A SENATE inquiry will be set up to probe a controversial proposal from mining giant Glencore to truck waste carbon dioxide from a Southern Queensland power station and pump it into an aquifer of the Great Artesian Basin.

The proposal was put to the Senate by One National leader Pauline Hanson last week before receiving support from all members except the Labor Senators.

While Glencore has been sticking by the proposal pointing to scientific modelling done by several agencies, including the CSIRO, the plan has been met with fierce opposition from many in agriculture. Earlier this month, AgForce launched legal proceedings against the Federal Government for green-lighting the proposal, with a fundraising campaign underway and an application into the Farmers’ Fighting Fund.

In calling for the inquiry Senator Hanson referenced the legal action.

“Queensland farmer group AgForce has even launched legal action,” she said.

“The basin is one of Australia’s most important natural resources, supporting almost $13 billion of production annually as well as hundreds of regional, rural and remote communities.

“While the trial’s proponents say the risks are minimal, even their own commissioned study found the project could cause levels of lead and arsenic in the groundwater to rise to hundreds of times beyond safe drinking water guidelines. This would be due to increased water acidity caused by the injection of supercritical carbon dioxide deep into the basin, leaching these contaminants from the surrounding rocks.

“I’ve also been advised by Emeritus Professor and expert geologist Ian Plimer this could result in significant ‘clogging’ of the cracks and fractures in the surrounding rocks, thereby limiting bore sites and reducing the rate of flow at existing bores.

“New research has significantly improved our understanding of the Great Artesian Basin, which contains about 65 million gigalitres of water – enough to fill Sydney Harbour 130,000 times. However our knowledge is far from complete, and with other applications for more basin carbon capture projects in the works, it’s important that on behalf of the farmers, miners and communities which rely on the basin we have a hard look at the risks.”

Coalition supports inquiry

In announcing support for the inquiry, Nationals senator Susan McDonald said it was important to place a high value on food production in making these decisions.

“The point of the debate tonight is that we utilise a Senate inquiry—a very appropriate place—to shine a bright light onto this trial technology in an agricultural aquifer,” Ms McDonald said according to Hansard.

“This is the right place to do it, and it is for this reason that the coalition—the Liberal Party and the National Party, which fights every day for farmers, for agriculture and for the right to grow food; this is about growing food, the most important job on the face of the earth—stand and support this reference.

“We believe this is good government. This is transparency. This is the sort of transparency that you don’t see from this government.”

Labor accuses Coalition of being “right wing extremists”

In making the point that Labor did not support the inquiry, senator Stuart Ayres said “right wing extremists” were becoming prevalent in the Coalition and the bill was more about culture wars than the environment.

“Labor is always supportive of Senate scrutiny of important environmental matters. However, on this matter, the Government won’t be supporting this motion,” Mr Ayres said according to Hansard.

“That’s the nature of these sorts of challenges. It’s all bound up in the grievance politics and the culture war and all of that nonsense. That’s what happens.”

Senator Ayres said the proposal was greenlighted when the previous Government was in power.

“It is utter hypocrisy. It’s utterly dishonest. It’s ‘say one thing one day and do another thing the next’. It is a complete betrayal of what this show used to say that they stood for, and the government’s voting position on this particular motion will reflect our view of that.”