John Englart

Will Labor support Enhancing the Water Trigger in Federal environment laws as an urgent priority? Hint: Closing the loophole was an election promise.

Today the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Expanding the Water Trigger) Bill 2023 had its second reading in the House Of Representatives. It was introduced by Dr Sophie Scamps (Independent, Mackellar) and the changes made by the bill are in accord with ALP policy.

A similar bill was also introduced into the Senate by Senator Hanson-Young. There was also an urgency debate on considering climate pollution (Climate Trigger) in National Environment laws.

What we want to know: will the Albanese Labor Government and our Federal Labor MP Peter Khalil support the passage of the enhanced Water Trigger bill with some sense of urgency. After the defeat of the referendum on The Voice, will they step up and listen to First Nation people on the importance of protecting water and close the current loophole as promised?

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Dr Scamps MP said she has been compelled to introduce the Bill to Parliament as Labor has delayed fulfilling their election promise to close this loophole in the water trigger.

Ray Dimakarri Dixon, a Mudburra elder from the Marlinja community, who travelled to Canberra to brief MPs last month said: “The changes being forced on us in the Northern Territory at the moment are just like the blowing up of Juukan Gorge. The dollars don’t mean anything to us. Land is our life. Water is our life. We’ve got nowhere else to go. This is destroying our land and our culture. It needs to stop.”

Sophie Scamps made the following arguments in parliament:

  • It is one of the government’s own promises: their commitment to expand the water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
  • Current water trigger only applies to coal seam gas and large coalmining developments.
  • The government’s commitment to expanding the water trigger to encompass all types of unconventional gas, including shale and tight gas, was documented in their Nature Positive Plan released in December 2022.
  • A Senate inquiry into oil and gas exploration and production in the Beetaloo basin handed down its report in April this year. It recommended that the expanded water trigger be operational by 31 December 2023.
  • It is a matter of urgency that the water trigger be expanded now, as multiple shale gas fracking projects in the NT are due to be approved imminently.
  • The final report of the Northern Territory Pepper inquiry was released in March 2018 and provided the NT government with 138 recommendations to mitigate the risks of fracking in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory government accepted the inquiry’s findings and lifted the moratorium on the basis that it would implement all recommendations by the end of 2022.
  • The Pepper inquiry concluded that there should be a water trigger in the EPBC Act which applies to all onshore gas activities and requires the federal environment minister’s approval for those activities likely to have significant impact on water resources. No such water trigger has been enacted, yet this recommendation is marked as complete on the Northern Territory government’s website.

Dr Scamps outlined two key reasons why this change to the water trigger must be made urgently ahead of the broader EPBC Act reforms.

One is the looming threat of more frequent and severe droughts in the future because of climate change. Earlier this month the Bureau of Meteorology declared Australia is again facing an El Nino event. Australia’s severe droughts in recent decades have all been associated with El Nino conditions. September was the driest September on record in Australia since 1900. Hydraulic fracturing to extract gas uses enormous amounts of water. It is not acceptable that these projects can be proved without an assessment of how they will impact our precious water resources and the flow-on effects to communities, farmers and the environment, both now and in the future.

The second reason:

In May this year, the Northern Territory government announced it would allow fracking to commence in the Territory. The granting of gas production licences is imminent for a number of fracking projects in the NT, including Tamboran’s projects in the Beetaloo Basin and Black Mountain oil and gas projects in the Kimberley. Tamboran Resources has publicly stated it intends to start producing gas from fracking operations as soon as next year. Australians, particularly those living in affected communities, do not deserve to hear once again that the government was right to approve yet more environmentally damaging projects because they did not contravene our national environment laws. That is especially when the government itself has acknowledged that those laws are broken and must be urgently amended but has as yet failed to do so. Traditional owners and pastoralists in the Northern Territory support the urgent expansion of the water trigger.

In concluding Dr Scamps said the bill amended a discreet part of the EPBC Act that could easily be passed before more major comprehensive reforms the Government has identified and “does no more and no less than what the government has already said it should do.”

“It has broad support from the crossbench in both this place and the other place. It is my sincere hope that the government will keep its promise to expand the water trigger by supporting this bill and passing it urgently in this House by the end of the year.” said Dr Scamps.

Zali Steggall (Independent, Warringah) rose to second the bill and spoke in its favour:

“This bill is simple. It expands the water trigger to provide federal oversight of the impact that many fossil fuel mining projects will have on Australia’s precious water resources. The government has noted its intention to do just this and expand the definition of the water trigger to cover all forms of unconventional gas. This is consistent with the expert advice from the Pepper inquiry and the Samuel review. So no-one seems to be in any disagreement about expanding the water trigger. The question is time–time is of the essence. The upcoming summer is going to be very hot and has the potential to be as disastrous as the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires around this country.”

The debate was cut short by the DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Claydon): “The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.”

Meanwhile, in the Senate Greens Environment and Water Spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young introduced Expanding the Water Trigger Bill 2023, similar to the bill by Dr Sophie Scamps

“Water is life, but right now a legal loophole means fracking corporations have a license to drill without regard for our rivers, the climate or the voices of Traditional Owners.

“That’s why today the Greens are introducing our Water Trigger bill to the Senate to close this fracking loophole. This Bill ensures that before fracking companies can risk our rivers and waterways, they must undergo the same independent environmental assessments as other gas projects. 

“If the Government backs our Bill, the Greens will use our numbers in the Senate to close this loophole immediately, working with Sophie Scamps MP in the lower house.

“Fracking companies are threatening to exploit this loophole right now in places like the Beetaloo Basin.The risk of damage to our waterways and climate would be irreversible. The Beetaloo Basin is a climate bomb, emitting up to 25% of Australia’s annual greenhouse emissions.

“The Government should listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices and deliver on its promise to act this year.

“I want to thank Minister Plibersek for our constructive discussions so far and for our correspondence. Australians voted for climate action at the least election. We urge the Government to work quickly with the crossbench to get this done now.” said Hanson Young.

In a question by Hanson Young addressed to Senator Wong representing the Minister for Environment on updating the Water Trigger, Senator Wong replied: “I do recall that there was a lot of discussion about the water trigger during one part of the campaign. I am advised that the Labor government’s new environmental laws will include an expanded water trigger to cover all
forms of non-conventional gas, including shale gas.” However, Senator Wong could not guarantee when the water trigger might be updated.

Later in the Senate session, Senator Hanson Young moved a notice of motion “That the following bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and for related purposes. This bill will introduce a water trigger into our environment laws to stop fracking in the Northern Territory.”

Last year the Northern Territory Government huge allocation of water from rivers and aquifers for business use was severely questioned, as reported by the ABC..

Kirsty Howey, executive director of the Environment Centre NT, said the territory’s water allocation plan was further proof it was preparing the Top End for big development.

“The questions is: is this huge unprecedented water allocation being handed out to facilitate not just fracking, but also the cotton industry?” she said. 

“And why is it being engineered to development needs, with absolutely no regard and no mention of environmental and cultural objectives, and no consultation with key stakeholders?

“We’re talking about opening up this huge, valuable aquifer that covers a huge proportion of the Northern Territory — and sustains key rivers including the Roper and the Daly — to vastly more extraction, an unprecedented level of additional extraction.”

18 water experts from universities across the country had written to the Northern Territory Chief Minister in late 2022 to express concern about the region’s “poor” water regulations and to urge a halt in new extraction licences. This is reason enough to prioritise the passing of an enhanced water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Senate Urgency debate on a climate trigger

Of related interest, late in the day, there was a Senate debate of a matter of urgency regarding importance of a climate trigger in National environment laws, the EPBC Act.

Senator McKim (Greens, Tasmania) moved “That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The Environment Minister continues to approve new coal and gas projects without having to consider the climate damage they will create. In the face of the climate and biodiversity crises, national environment laws must be urgently fixed to ensure the Environment Minister cannot ignore climate pollution when giving environment approvals.”

Labor failed to commit to a climate trigger in the speech by Senator WHITE (ALP, Victoria) during the debate. While lauding the list of positive achievements in emissions targets and ramping up renewables, he ignored the elephant in the room of approval of 10 new fossil fuel coal and gas projects. Labor are literally gas-lighting us all.

Senator David Pocock (Independent, Canberra) hit the nail on the head in the debate in calling what the ALP are doing as negligence:

“What we’re seeing in Australia is state capture by the fossil fuel companies and a negligent failure to act by both sides of politics. We know too much now to continue down this path. We have Labor ministers, Labor senators, telling us about the projects they are approving when it comes to renewables, and at the same time they’re ramping up our fossil fuel exports. We know how urgent this is. It is now negligence. We are throwing our future under the bus for short-term profits. During my last year in high school, 2005, the now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, introduced his own private member’s bill to insert a climate trigger into our environmental laws. That was 2005.”

“Here we are in 2023 and we’ve got a Labor government that has the numbers to do that today but won’t do it. You have to ask yourself why. Why are we seeing this inaction from Labor? We are disrespecting our climate scientists. We have scientists, like Dr Joelle Gergis, who have put their life into raising the alarm, into telling us how bad it is. She was the lead scientist on the sixth IPCC report. It was the last one, the last warning before the window of 1.5 degrees to two degrees closes, yet we’re seeing inaction from Labor. We must do better.”

References

Mirage News, 16 October, 2023, Scamps Proposes Bill Against Fracking to Safeguard Aussie Water https://www.miragenews.com/scamps-proposes-bill-against-fracking-to-1103850/

Hansard, House of Representatives, 16 October 2023 (Proof transcript) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/27170/&sid=0000

Hansard, Australian Senate, 16 October 2023 (Proof Transcript) https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/27132/toc_pdf/Senate_2023_10_16.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Greens News, 16 October 2023, Greens Introduce Water Trigger Bill Today, Urging Government to deliver on Fracking Loophole promise, https://greens.org.au/news/greens-introduce-water-trigger-bill-today-urging-government-deliver-fracking-loophole-promise

Samantha Dick, ABC News, Sat 19 Nov 2022, nvironmental groups say the NT government’s draft water allocation plan prioritises big business at the cost of rivers, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-19/nt-draft-water-allocation-plan-backlash/101672438

Jano Gibson, ABC News, 25 Nov 2022, University academics send joint letter to NT Chief Minister about ‘poor’ water planning regime https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-25/university-academics-warn-of-poor-nt-water-planning/101692608

Image: Protest 22 November 2022 courtesy Dr Kirsty Howey via X https://twitter.com/kirsty_howey/status/1594886520712105986

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