ALL coal seam gas projects should be halted while a scientific investigation of their impact on farm land is carried out, key independent MP Tony Windsor says.
Mr Windsor is refusing to back the government’s planned new mining tax unless it agrees to hundreds of millions of dollars for bio-regional studies.
He is also demanding greater Federal powers to override project approvals, now the domain of states and territories.
Mr Windsor, the member for New England, said coal seam gas mining companies should pause while the studies were conducted.
“I call for a cessation from the industry in a voluntary sense to just breathe while we get these processes right,” he said.
The MP warned of “fairly dire” consequences for the industry and political players if they ignored community concerns and unrest.
Mr Windsor said he had met the Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan on Tuesday to discuss his concerns and they were “keen to have a serious look”.
But the federal government has vowed to protect the budget bottom line, despite Mr Windsor and other independents pressing for changes in the mining tax to ease its way through the Lower House.
Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten yesterday stepped in for acting prime minister Wayne Swan, who was suffering a sore throat, to introduce a package of 11 bills to set up the minerals resources rent tax (MRRT) and allocate its revenue.
The 30 per cent tax, to be activated from July 1, 2012, if passed by Parliament later this year, will apply to the extraordinary profits of coal and iron ore miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.
It will apply to smaller miners once they have made enough profit to pay off their initial investments.
The proceeds will fund a cut in the corporate tax rate, tax breaks for small business, a boost in retirement savings and support for critical infrastructure projects.
Mr Swan has described the tax as a “historic economic reform” that would spread the benefits of the mining boom to all Australians, not just hugely profitable mining companies.
The tax is being opposed by the Coalition.
Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce supports Mr Windsor’s concerns about coal seam gas projects.
“Out there the farmers are getting ripped off,” he told reporters in Canberra, adding prime agricultural land had to be protected.
Senator Joyce said he agreed with coal seam gas mining in “appropriate areas”.
“But I don’t believe in coal seam gas if it destroys aquifers,” he said.
“If you destroy a resource such as the aquifer, you can shut down the whole beef industry.”
Mr Windsor says “some resolution” with the government is likely.
“There is growing political pressure, both at the state and the commonwealth level and an industry level, to come up with a better process than the one we have got,” he told Macquarie Radio.
The MP says sensitive farmland, such as the Darling Downs in Queensland and Liverpool Plains in NSW, should be off limits to coal seam gas projects.
Greens leader Bob Brown believes the legislation will pass the Lower House before Christmas, despite opposition from some crossbenchers.
That would leave senators time to consider the draft laws and “have it up” as an early item when Parliament resumes sitting in February 2012.
The Greens want the MRRT to include gold miners and for revenue raised from it to provide tax breaks to small business. They do not believe it should fund a 1 per cent cut in the corporate tax rate for big business.
Greens MP Adam Bandt said his party backed Mr Windsor’s move for compulsory examinations of the environmental impact of coal seam gas mining.
“It is something that needs to be resolved,” he told reporters.
“If we can reach a resolution in the context of the mining tax debate, then that’s a good thing.”
Opposition leader Tony Abbott accused Mr Windsor of “grandstanding” on the issue.
“We can take Tony Windsor seriously when the government that he is propping up comes up with a proposal,” Mr Abbott said yesterday.
“At the moment this is just grandstanding from the guy who is a Johnny-come-lately to this issue.”
Mr Abbott said there were some “serious issues” that needed to be considered before CSG mining went ahead and that a balance needed to be struck between agricultural and mining interests.
“We can’t destroy prime agricultural land. We have got to protect the water table and we have got to ensure that the landholder gets a fair deal,” he said.
“In the end we have got to get the balance right.”
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