On Wednesday 24 June 2026 I spoke on the Government's Regional Planning Interests (Condamine Alluvium) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026, relating to compensation for CSG-related impacts on farmland. You can read my full speech below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard).
I rise to speak on the Regional Planning Interests (Condamine Alluvium) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 and I will, no doubt, be guillotined before I finish my contribution so I will make it quick. At the end of 2024 there were over 12,000 coal seam gas wells across inland Queensland in the Surat and Bowen basins. We have all heard of CSG and fracking, but rarely do we pause to think in this place about what it actually involves and what it means for Queenslanders, which is important for an activity this ubiquitous across Queensland.
Coal seam gas extraction involves drilling wells many hundreds of metres deep into the ground through whatever geological strata or aquifers are in its way. These wells are used to extract water which reduces pressure that keeps this coal seam gas safe in place and deep underground where it does not contribute to climate change. With the pressure reduced, that gas migrates upwards through the drilled wells where it can be separated from the groundwater, but this gas—almost entirely methane, which is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas—also leaks outwards through the fissures in the rock into the groundwater networks and into the soil and the atmosphere. This is made even worse by the use of hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which tries to make it sound cute. This is a method of injecting water and sand into the seams at extreme pressure to deliberately fracture rocks and aquifers to cause the fracturing of the rock below.
On top of its climate impacts, the local side effects of this activity are extreme. It changes aquifers and coal seams underground that cause the land to collapse. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is like literally deflating entire landscapes. This subsidence causes permanent damage to the surface of the land. It impacts water flows. It impacts agricultural productivity, local ecologies and infrastructure. The process is also unpredictable and the impacts to groundwater systems are not properly understood. It is little wonder that agriculturalists across the region are concerned for the health of the Condamine Alluvium, clearly a vital groundwater system which sustains their livelihoods and the food security of Queensland.
In that context, it is heartening to see the LNP acknowledging the catastrophic impacts coal seam gas activities can have on land, waters and communities. Why is it then that this bill is confined to CSG activities in the Condamine Alluvium? Are the landholders across the rest of the Surat Basin or the Bowen Basin less deserving of these protections? Are those environments and vital groundwater resources in the rest of the state less deserving of protection? In fairness, they would not stand to gain much from this bill anyway. It is a pretty half-hearted attempt to appease everyone without making any substantive difference for the people and environments that depend on the health of the Condamine Alluvium.
This bill, as others have said, introduces a deemed condition. That means effectively an environmental authority is taken to include a condition that waters are not released into the Condamine Alluvium CSG area that result in water quality that is inconsistent with the objectives that apply to the waters—in this instance that refers to the objectives in existing subordinate legislation—and the deemed condition will only apply to new CSG wells. The department admits that this simply reinforces and standardises the existing approach to managing water quality in the area. As is currently the case under the existing regime, the difficulty will be in the application of this condition—the monitoring and enforcement of compliance with the deemed condition. Existing water quality objectives are complex and potentially inadequate. Central Downs Irrigators Ltd pointed out in their submission to the inquiry that there are no methane objectives so it would not provide limits in relation to free gas migration into the alluvium. Again, it requires monitoring. The results of that monitoring are not necessarily made public by the resource authority holders. The department apparently seems to think that the current status is adequate.
I will move on now to the proposal that is now being removed in amendments to scrap the need for a regional interests development approval or a RIDA. The committee made the recommendation that the bill be amended to retain the requirement for a RIDA. It is good that that appears to have been given effect in the minister's amendments. This is a regime where these areas of regional interest include priority agricultural areas, priority living areas, strategic environmental areas and strategic cropping areas. It is self-explanatory that these are really important areas of great significance to Queenslanders. Resource authority holders in these areas have to make an application for a RIDA that is supported by information about the nature and extent of impacts on the land use or the protected attribute. Some of those are subject to public notification.
The important part comes in where these resources authorities can get an exemption from needing a RIDA if they can get the landholder to enter into an agreement and the activity is not likely to have a significant impact on the area or on land owned by another person. This gives landholders real leverage when they are entering conduct or compensation make-good agreements.
If an agreement cannot be reached to exempt the authority holder then the chief executive has to go through the process of weighing up all these impacts. Various of these criteria encourage negotiation between the authority holder and landholders. This is important. Landholders need the leverage that comes through the RIDA process. It is a distinctly different assessment to the one under the EP Act and, importantly, the process itself is different to afford landholders that power.
The bill also clarifies that impacts from CSG induced subsidence may be a compensable effect where that subsidence has affected the ability to undertake agricultural activities or it has caused a reduction in productivity. It extends the eligibility to larger areas closer to the boundary of leases and includes changes so that directional drilling is an advanced activity. These are sensible changes, but all of this is just an attempt to put lipstick on a pig.
Honourable members interjected.
Mr BERKMAN: I take my job seriously, and if you are going to put forward weak policy it is going to be criticised.