End to unseemly haste would be a good thing

IF adopted, the recommendations of the Senate committee report into coal-seam gas represent a welcome return to the principle of safeguarding what is arguably the nation's most precious natural resource, the Great Artesian Basin.

As inconvenient as this may be, CSG companies and over-eager state governments have no one to blame but themselves.

On the ground, public trust has been poisoned by a sense of entitlement among some gas companies and an unseemly haste in state governments blinded by the prospect of royalty income.

The Senate report has identified the issues that have been burning away at rural communities, which have often felt the odds stacked against them.

The report bluntly states that the negative effects of the CSG industry could linger long after the royalty income has ceased. And the short lifespan the report gives to CSG has some startling implications for the nation's headlong rush to dump coal for gas to generate its electricity.

Most of all, the report provides the missing answer to the question left hanging in Tony Windsor's deal with the federal government to push its mining tax: what happens while the Great Artesian Basin is properly investigated?

The answer is - as farm groups and environmentalists have wanted and CSG companies feared - a moratorium on approvals and development. But the report recommendations go much further than that. They call for a national framework, special status for the Murray-Darling Basin under environmental law and strict rules for the use of chemicals.

Another big sting for the CSG industry is a tough approach to water extraction and disposal, and the treatment of salt. The committee wants the onus of proof put on the companies, which must show they have not caused any damage to the land.

These are all issues that have been handled poorly in the rush to develop.

If adopted, the recommendations change completely the dynamic surrounding the CSG industry to safeguard the interests of the bush. This is not the end of it but it may spell the end of the gas rush. That's a good thing.