Industry and landholders in New South Wales seem to have quite different views of just where the state is at with its Coal Seam Gas (CSG) industry
Farmers and environmentalists say the NSW government is green-lighting mine companies by failing to ring-fence prime agricultural land.
At the same time a lobby group says the industry is almost paralysed, with the state importing 95 per cent of its gas from booming Queensland
More than two million hectares in the state’s Hunter and New England regions are set to undergo reclassification as farmland in a move designed to boost protections guaranteed under a draft land use plan by almost 700,000 hectares.
Despite a new Land and Water Commissioner, a code of conduct for CSG companies and independent assessment of mining and CSG proposals, however, agricultural lands won’t be quarantined.
NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard said the updated Strategic Regional Land Use Policy would not establish what he called a “ring fence” but will provide a balance between the interests of farming and resource development.
“The net result of this policy will be protection of agriculture and protection of strategic agricultural land, but at the same time we’ll be able to access taxpayers resources that sit below the ground,” Mr Hazzard said.
The land use plan also includes an Aquifer Interference Policy that will now apply state wide, rather than just to the lands identified in the draft.
It removes a clause that allowed the government to override the independent scientific assessment of proposals in exceptional circumstances.
Meanwhile, an ongoing moratorium on the controversial fracking process used to extract CSG has been lifted.
Nationals Leader Andrew Stoner describes the measures as “the strongest and most comprehensive set of regulations around mining and gas extraction in the nation, if not the world”.
But farmers and environmentalists say the plan fails to quarantine agricultural land from mining or CSG exploration.
NSW Farmers’ President Fiona Simson says it doesn’t do enough to protect agricultural land and water and breaks a coalition election promise to prevent mining in prime farming regions.
“I think it’s a case of the government caving in to the very, very powerful mining and coal seam gas lobby groups,” she said.
“It is a significant watering down of the protections that the community was actually promised.”
Nature Conservation Council chief Pepe Clarke said the government had broken a promise to ban mining in water catchment areas, while Australian Greens Party MP Jeremy Buckingham accused it of giving the green light to miners and the CSG industry.
The Australian Labor Party’s opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley said the policy failed to guarantee protection to high-value conservation land.
“Not a single hectare of our state is guaranteed protection from extractive industry – a hell of a long way short from what Mr O’Farrell promised prior to March 26 last year,” he said.
Meanwhile, and industry lobby group, the Australian Petroleum & Production Exploration Association (APPEA) says data shows a huge difference between Queensland and NSW in jobs growth, investment, community contributions and gas imports.
APPEA chief executive David Byers says two different scenarios are playing out.
“The economic stories developing between NSW and Queensland couldn’t be more diametrically opposed,” he said in a statement.
“NSW currently imports around 95 per cent of its gas from interstate.”
APPEA, the country’s peak gas lobby group, says NSW is struggling because it lacks a land use policy framework.
“The release of the NSW government’s Strategic Regional Land Use Plan is crucial,” Byers said.
“Further delays could jeopardise future investment in developing NSW’s gas resources.”
