PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (Appea) has lashed out over calls for another federal Parliamentary inquiry into the natural gas industry in Australia.

Queensland senator Glenn Lazarus has won some support in his bid to create a new Senate committee to look into Australia’s laws, policies and regulations on unconventional gas mining, as well as the impacts of the industry, compensation doled out to the affected parties and the industry as an energy provider.

Lazarus was campaigning to have the inquiry named Bender’s Inquiry, after Queensland farmer George Bender, who took his own life in October, with his family blaming the emerging natural gas industry and a number of oil and gas companies specifically, for leading to his tragic decision.

Appea said on Thursday the Senate inquiry proposed by Lazarus would cover issues which had already been exhaustively investigated by numerous independent or Parliamentary inquiries.

“A host of respected experts, such as the Australian College of Learned Academies, the Royal Society in the UK, the New South Wales Chief Scientist and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Gas Industry, Social and Environmental Research Alliance, have confirmed that the industry operates under a robust regulatory regime,” said Appea CEO Malcolm Roberts.

“The gas industry is confident that the facts will show an industry which is safe, responsible and enormously beneficial to Australia, especially to regional communities.”

Roberts said the inquiry also covered matters that were comprehensively addressed through the existing national framework for regulation of the coal seam gas industry and state and territory legislation regulation.

“The rights of land owners are protected in state legislation. Land owners are fairly compensated for any impact from operations, with more than A$200-million paid to land owners in Queensland.”

Roberts noted that, in Queensland, there were further protections for prime agricultural land, which ensured that development did not occur if it would significantly affect strategic cropping areas, while in New South Wales development was only possible at a small number of sites. 

“Queensland demonstrates successful coexistence of the gas industry and other industries. The gas industry understands the natural sensitivity of land owners to activities by third parties on their land. The industry respects land owners. Since 2011, more than 5 000 land access agreements have been voluntarily signed between land owners and gas companies,” he added.

“The result is a fair system which provides huge benefits to regional communities and Queensland generally.  Queensland now has an A$80-billion industry that barely existed six years ago.”