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Write a quick submission - to help stop the Queensland Hunter Gas Pipeline

Lock the Gate and local groups have been successful in prompting a reconsideration by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek as to whether Santos' Queensland-Hunter Gas Pipeline is a “controlled action” under Federal environment law. 

The original decision that this pipeline would not have a significant impact on matters of national environmental significance was made in 2009 and in the nearly 15 years since new information has come to light and circumstances have emerged which should cause the Minister to change that decision. 

We’ve now got a short window for submissions in support of this proposal, to get the pipeline referred as a controlled action so that proper environmental assessments of impacts on Matters of National Environmental Significance can be done. It will also mean the Federal Environment Minister will have to make a decision on whether the project can proceed.

If they can't build the Queensland-Hunter Gas Pipeline, Santos can't develop the Narrabri Gas Project in north-west NSW.

Please make a submission by 8 December.

Comment can be made directly via the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act register. 


Make a submission now


Fill out the form and answer the questions with the information we provide below:

  1. Do you consider there is substantial new information available about the impacts the action has, will have or is likely to have on a matter protected under Part 3* of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act)?

    YES! 

    Several wildlife species that were already listed as threatened under the EPBC Act 1999 in 2009 were not considered in the original referral, but records of those species have since been found in or near the pipeline route.

    These include the now-critically endangered Regent Honeyeater for which “any breeding or foraging areas where the species is likely to occur” is considered critical to its survival.

    Other species with new information include the Spotted-tailed quoll in the Hunter section of the pipeline, Corben’s long-eared bat, for which the area around Boggabri has been found to be a stronghold, the Booroolong frog, which has been found near the pipeline route at Quirindi, and the threatened plant Tylophora linearis.

    There is also substantial new information about the distribution of the Critically Endangered Ecological Community ‘White Box,-Yellow Box-Blakely’s Red Gum Woodland and Derived Native Grasslands’ within the pipeline corridor. 

    This includes new mapping undertaken as part of Hunter Valley Remnant Vegetation Surveys which depicts the CEEC within the corridor.

    It also includes the results of a rapid assessment of publicly-accessible areas of the pipeline route by an accredited biodiversity assessor commissioned by Lock the Gate Alliance. The assessor recorded the CEEC in four locations along the pipeline route.


  2. Do you consider there has been a substantial change in circumstances that was not foreseen at the time of the first referral decision and that relates to the impacts the action has, or will have or is likely to have on a matter protected under Part 3* of the EPBC Act?

    YES!

    Three species that were listed as threatened when the original decision was made in 2009, are among 119 threatened species nominated by the Federal Environment Department as having lost a substantial area of habitat in the Black Summer bushfires and the highest priorities for urgent management intervention. These are the Spotted-tail Quoll, Grey-headed Flying Fox and Regent Honeyeater. These species are under immense pressure from ongoing habitat loss and the unforeseen loss of huge areas of their habitat in 2019/20 means the Hunter Gas Pipeline will have a significant impact on their survival. 


  3. If applicable, provide any other comments on whether you consider there are reasons to revoke the first referral decision and substitute a new decision. 

    Include any other matters relating to any other new information, or changed circumstances since 2009 that affect matters of national environmental significance (nationally threatened species, World Heritage, National Heritage, Ramsar wetlands etc).

    You may also want to provide comments on any community and stakeholder concerns about the action and its economic and social impacts.

 

Lock the Gate’s submissions, for your information, are here:

 

Make a submission now