Pauline Hanson gets senate to start an inquiry into Glencore poisoning the Great Artesian Basin

Senator Pauline Hanson has pulled up the rush by foreign mining giant Glencore to poison the Great Artesian Basin. Yesterday she successfully moved a motion in the senate to investigate the effects of dumping 330,000 tonnes of CO2 coal mine waste into the GAB. It is interesting to note Labor’s Agriculture Minister and solicitor Senator Murray Watt voted against the resolution.

This investigation by the senate should send a message to mercenary Swiss miner Glencore that the people of regional Australia will not allow their major stock and domestic underground water source to be polluted with coal mine waste.

Two weeks ago Queensland primary producer representative body Agforce filed an action in the Federal Court to halt the destruction of the GAB.

The very notion that Queensland Labor and Greens would allow this deliberate contamination of the GAB by a foreign mining conglomerate in the first place demonstrates the bloody-minded contempt Queensland and federal Labor has for anybody who lives outside of Queensland’s south east Golden Triangle of Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

It further underlines the unscientific stupidity of capturing carbon dioxide, a natural atmospheric gas necessary to sustain life on Earth.

Below are the senators who supported an inquiry with Ayes and those Noes who wanted to pollute the lifeblood water of Queensland, Northern Territory, NSW and South Australia.

Ayes

Noes

# Environment and Communications References Committee—Proposed reference

Adjourned debate on the motion of Leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (Senator Hanson)—That the following matter be referred to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 May 2024:

The implications of Glencore’s proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project by its subsidiary, Carbon Transport and Storage Corporation (CTSCo), in the Great Artesian Basin, with particular reference to:

1. the environmental impact assessment process and the adequacy of the project’s approval by federal and state regulatory bodies, including the decision not to classify the project as a controlled action under national environment law;
2. the potential risks and impacts of the project on the groundwater quality within the Great Artesian Basin, especially concerning the findings related to the acidification of groundwater and mobilisation of heavy metals such as lead and arsenic;
3. the scientific basis and transparency of the data supporting the project’s safety claims, including the robustness of fieldwork, data, and analysis presented by CTSCo and critiques by independent hydrogeologists and aqueous geochemists;
4. the potential socioeconomic impacts on agriculture and regional communities, relying on the Great Artesian Basin for water, including an assessment of the project’s impact on existing and future water use rights;
5. the consultation processes undertaken with stakeholders, including farmers, Indigenous landholders, environmental groups, and the broader public, and the adequacy of these processes in addressing stakeholder concerns;
6. the potential precedent set by allowing CCS projects within the Great Artesian Basin and its implications for future projects, considering Australia’s strategic interests in preserving its largest groundwater system;
7. the role of CCS technology in Australia’s broader climate change mitigation strategy, including an evaluation of its efficacy, risks and alternatives; and
8. any other related matters.

(Senator McDonald, in continuation, 20 March 2024).