The New South Wales government has failed to close a loophole that effectively allows expired coal seam gas exploration licences to be extended indefinitely, despite calls from rural communities for certainty ahead of the state election.
More than a dozen licences, mostly in the state’s north-west, have remained active past their expiration dates while the government assesses renewal applications from gas companies. In some cases, those applications have been held up in the system for years.
Geoff O’Neill, a farmer in the north-west of NSW, has been living with the uncertainty of having one such petroleum exploration licence (PEL) over his property.
The licence expired more than two years ago but remains in force as long as the renewal application is under assessment.
“It’s a bit of a limbo situation where we are, not really knowing what may happen,” O’Neill said.
“I’d like those PELs to be cancelled so that we have some certainty going into the future. We’re very uncertain going into the future and also with the weather at the moment.”
Last year Guardian Australia reported that analysis of the NSW government’s tenements database showed 14 titles listed under “current titles” were past their expiry date.
Despite being past the expiry date – some by as much as six-and-a-half years – under NSW law the tenements remain in force until the government deals with the renewal application, meaning companies can continue to use the licences as if they hadn’t expired.
If the government does not approve or deny a renewal application, a tenement can remain in effect without being subject to the safeguards and reporting requirements built into the renewal process.
For communities waiting on an outcome, mostly in the state’s north-west, the lack of certainty is a state election issue, especially in fiercely contested seats such as Barwon, which has been hard hit by drought and where the sitting member, Nationals MP Kevin Humphries, is retiring.
Since the lack of action on the expired licences was first reported in July last year, just one has been cancelled.
“The renewals for the remaining exploration licences remain under assessment,” a spokesman for the NSW environment and planning department said.
The majority of the licences are owned or operated by Santos. A Santos spokeswoman said the company’s focus remained on one project, the Narrabri gas project which sits within expired PEL 238.
“The approval process is under way and we look forward to a decision from the Independent Planning Commission later this year,” she said. “Santos has submitted renewal applications for the remaining licences and they remain current until a decision is made on those applications by the regulator.”
Labor has said that if it wins the state election, the Narrabri gas project will not go ahead. The state opposition leader, Michael Daley, visited Coonamble last month and declared the project an “unacceptable risk” to water, farming and Indigenous communities.
The Labor party’s spokesman for climate and energy, Adam Searle, said that if elected, Labor would also “set in place a program of reviewing and determining all of those applications for renewal that have not been dealt with”.
“What we have said for five years now is the Labor party is committed to implementing the recommendations of the chief scientist on CSG,” Searle said.
“There will be a moratorium on CSG until that is done and the moratorium will have, as an adjunct, no-go areas.”
Margaret Fleck, a Liverpool Plains farmer, is another landowner with a property covered by an expired licence that is up for renewal. Fleck said voters in the region were concerned not only about the Narrabri gas project, but by all other gas licences covering the north-west.
She said recent drought and the disappearance of surface water across much of the landscape had heightened the anxiety for some. “I think in Barwon two of the most important issues for voters are water and coal seam gas and they see them as related,” Fleck said.
Roy Butler is the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate in the seat of Barwon. He said the party will not support any coal seam gas development where groundwater is involved.
Butler said he also had concerns about the way expired licences had been able to remain in the system indefinitely once renewal applications were made. “The thing that’s really strange to me is that they can just sit there, expired,” he said.
“If they expire, they should be gone and you have to have a new application and a new assessment done on them.”
The Liberal and National parties have not indicated what they propose to do with the licences.
A spokesman for Don Harwin, the resources and energy minister, pointed to what the Coalition had done since 2011 by cancelling and buying back 37 licences.
“Labor allowed over half the state to be covered with coal seam gas licences, including inappropriate areas such as the north coast,” he said.
“The NSW Liberals and Nationals have also removed all licences from the NSW coast, stopped exploration within 2km of residential areas, banned all activity within national parks, and reduced the coverage of licences to less than 7%.”
A spokesman for the deputy premier and Nationals MP John Barilaro did not clarify the party’s position on what should be done with the expired licences. “The Nationals in government have cleaned up CSG exploration in NSW,” he said.
“Since the NSW Liberals and Nationals were elected to government in 2011, not a single licence has been issued.”
But George Woods, the NSW coordinator for the anti-mining group Lock the Gate Alliance, said communities left in limbo wanted answers. “We are raising it. Lock The Gate raises it, farmers of the north-west alliance have raised it,” she said.
“But this is an issue that has been limping along for a few years now and you just get tired of not getting a response from the government.”