time to bell the cat

Desperate move by Tony Burke as he tries to shore marginal seats by running a scare campaign on CSG. Qld environment minister has belled the cat on this one:

The Queensland government has labelled federal Environment Minister Tony Burke's plan to have more involvement in coal seam gas mining approvals “a desperate act from a failing government”.

Mr Burke confirmed the Commonwealth would introduce legislation which would give it new powers to stop any coal seam gas wells or coal mines which could harm the water supply.

Mr Burke said the move would give the federal government powers the public already assumed it had.

But deputy premier Jeff Seeney accused the Commonwealth of attempting to score political points on an emotive issue.

Mr Seeney said Queensland had proven in the past “12 to 13 years” it had managed the coal seam gas industry and that the “scare mongering” and “doomsday predictions” were unwarranted.

“It's what failing governments always do – try and create controversy around emotive issues to try and detract from their own poor performance,” Mr Seeney said.

Mr Seeney said the recent election result in Western Australia, which saw the Liberal Party retain the government with an almost 9 per cent swing, had sent a “shiver of fear” through the federal government and it was now “desperately looking for diversions”.

“Unfortunately the coal seam gas industry has always lent itself to scare campaigns and we have seen this in Queensland over the last seven to eight years,” Mr Seeney said.

“We've seen a number of desperate politicians try and run scare campaigns about the coal seam gas industry.

“But the coal seam gas industry is rapidly getting runs on the board. There is enough facts and enough data around now to make it very difficult for purveyors of the scare campaigns to have the same success they had in Queensland two or three years ago.”

Mr Seeney said the federal government was attempting to “extend the reach of the Commonwealth in these approval processes” as it had with the Alpha coal mining project, which would only result in a slower approval process.


Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/canberras-csg-powers-desperate-seeney-20130312-2fy7v.html#ixzz2NJXEVXPD


Impact of this announcement on MEL - nil