Additional comments from the Australian Greens

The Australian Greens have long raised the serious concerns of the Australian community about the risks coal seam gas and coal mining pose to our groundwater resources, the climate, our good quality agricultural land, regional communities across Australia and our environment.

The coal seam gas and coal mining industries  are rapidly expanding across Australia's rich farming regions, but scientists still don't know what the long-term and cumulative threats posed by these industries, particular to our water resources and the climate, but also more broadly to our environment and communities.

Australians worried about our land, water, climate and the Reef have been shocked by the recent rash of disasters associated with the expanding coal seam gas industry: gas bubbling up through the Condamine River riverbed close to CSG mining operations in recent weeks, contamination of the Springbok aquifer, the release of CSG polluted wastewater during the 2011 floods, a gas well blow-out and drilling fluid leak near Chinchilla, and the recent spill disaster in NSW's Pilliga Forest.

Much more needs to be done to reign in the unbridled acceleration of these fossil fuel industries.

The Australian Greens generally support this bill but it needs to be given teeth. The bill sets up an independent expert scientific panel to advise on the risks associated with coal seam gas and coal mining projects, in recognition of the fact that there are serious gaps in the science about the potential threats posed by these industries.

The Australian Greens acknowledge the significant reform that Mr Windsor has achieved by securing the Government’s commitment to this bill, and recognise that this is an issue of utmost importance to his region, but which is shared by so many rural communities across eastern Australia. This bill is an improvement on the current state of affairs, where major mining developments are being considered for approval in our prime natural and agricultural areas without being underpinned by adequate science about the risks involved.

However, we are concerned that this bill creates a strange anomaly, whereby the panel is set up under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and provides a broad range of advice, and yet most of this advice can only be considered by state governments.

This presents two strange issues:

What happens when the states “consider” the advice provided by the expert panel, but then chooses to ignore it or brush it aside – what recourse does the federal government have if the state governments chose private profit over the well-being of our groundwater dependent communities, industries and environment? The answer appears to be none at all – unlike other issues regulated by the federal environment act, the federal Minister will not be able to call-in a project and review the decision, because the federal Minister has very limited remit to consider water issues.

Secondly, while the federal Minister has this great expert panel, he or she will only be able to consider their advice in really quite narrow circumstances – where for example, nationally threatened species will be impacted. The federal environment minister won’t be able to stop projects where the science indicates that there are broader risks to our communities, water systems and environment from these proposals, those responsibilities will remain with state governments.

Given states’ track record we think it’s high time the federal government stepped in to manage the major risks posed by these industries to our ground and surface water.

While the Greens wholeheartedly support steps that ensure far better science is available to inform decision-making in relation to all mining activities, we believe these reforms and the bioregional assessments that are intended to follow will result in stronger outcomes for our environment and the agricultural sector if the federal government also had legislative responsibility for protecting our surface and groundwater. It is simply not enough to rely on states agreeing to sign up to higher, nationally consistent standards for regulating these industries, and to act on the advice of a federally funded expert body, given state governments’ poor track records in protecting our water to date.

To this end the Australian Greens have introduced a separate bill to protect water from CSG mining, which would to add the impacts of mining on water to our environmental laws as a matter of national environmental significance. We will continue to push for the federal government to step up, and hope to secure support for this bill in the senate in the coming months.

The Australian Greens also have a number of other concerns with this bill which we will be seeking to address through amendments.

Firstly, we understand the research program of the expert panel is likely to take about five years to complete. And yet in the meantime the federal and state governments are proposing to roll ahead with assessing and approving these developments – before the science is in! This is of particular concern when it comes to CSG, where we consider the greatest risks and uncertainties lie.

The Greens will seek to amend the bill to include a five-year moratorium on CSG to give the newly created CSG advisory committee time to complete its full research program before any more CSG approvals are issued, to make sure their work can count. The government foolishly keeps issuing approvals before we have the full scientific picture before us – we need a five-year moratorium while that science is done.

Mr Bandt proposed this amendment to this bill to introduce such a moratorium in the lower house. Sadly it was not supported, with the old parties voting it down – choosing to back the big miners over the community and the environment. It is of great concern that the old parties continue to ignore the legitimate concerns of the community and water experts like the CSIRO and National Water Commission.  The Greens are not alone here: we are speaking for the many Australian communities that have spoken out so strongly against CSG - with a recent poll indicating 68 per cent of people wanting a moratorium on coal seam gas until it has been proven safe. We can but hope our colleagues in the Senate take a more reasoned approach and support this amendment.

The Australian Greens will also seek to amend the bill to ensure that all advice from the expert panel is published online at the time it is presented to the relevant receiving state/ territory or federal authority. They will also be required to publish minutes of committee meetings, which will provide the public with information about any potential conflicts of interests which must under existing law be disclosed in committee meetings. This will give the public the opportunity to scrutinise such conflicts and check whether they are being properly managed. We believe the community has a right to know what our decision-makers know about the risks posed by major coal and CSG projects, and that the expert panel’s advice is free from any undue influence.

We will also propose amendments seeking to enhance the independence of the committee – both from industry and government influence, including providing that committee members have security of tenure for a minimum of three years; that they have adequate support to do their job properly; and, allowing the committee to conduct more research and investigations of their own volition, not just when directed by government.

Many Australians have significant concerns about the potential health impacts associated with having CSG and major coal mines set up in their communities.  In the lower house amendments were proposed to explicitly list areas of expertise that should be represented on the committee – these included geologists and hydrologists and ecologists, but no human health experts. It is imperative that the health impacts of CSG are considered by this committee given the chemical cocktails pumped into coal seams in fraccing fluids and the naturally-occurring carcinogenic BTEX that can be mobilised by fraccing, which could end up in drinking water if connections between aquifers are made. We believe this is an oversight in not having health experts on the scientific panel is an oversight that needs to be corrected.

The Australian Greens have a solid track record of taking action in parliament to protect our communities and environment from coal seam gas and major coal mines.

Despite the lack of information about long-term impacts of CSG, Australian farmers still have no right to say no to CSG mining on their land. The Greens have introduced a bill to allow farmers to choose if they want to allow CSG on their property.

We have also proposed a nation-wide Senate inquiry into CSG, to get the whole picture of the true environmental, coastal, economic and social impacts of CSG across the whole country.

There are also no independent studies of the life-cycle carbon emissions of CSG, so there's no proof that this so-called transition fuel is any more climate-friendly fuel than coal. Now is not the time to be opening up yet another fossil fuel industry.  That is why the Greens have been calling for independent, Australian studies into the life-cycle carbon emissions of coal seam gas, and better monitoring of fugitive emissions from leaking gas wells and pipes.

The Greens will continue to push for far better oversight and management of these industries, for the future of Australia’s communities and the generations to come.

 

Senator Larissa Waters

Senator for Queensland

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