, who likewise jumped on the coal seam gas bandwagon, claimed it as his own win that Premier Barry O'Farrell had blocked coal seam gas in urban areas. He sent an email asking folk to congratulate Labor and to send the email on, but he got the name of the company wrong—rather embarrassing for Minister Albanese, and also very illustrative of the lack of interest that federal Labor has had in properly dealing with coal seam gas.

The opposition continues to back coal seam gas to the hilt. Mr Tony Abbott had a very brief moment in the sun, about 18 months ago, when he said landholders should have the right to say no to coal seam gas. Sadly, 24 hours later he changed his tune and backed down on that. What a depressing result that was, and what a tragic backflip.

Unfortunately, the Nationals released a coal seam gas policy about a year ago. I then moved a motion which contained much of that policy. Sadly, they did not come into the chamber to vote for their own policy. I think that folk in the bush would be very disappointed to know that they were not prepared to put their money where their mouths were.

The Nationals will have another chance on Thursday. I have yet another motion about coal seam gas—we Greens do not give up lightly—and it will be calling on all parties to take account of the science and stop this dangerous and risky industry. It will be very telling to see the position of the other parties when this motion comes to a vote on Thursday, if they bother to turn up.

Unlike the other parties, the Greens' position on coal seam gas has never been confused. We have always been crystal clear. We think that the risks of coal seam gas to our land, our water, our climate, our communities and, frankly, our reef—through which most of this stuff is exported, at least in Queensland—are simply too high. We do not know enough about this industry to know whether it is safe.

All indications are that in fact it is not safe and it is not much cleaner than coal, anyway. So, when the interim independent expert scientific committee on coal seam gas came before this chamber for tick off, we moved for amendments. We moved for a five-year moratorium that said: 'You've got a research committee. Great. Let's let that committee do its work—do that research—and understand better about the impacts of this industry before you issue any more approvals. Let's have that moratorium for five years to let the science get done.' Sadly, we got absolutely no support for that very sensible amendment.

I have also consistently called for some proper climate studies into the claims made about coal seam gas—industry claims that it is so clean and so much better than coal, never mind the farmland impacts! I am afraid we have no independent evidence to suggest that. In fact, we have evidence from other jurisdictions that shows that a similar style of gas—shale gas—is much dirtier because it leaks. It leaks out of the wells and it leaks out of the pipes. We could well have the same problem here and we need to investigate that.

I have two bills before this place that would properly deal with coal seam gas. The first would allow the federal environment minister to look at the water impacts of coal seam gas mining—and other large mining for that matter. At the moment he has this tenuous ability to regulate. He could still say no on the basis of his environment powers, but he does not have those water powers. So I am afraid we need to arm that office of the minister to do a better job to protect water from coal seam gas. Sadly, no-one agrees with the Greens on that point, and others in this chamber are happy to let the environment minister continue to approve coal seam gas projects without properly considering their water impacts. I think that is reckless in the extreme.

The other bill that I have before this place to deal with coal seam gas is a landholder rights bill. Thanks to Tony Abbott and his thought-bubble that lasted 24 hours—