AT face value, Tony Windsor has won a significant victory for farm groups and environmentalists worried about the potential impact of coal and coal-seam gas developments on precious but poorly understood underground water resources.
It has always been extraordinary that the coal and gas industry can claim - correctly - that it probably knows more about the workings of the Great Artesian Basin than the nation's peak scientific bodies.
Spending $150 million on an independent expert scientific panel on water should go some way towards redressing the imbalance.
That said, the Windsor deal is unlikely to defuse the explosive politics that surround coal and coal-seam gas exploration in the nation's food bowl and many environmentally sensitive areas.
The Australian
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