Regional people must partner in coal seam gas opportunities
7th November, 2011
Opinion Editorialby Hon Warren Truss MP
Published in The Australian
7 November 2011
EVERY good business knows when employees feel part of the team they will work harder and deliver better results. Working together means better outcomes for workers and business.
Regional communities and farmers do not feel respected as part of the coal seam gas resources developed from their land. Their roads are damaged by white Toyota wagons. Even the workforce is flown in-and-out to sleep in ‘dongas’, rather than make permanent community commitments.
Landowners almost never receive a real return from an asset only accessible from their land.
Coal seam gas presents risks and opportunities. The risk is potential environmental damage. There are few alternative water supplies for many towns so it is imperative aquifers are protected.
The opportunity comes from the scale of the energy underground. Australia’s coal seam gas reserves are estimated, in energy-equivalent terms, at over 40 billion barrels of oil. In the Bowen and Surat basins in Queensland alone there are 5 billion barrels of commercially-proven reserves.
The discovery of the East Texas Field in 1930 was, at the time, the largest-ever oil field at 6 billion barrels of oil. It kicked-off Texas’s boom, spawning a vibrant broad-based economy. The University of Texas ranks top 50 in the world, higher than any in Australia. Houston rose from the desert to become the 4th biggest city in US.
We can build bigger cities west of Australia’s Great Dividing Range.
But we must properly develop our coal seam gas resources. It represents an unprecedented opportunity for regional Australia. But, poorly managed, it could herald a social and environmental disaster.
While state government have primary responsibility, the stakes are so high that the federal government must provide national leadership.
That is why The Nationals have adopted five core principles to guide coal seam gas development. We need a comprehensive approach, one that protects not only the environment but the economic imperatives of regional Australia and the legitimate rights of landowners.
First, no coal seam gas development can be granted if it damages aquifers or water quality.
Second, coal seam gas development must not compromise prime agricultural land. We must protect our ability to deliver food security – not only for our nation, but for a hungrier world, for generations to come.
Third, coal seam gas development should not occur close to residential areas. Those who have a reasonable expectation of the quiet amenity of their home should be able to enjoy it.
Fourth, payments to landowners should not be limited to compensation, they deserve a proper return on the development of resources that occur on their land.
Fifth, the regions that deliver much of the wealth from coal seam gas deserve a fair share of the revenues to be reinvested in their communities.
Shortly, The Nationals will release a discussion paper on specific policy options to achieve these principles.
Unless regional communities are engaged as respected partners, and have something to gain, they will not support coal seam gas extraction – let alone on their land.
As Ian Hayllor, a farmer near Dalby, put it a couple of months ago:
“I want to get to the point where I can actually drive past a gas well and smile and think, ‘Well that's not a bad asset.’ I want to have that same feeling with that gas well as I have with a 12 or 14 bail to hectare crop of cotton - that it's a good part of my business.”
If we are successful we can deliver a lasting legacy of wealth to regional Australia and the nation beyond the 35-year life of a coal seam gas well.
Warren Truss is Leader of The Nationals.
[ENDS]
