Member for Moore Shane Love MLA has condemned the Labor government’s fracking inquiry announced yesterday, labelling it a furphy.
“This inquiry is irrelevant – it will fail to consider the socio-economic impact of fracking and how fracking may impact other enterprises,” Mr Love said.
“It definitely won’t offer the assurances or protection demanded by constituents in my Electorate of Moore. A broader investigation of industry is what is needed.”
Mr Love said the inquiry was a tick-a-box exercise that will deliver a predetermined outcome to allow fracking in both the Mid West and Canning Basin.
“I have previously met with the Environmental Protection Authority and stressed the need for an investigation of the socio-economic effects,” he added.
“Fracking has the potential to alter the landscape, hence the need to adopt a whole of landscape approach and assess how this industry will impact the high value agricultural and horticultural businesses of the Mid West,” Mr Love said.
“The focus should not be on individual wells; the integrity of individual wells has already been examined – that is why fracking has been allowed to now.”
Mr Love said given the narrow scope of this inquiry it was in fact duplicating the work of the previous fracking inquiry conducted in the last term of government entitled ‘Implications for WA of Hydraulic Fracturing for Unconventional Gas.’
“This previous inquiry produced a 251 page report that was handed down in November 2015,” he added.
“Labor claim that the current inquiry will use credible scientific and historical evidence to assess each level of risk and outline regulatory mechanisms to identify or minimise these risks. “That investigation was carried out in the last term of government.”
Mr Love said the Labor government inquiry had absolutely failed to address the issue of landowner rights and petroleum companies accessing private land, issues which landholders frequently raised with him.
Labor have banned fracking in the South West, Peel and Perth metropolitan areas with a moratorium on fracking imposed elsewhere in the state. The Government are set to determine the future of fracking following the inquiry. Further details of the inquiry available at: http://www.frackinginquiry.wa.gov.au