COAL SEAM GAS

I’M pleasantly surprised to find that an independent audit of the State Government’s performance in regulating Queensland’s coal seam gas industry, which began taking submissions several months ago, is still inviting public input. The audit office indicates it expects to report the result to parliament by November.

The audit office emphasises the need for proactive risk management of CSG to protect water supplies and farming land and provide fair conditions for landholders – as well as managing impacts on areas of regional interest and ensuring health and safety for all personnel.

Performance of the Department of Environment and Science, Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy and the Gasfields Commission are likely to be audited, as well as parliament’s State Development, Natural Resources and Agricultural Industry Development Committee.

I suggest that, to the many landholders who are aggrieved about the direct effects of CSG projects, or the indirect effects of the industry’s huge drawdown of the underground water supplies, or by the damage which fugitive gas unleashed by CSG drilling is doing to private bores, the chance to participate in this high-powered independent audit is too good to miss.

And I suggest you ask your representative organisation whether it has accepted this important opportunity.

My company’s submission to the audit requests that the actions of the Mines Department earlier this year, in amending the Common Provisions Act to strip away the majority of the right of landholders to be compensated for the effects of CSG projects, be audited.

We tried other avenues of independent review and made a complaint to the Crime and Corruption Commission, but were advised that the alleged offences could not be considered by the CCC because they did not warrant dismissal of officers.

So, we await the Auditor General’s report on management of the CSG industry with interest, and hope the report will show that individual landholders and their representative organisations played their part in this unique and independent review. GEORGE HOUEN, Landholder Services Pty Ltd, Toowoomba