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November 30th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Updated
A Senate committee has called for a moratorium on future coal seam gas (CSG) projects in in key parts of Queensland and New South Wales until studies into the impact on groundwater have been completed.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, all sides of politics have endorsed the recommendation.
In all, the committee report contains 24 recommendations for overhauling the management of CSG projects.
It says a national regulatory framework should be established and comprehensive water management plans should be in place before any further production is approved.
The report also calls for a halt to CSG projects in the parts of the Murray-Darling Basin that lie over the Great Artesian Basin, pending Queensland Government and scientific investigations.
It also says gas production should be excluded from highly productive agricultural land.
But the committee says where the industries do co-exist, agricultural productivity should be given priority in any dispute between landholders and CSG companies.
The head of the committee says no-one wants to take responsibility for the CSG industry in Australia.
Liberal chairman Senator Bill Heffernan says there has been little regard for the long-term effects of the industry.
“It is the equivalent, in my book, of the race to the Moon where the United States decided to get there before the Russians without knowing how to get the astronauts back,” he said.
Audio:
Fresh calls for CSG restrictions
(The World Today)
“I mean, what we’ve done is let an industry go ahead without being able to have answers to some of the serious problems that have been created.”
Greens Senator Larissa Waters says the report highlights the environmental and social risks associated with CSG production.
“This is incumbent on the Government to start listening to the community, to press pause on this industry and then to have that proper conversation about is this really where we want to go,” she said.
“Is this what we really want to be doing on our best food-producing land when we have so little of it… such a precious resource in Australia.”
Senator Heffernan says the long-term environmental impacts need more attention.
“Miners get their bond back when they close the well over and the damage to the aquifers could occur 50 years after,” he said.
Topics:
oil-and-gas,
mining-industry,
industry,
business-economics-and-finance,
federal-government,
australia,
sa,
nsw,
act,
vic,
qld
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