Environmental groups and farmers have criticised proposed changes to Queensland’s planning laws that they say will “further weaken” regulation of coal seam gas and “abdicate responsibility” for sinking farmland.
The comments were made in a joint submission by the Environmental Defenders Office and Lock the Gate in response to draft amendments to two key pieces of state legislation governing the management of CSG-induced subsidence – when the extraction of gas from underground causes the land above to sink.
EDO senior lawyer Revel Pointon said the draft amendments to the Regional Planning Interest (RPI) and Mineral and Energy Resources Common Provision (MERCP) Acts 2014 would further weaken already “weak” legislation.
Environmental groups and farmers have criticised proposed changes to Queensland’s planning laws, which they say will make regulation of coal seam gas “even weaker” and “abdicate responsibility” for sinking farmland.
The comments were made in a joint submission by the Environmental Defenders Office and Lock the Gate in response to draft amendments to two key pieces of state legislation governing the management of CSG-induced subsidence – when the extraction of gas from underground causes the land above to sink.
EDO senior lawyer Revel Pointon said the draft amendments to the Regional Planning Interest (RPI) and Mineral and Energy Resources Common Provision (MERCP) Acts 2014 would further weaken already “weak” legislation.
“Having recognised that subsidence could pose a significant risk to our best agricultural land, the government is now changing the legislation to remove the requirement to actually assess that risk,” Pointon said.
The RPI Act was introduced in part to better protect priority agricultural areas from industries such as CSG. But under the bill, subsidence, one of the most controversial impacts of CSG mining, will be removed from this assessment process and instead assessed under the MERCP Act.
“They’re taking away the ability of farmers to protect their land,” Pointon said.
In its own submission to the state government, peak farming body Agforce Queensland said it supported the proposed introduction of a new subsidence impact framework, but “strongly disagreed” with the removal of CSG-induced subsidence impacts from the RPI Act.
Liza Balmain runs a cotton and mixed grain farm 200km west of Brisbane and has been a vocal opponent of CSG expansion in the area for almost a decade, hosting independent senator David Pocock, environmental and legal experts and farmers at a meeting against Arrow Energy’s Surat gas project this year. She also made a submission on the proposed changes.
“Removing the subsidence assessment from the RPI Act removes this barrier to Arrow Energy’s progress on the Darling Downs,” Balmain said.
Some farmers who have permitted gas wells on their land say they have experienced subsidence but it has not affected their operations. Ian Hayllor’s cotton and grain fields are dotted with Arrow Energy gas wells. He allowed them in exchange for compensation.
Hayllor says decades-old gas wells on neighbouring properties have caused his fields to subside.
“The surface has stayed exactly the same, the whole place has just dropped 50mm,” he said. “I wouldn’t even know it had happened without looking at the data.”
A spokesman for the Queensland Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning said the department was considering more than 370 submissions.
“The proposed changes aim to promote a more consistent and transparent assessment framework,” the spokesperson said.
“In line with the recommendations of the GasFields Commission Queensland, the proposed subsidence management framework identifies a pathway to assess potential subsidence impacts using a science-based risk assessment process.”
Dr Madeline Taylor from Macquarie University said the Queensland Government had a long history of “piecemeal” and “reactive” regulation of the gas industry.
“We’ve come up with a co-existence regulatory approach of let’s regulate now and think about how we manage the impacts later,” Taylor said. “It’s a learning by doing approach.
“What’s fundamentally missing in Queensland is an authority made up of agricultural experts and landowners themselves.”
A spokesman for Arrow Energy said the company was “committed to genuine co-existence with landholders” and “welcomed the opportunity to participate in the government’s consultation process”.