Bills

Petroleum and Geothermal Energy (Hydraulic Fracturing) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:15): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:15): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Last Thursday a petition signed by 2,475 South Australians was presented to the Legislative Council. This petition noted that prime agricultural and cropping land comprises only 4.6 per cent of the land area of South Australia, and therefore we need to protect this land for food production in perpetuity. This also means protecting valuable groundwater and surface water supplies from contamination or depletion, including from mining and drilling activities.

Currently, landowners have very few rights to restrict mining or drilling activities on their land, and rural communities have no rights to prevent damaging activities that impact on their livelihoods and local environments. With those words of preamble the petitioners to the Legislative Council asked this house to amend the Mining Act 1971 and the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000 to give landowners and rural communities the right to say 'no' to mining and drilling activities in order to protect prime agricultural and cropping land, conservation land, and rural communities from the adverse impacts of those activities.

Clearly, there are many people in regional South Australia who do not believe that the government has the balance right between the protection of valuable farmland and the aspirations of the mining industry. They feel betrayed, powerless and ignored by their local members of parliament, and the parliament itself. In response to this call, I am introducing this bill and a further bill today into state parliament.

This bill, which amends the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act, is very similar to one I introduced last year. The bill calls for the permanent protection of farmland, conservation land, and residential land from fracking for gas. The bill also echoes the decision of the Victorian Liberal government to impose a statewide moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for gas for two years, pending a thorough scientific assessment of the environmental impacts.

I do not intend to put on the record all the things I said last time in relation to this bill, but for the record I would remind members that my second reading speech for the similar bill last year was on 19 June 2013, and also refer members to the 'Matters of Interest' speech I gave on 10 May 2013. This bill effectively rules off limits those important areas of South Australia that deserve to be protected: farmland, conservation land and residential land. When we protect those areas what we are doing is protecting in perpetuity the ability of those places to provide services that we rely on: food-growing services, biodiversity and conservation services, and providing a clean and healthy environment for us to live in.

Members would know that the debate over fracking for gas has reached a head in New South Wales and Queensland. The Lock the Gate Alliance is active. Thousands of people are out in the countryside at protests, and in fact at the Bentley blockade, about which I have spoken before, many thousands of people were mobilised to lock the gate against an unwanted gas fracking operation, and it was only through last minute intervention by the government, having realised that mobilising 800 police officers to try to disperse the demonstration was going to end badly for all concerned, that it eventually accepted the community's viewpoint that that particular gas company did not have a social licence to operate, and they withdrew their permission to frack for gas.

So, we are trying to avoid that level of hostility and angst in regional South Australia. But, as members know, in the South-East of this state, which will be the front line for the next swathe of gas activities, every single local council down there has supported calls for a moratorium, for inquiries or for an absolute ban on fracking in their area. This is not a minority interest issue but a mainstream issue amongst farmers and regional communities.

When I introduced the bill last year I supplemented it with a number of amendments. Those amendments have now been incorporated into the body of the bill. Just to make it very clear: this bill will not be retrospective but will only operate after the date of its assent. Also, the bill does not affect the activities of geothermal energy, a form of renewable energy, with very different impacts to that of exploring for and extracting hydrocarbons.

So, I look forward to the debate on this bill. I look forward to a parliamentary inquiry, which I hope will be established very soon. I certainly know that at least the Environment, Resources and Development Standing Committee is looking at whether this is an inquiry it can undertake of its own volition, but I fully expect that we will have one, if not more, inquiries into the gas industry, and fracking in particular, but in the meantime this bill provides appropriate protections to South Australian farmers and South Australian regional communities.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.T. Ngo.