It's an unlikely alliance but a Queensland government draft plan to abandon responsibility for farmland sinking due to induced coal seam gas subsidence has united farmers and green community groups.
The farmers and community groups are strident in their opposition, demanding the proposed amendments to the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014 must be reconsidered - and they have support from grassroots campaigners Lock the Gate, who are calling for a moratorium on all CSG operations.
Subsidence occurs when coal seam gas companies drain massive amounts of water as part of the gas extraction process, causing the land above to sink.
The draft plan indicates how proposed changes would allow gas companies like Arrow Energy to cause widespread and ongoing subsidence regardless of the risk to hundreds of farms and their crop production, while the state government looks on.
On Friday a joint submission by Lock the Gate and the Environmental Defenders Office was made on the amendments to the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014 (Qld) and Mineral and Energy and Energy Mineral and Energy Resources (Common Provisions Act 2014 (Qld) to address subsidence risks.
Their submission stated: "these amendments largely propose to make the regulation of the impacts of petroleum and gas activities even weaker, and demonstrate the Queensland government's unwillingness to fulfill the objectives of the RPI Act and truly provide for the protection of our most important and significant agricultural, cropping, environmental and living areas".
A spokesperson for the Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning, said the department, "has recently been undertaking joint consultation with the Department of Resources on proposed reforms to assessment processes under the Regional Planning Interest Act 2014 (RPI Act) and to the state's coexistence framework to implement a management framework for coal seam gas-induced subsidence (CSG-induced subsidence)."
"In line with recommendations from the GasFields Commission Queensland, the proposed subsidence management framework identifies a pathway to assess potential subsidence impacts using a science-based risk assessment process," the spokesperson said.
"Consultation closed on December 8 and both departments are reviewing feedback from stakeholders, including views on the regulation of potential subsidence impacts."
However, of significant concern to the farmers and their supporters is Arrow Energy's involvement as in early 2022 the Minister for Resources Scott Stewart issued a statement confirming the company was issued a $1 million fine for noncompliance with Queensland's legislative requirements.
Last year Mr Stewart confirmed the Department of Resources had concluded its investigation into breaches of Queensland's land access framework by Arrow Energy from 2018 until early 2022.
"The significance of this penalty takes into account Arrow's indiscretions," Mr Stewart said.
"As a government, we make no apologies for holding businesses to account if they do the wrong thing."
Queensland Farmers Federation CEO Jo Sheppard said their position on amendments to the Act was to support subsidence management framework and they would be making their own submission on the issue.
"But we strongly oppose the removal of management of CSG induced subsidence impacts from the RPI Act as we believe in effect it will weaken landholder protections," she said.
"Across the state we are seeing a significant increase in competition for agricultural land (including) for residential development so this ag land is gone forever.
"It is really important we plan for the future so do not end up in an unintended situation where we lose valuable agricultural production and have a negative ability to produce food and fibre."
Even a few millimetres of sunken land can have massive impacts on cropping operations, which rely on a uniform slope to ensure good drainage to produce food and fibre.
Impacted farmers will be required to enter into a subsidence agreement with gas companies, but without the same protections given when a company wants to drill on private property.
This agreement would force landholders to accept ongoing and long-term harm to their properties and the wider region.
Sinking of land due to coal seam gas induced subsidence has been a known problem since the unconventional gas industry began expanding across southern Queensland in the mid 2000s, however the Queensland government only formally recognised it as a problem for the first time early last year.
West of Dalby, Kupunn farmer Zena Ronnfeldt, whose property has already been impacted by CSG induced subsidence said the situation is desperate.
"The proposed subsidence compensation reforms are shocking, they will force farmers without any legal or expert support to give for free unlimited time, information and farm access to Arrow Energy and the Queensland government," she said.
"Eligibility for subsidence compensation will be based on modelling by the Queensland Office of Groundwater Impact Assessment, but that model hasn't yet been able to predict the subsidence damage that its own measurement tool confirms has happened to our farm.
"The Queensland government, which, after 18 months, is still investigating Arrow Energy for breaking RPI Act laws by secretly drilling gas wells into our farm without planning approval, now wants to delete subsidence as an impact from that Act.
"We have major subsidence damage from those wells, hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses and costs, and no compensation."
Cecil Plains farmer Liza Balmain, whose property is in the firing line of the expanding Shell and PetroChina (Arrow Energy) Surat Gas Project joint venture, said the situation was dire.
"We are in the fight of our lives just to keep the status quo of what little protections we currently have as landholders, let alone try and seek improvements," she said.
"But it's not just farmers who suffer, when coal seam gas induced subsidence takes good agricultural land out of production, all Queenslanders pay the price.
"The government has identified what is causing a barrier to Arrow Energy's advancement on the Darling Downs - the assessment of subsidence in the RPI Act - and is effectively working to bash down that barrier to allow Arrow to turn the Condamine Alluvial Floodplain food bowl into a gas hole, regardless of all the known long-term risks.
"It shows that this captured government has no respect for the value of Queensland's agricultural production on such rare and fertile soils as those endemic to the Darling Downs."
Lock the Gate Alliance national coordinator Ellen Roberts said the state government's stance on CSG was breathtakingly and appallingly short-sighted.
"These RPI Act reforms are the Queensland government cancelling farm protection from coal seam gas subsidence," she said.
"They effectively say to farmers, 'too bad, you're on your own'.
"Lock the Gate is calling for a moratorium on all coal seam gas operations.
"The fact we are even having this discussion, about the government allowing Queensland's best farmland to sink so companies like Arrow can extract more coal seam gas, is an outrage.
"Subsidence isn't limited to a property where gas wells are drilled - it spreads throughout the landscape to impact farms that do not host coal seam gas infrastructure.
"This draft plan deliberately weakens the regulation of petroleum and gas activities, representing a failure on the part of the Queensland government to provide meaningful protection of high quality intensive cropping areas and underground water."
The call for the Queensland government to go back to the drawing board over its draft reforms follows Toowoomba Regional Council's unanimous vote for a moratorium on all new CSG approvals.
Community and farming groups are providing submissions this week, following an extension to the public consultation deadline.
Meanwhile, Katter's Australian Party leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter said resource companies should only have access to Queensland's precious resources with the permission of the people - and he took a swing at green groups involved.
"By people I don't mean the vocal environmental lobbies who are motivated by ideology and want the world to run on wind chimes and happy thoughts, I mean the people in the local communities that will be directly affected by the operations," he said.
"If Arrow Energy does not have the overwhelming support of the farmers, graziers and landholders whose properties they seek to access and exploit, then the Queensland government needs to tell them where to go.
"Queensland's Planning Act needs to be drastically amended to sure up protections for prime agricultural land from developments, whether they been mining, gas or energy related, that seek to use these areas for contradictory and sometimes permanently damaging alternative purposes - the protections passed by the LNP under Campbell New have proven to be completely inadequate, which I always warned they would be.
"Regarding Queensland's gas industry, it has been mismanaged by the government since it was opened up by Anna Bligh more than a decade ago - we have sold off our natural gas advantage to the world's highest bidders and got peanuts in return due to the fundamental flaws in our gas royalties set-up and our complete lack of a gas reserve policy.
"At every turn it is Queenslanders who are losing out by the situation that politicians, seeking to keep big gas companies happy, have set it."
Know more? Contact Alison Paterson on 0437 861 082.
