THE Queensland government's Agriculture, Resources and Environment Committee is about to find out what the rural sector thinks of its draft Mineral and Energy Resources Bill through submissions from the likes of AgForce, the Basin Sustainability Alliance (BSA), Cotton Australia and Shine Lawyers.
All groups have identified areas of concern and lodged their submissions by last Wednesday to comply with the Queensland government timeframe.
"AgForce had some concerns. We were worried that there would be a reduction in rights and anything that was perceived as affecting landholders we've looked at in our submission," AgForce CSG and mining policy officer Sue Dillon said.
The bill was introduced by Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps in June and is in the consultation phase.
It aims to bundle a suite of provisions from the existing Mineral Resources Act 1989, Petroleum and Gas (Production and Safety) Act 2004, Petroleum Act 1923, Geothermal Energy Act 2010, and the Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2009 into a common act.
"In amalgamating a number of acts, we think the government's intention is right, but the level of protection for landholders has gone to the lowest level rather than the highest," Cotton Australia policy manager for Queensland and water Michael Murray said.
The government said one of the bill's aims was to "establish a new overlapping tenure framework for Queensland's coal and CSG industries".
But rural-based groups are concerned by the draft legislation's proposal to allow CSG developments at the minister's discretion within what are currently restricted areas.
"We've got a concern about this bill enabling companies to put CSG wells closer to a house," BSA chairman David Hamilton said.
BSA's submission has recommended wells should not be placed within 600m of dwellings, feedlots, poultry sheds, stockyards and the like. Mr Hamilton said the draft bill left too many decisions regarding applications in the minister's hands, and more legislation was needed to provide guidelines to protect rural landholders. The submission said the bill would place the interests of private enterprise extracting a state-held resource in front of the rights of Queenslanders.
"Look what happened in NSW; we don't want to put all the power in the minister's hands," Mr Hamilton said.
"We do want transparency and open and accountable government."
Lawyer Glen Martin said many areas of concern to landholders had been addressed in the Shine Lawyers submission, including the draft bill's requirement that only site-specific applications be advertised publicly.
"That means about 90 per cent of mining leases will not be publicly notified because they will be too small," Mr Martin said.
"The only ones we will ever hear about are large coal mines, and unless you're immediately affected, you won't hear about them. That's concerning for all Queenslanders."
Mr Martin said that meant those affected by smaller mines extracting gold, sandstone, silica and other commodities stood to get no protection from the proposed bill.
"These (resources) are publicly held assets, yet you can't object unless you're on top of them."
Mr Martin said farmers should be concerned that the bill proposed to remove the restricted area around their infrastructure.
"At the moment, under the Mineral Resources Act, they cannot come within 100m of a house or a shed without your consent, and 50m of a bore, dam or stockyards to do exploration. That's going to radically change now under the proposal," he said.
Mr Hamilton and Mr Martin said they hoped the definition of "affected person" would be changed during the consultation process to include neighbours of mineral and resource developments, and not just owners of affected land.
"We're hopeful of getting a hearing at the parliamentary committee, as we did with the Regional Planning Interests Bill. That Bill gives landholders a fair go and this new one, as it stands, doesn't," Mr Hamilton said.
Other submitting organisations also hoped to speak with the committee in coming weeks to explain their concerns.
"We'd be more than happy to present to the committee," Cotton Australia's Michael Murray said.