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

I would like to go on record thanking the government for finally acting on the issue of coal seam gas and its effect on aquifers. It is not before time. As folk in this chamber and anyone listening will know, the Greens have moved several bills to address this issue in the last 18 months to two years. That is not only because of community concern but also because of significant scientific concern. Fundamentally, we simply cannot surmount the fact that we do not know enough about aquifers and their interaction between coal seams, and possible connections that can be created once a hole is punched through an aquifer to get to a coal seam in order to extract the gas. We cannot be sure that we are not then making connections that will see the groundwater table drop or that will see groundwater contaminated, either by the residual fracking fluids that are left in the coal seam or indeed by naturally occurring BTEX, which, in a very scary development, we now learn can be mobilised by the process of hydraulic fracturing. So unfortunately we still know that coal seam gas is not safe in the long term for water. We do not know the quantum of risk associated with that, but frankly we should not take the risk. In the driest inhabited continent on the planet, we need to make sure that we will still be able to supply the water needed for us to continue to be a net food exporter in this growing age of food insecurity.

We welcome the new powers that will be given to the federal environment minister to at last take into account the impacts of water when thinking about approving coal and coal seam gas mining. Of course, that is no guarantee that the minister will actually come to the correct decision. It simply arms him or her—it is Minister Tony Burke at the moment—with information to make, hopefully, a correct decision. There is huge discretion in the act. The minister is empowered to make a decision to approve a project even if it is going to have significant impacts on a matter of national environmental significance. So I am afraid this bill, whilst being a good step, is certainly no panacea. It is going to take a courageous minister who is prepared to listen to the science and listen to the community to actually protect this country from coal seam gas and the risks that it poses.

While I am on the risks, it is not just risks to water that we are talking about here; it is also risks to the climate. Finally CSIRO is now doing some independent studies into how much this stuff leaks. The only other independent science that has been done indicates that, where coal seam gas extraction is occurring, ambient levels of methane are about three times above what they are elsewhere. So we have some quantification on an independent basis already that shows that coal seam gas leaks like a sieve. And this is methane, which, as a greenhouse gas, is 26 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. We know this is dangerous for the climate. We know it risks long-term damage to our aquifers. That is why it is long past time that we had some federal oversight. The states have failed in properly looking after land and water. We have heard lots and lots of discussion today about the state laws that apply to coal seam gas. Unfortunately they are simply not adequate. In Queensland we have seen an unseemly rush, and coal seam gas has been approved on our best food-producing land.

I have talked about aquifer and climate impacts, but there are also surface impacts. I was pleased to start off my term in this place as a participating member in the Senate inquiry into coal seam gas, during which we learned that it can interfere with surface operations. Farmers were saying that they wanted to buy, or had purchased, new equipment which required certain turning circles which required the layout of their farm to be a certain way, and the coal seam gas wells threatened to interfere with that. We saw a potential threat, by coal seam gas wells, to more progressive technologies being used to apply fewer inputs to farmland. So there are not just water and climate impacts but also surface operation impacts.

That is why I will be moving amendments on behalf of the Australian Greens to give landholders the right to say no to coal seam gas. Why should landholders have to take the risk of long-term damage to aquifers? Why should they bear that risk? The amendments that I will move to this bill will allow the landholder to say no to coal seam gas. They will say that the minister is not actually able to approve coal or coal seam gas until he has before him the consent of the landholder, after the landholder has got both legal advice and scientific advice. That is crucial because, as we have seen, the coal seam gas companies are effectively trying to bully people into being bought off, with sometimes ample, sometimes pitiful, levels of compensation. Of course, the amount is kept confidential so nobody knows whether they are being ripped off or not. This tactic is being used in relation to landowners because they know they cannot say no.

This is exactly why we need to respect the fact that landholders do not want to take that risk with their land. It should be the government that bears that risk. These amendments will not change the ownership of the minerals. The Crown will still own those minerals, as has been raised today. If the government deems those resources so important that they need to be extracted then the government can use its acquisition powers, as it can in any other instance under the Constitution and as many state governments can under their state acquisition laws. This does not change the ownership of the minerals and nor does it sterilise the resource—a point I hope the coalition appreciates. It simply gives landholders a better bargaining position.

I ask the minister: why has it taken the government so long to finally move on coal seam gas, when you have had your own CSIRO and National Water Commission and now the independent expert scientific committee advising for many years on the uncertainties about groundwater impacts, and when CSIRO have not even finished looking at the climate impacts? Why is there this unseemly haste to approve everything? Why did Minister Burke tick off, within the first six months of his being the environment minister, on those three big Queensland projects? He is currently considering a fourth. Why in February this year did Minister Burke tick off on Gloucester, Boggabri, Maules Creek and Tarrawonga and then several days afterwards suddenly decide to regulate water? Why the timing here, why the delay and why the continued refusal to not properly consider the scientific advice about the uncertainties of this industry?