Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What the minister has done is to explain, probably more eloquently than I could have, the existence of the loophole without justifying why it should not be closed. Can the government please express why it believes that shale gas formations or tight gas formations should not be subject to this trigger—which the government is supporting, which we welcome—in Western Australia whereas the rest of the continent will be covered? We do not have coal seam gas formations. The extraction technology is identical. The chemicals that you inject into the fracking wells to get the resources to the surface are either identical or very similar. The damage that is done, to water formations and agricultural country, and the methane leakage are all common right across the unconventional gas industry. Can the government explain? Senator Conroy, you have just given me a reasonably lucid description of the loophole. I want to know and understand why the government refuses to close it.