All of this took place in the earlier part of 2013... looking back on this now it is easy to see the holes in the process mechanism. So I went back and checked to see if it was still available and it was. So here is the link and the transcript of that show to read.
http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2011/s3731460.htm
Alan Kohler presenter reports for 4 corners and back in the beginning of April 2013 things started hotting up for QGC in Queensland. He kicked off the program with this opening statement:
The other big issue that's blown up again is
environmental risk posed by the rapidly expanding coal seam gas industry
in Queensland and New South Wales.
Four Corners lit the fuse with the aid of a whistleblower from inside the Queensland public service.
(from Four Corners)
MATTHEW CARNEY, REPORTER:
Why has the coal seam gas industry been allowed to proceed at such a rapid pace? Tonight, Four Corners can reveal why.
Simone
Marsh played a critical role in the approval process of Australia's
largest coal seam gas developments, Santos' $18 billion project and
QGC's $20 billion project in Southern Queensland. She was a key insider
and she is telling her story for the first time.
SIMONE MARSH, SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIALIST:
I think the truth is that it's not an ecologically sustainable activity. Obviously
they didn't want to say that. They wanted approval to come in and
conduct that activity. They didn't want anyone to understand what the
long-term, um, impacts were going to be and the long-term costs
associated with this activity.
ALAN
KOHLER:
Santos chief David Knox didn't go on the Four Corners show but
he popped up on Radio National after it went to air to defend the
environmental work being done in the coal seam gas fields.
Here is a bit of what he had to say.
(Excerpt from ABC Radio National broadcast)
DAVID
KNOX, CEO, SANTOS:
That's what I am really concerned about, it just
there is some falsehoods and dishonest claims being made.
There
was a very extensive set of groundwater studies done. They were done by
an independent party. It was quality work. They were done throughout the
process.
We do not in any way affect the groundwater in any substantive way. And that's what the studies show.
ALAN KOHLER:
So are we getting worried about the gas producers?
RICHARD
CAMPBELL, PENINSULA CAPITAL MANAGEMENT:
I'm worried. I'm worried.
Because they've sold the gas forward, they are building the plants,
they've assumed that they are going to get all the gas to feed these
plants and the ...
Undoubtedly they've done these studies,
they've done studies. But whether they've done them in the specific
cases where there are problems ...
I mean, if you stand back a
bit and think of central west Queensland, it looks flat and it looks
benign, you know, there's no problems. But when you, if you've delved
into the coal industry, you find there are all sorts of difficulties if
you try and get a decent coal seam. There is always a split, a fault.
And I am just a bit concerned ...
ALAN KOHLER:
You have been a big investor in gas companies, so are you getting unnerved by this?
RICHARD CAMPBELL:
Yes.
(Laughter)
ALAN KOHLER:
What about you?
DEAN
PAATSCH, DIRECTOR, OWNERSHIP MANAGEMENT:
Well I think the political
management of the political risk is something that is real. Small chance
of something happening, catastrophic consequences if it does, and
that's a risk.
So it is all about the risk management.
It
shouldn't be about the PR. I think there is a big chance of the
Balkanisation of rural electorates, where farmers are very sensitive.
Their livelihood depends on the continued flow of quality water and
politics can change.
ALAN KOHLER:
It can be powerful when farmers line up with greenies, can't it?
DEAN
PAATSCH:
Well these investments will play out over the life of multiple
Parliaments, and so we need to get the science right but we also need
to get the communication right as well.
ALAN KOHLER:
What's the corporate world saying about this Stephen?
STEPHEN
BARTHOLOMEUSZ, BUSINESS SPECTATOR:
I think if you look at the numbers,
Alan, somewhere between $70 billion and $80 billion will be spent on the
plants in Gladstone. They've got 20 year sales contracts for the gas,
they've got external investors, customer investments already in there.
They're
going to be producing the first LNG out of Curtis Island I think in
2015, with most of it flying by 2016. So it's already much has been done
up there, so much money has been sunk in the ground and so much money
has been committed that it's almost - you can't reverse it, you can't
stop it.
The environmental process, I mean, that Santos one took
over three years. They've 1200-odd environmental conditions. You would
hope a bureaucracy spending more than three years and imposing that
number of conditions would get most things right.
But the guys are right. This is potentially quite tricky, dangerous stuff.
Then the Gladstone Observer reported on :
Lock the Gate Alliance spokesman Drew Hutton said the program had
revealed "not only a hasty and incompetent process in the approval of
thousands of coal seam gas wells in Queensland in 2010, but also a
potentially illegal one".
The key breach occurred with the failure by coal seam gas companies to
provide the Queensland Government with sufficient information to enable a
valid environmental authority to be provided, he said.
Mr Hutton and Ms Marsh have taken complaints about the process to the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission.
"Any public servant who has signed an environmental authority for any
of these projects has breached several sections of the Environmental
Protection Act and, therefore, is likely to have committed official
misconduct," Mr Hutton said.
"This situation came about because of improper political pressure that
was placed on the public servants, as Simone Marsh has described."
Mr Hutton thanked Queensland Premier Campbell Newman for joining his
and Ms Marsh's complaint to the CMC, and believed the CMC should hold a
full, open, public inquiry.
"This is the biggest public policy failure I have seen in my 40 years
of public life, and deserves the sort of public inquiry that ICAC is
currently conducting into mining activities in New South Wales," Mr
Hutton said.
