[INSERT DATE] May 2015 [closing date for a submission is 29 May]
[#1 name, organisation,
return address,
telephone,
email]
Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
By email to: ec.sen@aph.gov.au
Dear Committee,
Submission on the Landholders’ Right to Refuse (Gas and Coal) Bill 2015
[2# Insert who you are and why you are making this submission.]
Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission. We support this Bill. It is essential that
landholders have a say about activities that take place on their land, and that the environmentally risky
practice of hydraulic fracturing is banned – to help protect the sustainability of our land.
Landholders’ rights to refuse the undertaking of gas and coal mining activities
Gas and coal mining activities and infrastructure can significantly affect the groundwater, soil and
other elements of the land that may be essential to the landholder’s livelihood. We support
landholders having the right to refuse corporations undertaking gas and coal mining activities on their
land.
We support the implementation of offences and penalties for corporations that do not obtain the
required landholder consent. We support reasonable landholders’ court costs being paid by the
defendant corporation to encourage compliance and enforcement regardless of the financial position
of the landholder. It is unjust that landholders would otherwise foot the high bills incurred in
defending their existing rights, livelihood and sustainability of their land against gas and mining
interests.
Information for landholders
We support the requirement that corporations provide an independent assessment of the risks to the
land and groundwater so that landholders have adequate and correct information when deciding
whether or not to authorise the operations of their land. The experience of the Prentices whose bore
dried up after relying on poor quality information provided by the mining company1 is a good
example of the need for independent assessment. We recommend that clear guidelines are specified
for the independent assessment.
Hydraulic fracturing operations ban
We support the implementation of the ban in line with the precautionary principle. There is scientific
evidence that hydraulic fracturing is associated with environmental impacts.
We recommend that the Bill impose criminal liability, in addition to civil penalties, for a breach of the
hydraulic fracturing operations ban by a corporation or director of a corporation – to ensure
compliance and reflect the importance of the ban.
1
ABC Rural, ‘Central Queensland graziers left high and dry’, published 25 July 2014, available here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-24/nrn-jamar-embargo/5614382
Yours sincerely
[#Insert your name and signature][If you are representing a group, please be explicit how you are
authorised by the group to make the submission, e.g. If as secretary or president you are authorised to write
submissions for the group.]