Despite the proposed amendments, adverse environmental impacts will continue to occur as CSG companies still retain the right to extract unlimited amounts of groundwater under the Petroleum and Gas Act (PGA), according to Nigel Parratt from Queensland Conservation Council.

The purpose of the Government's proposed amendments to the Water Act 2000 and the Water Supply Act 2008 is to introduce regulations to better manage impacts to groundwater and town water supply sources from coal seam gas (CSG) production.

"Extracting unlimited volumes of groundwater is clearly unsustainable and no amount of management measures will be able to successfully manage the impacts that are likely to occur," said Mr Parratt.

Although well intentioned, the proposed amendments are fundamentally flawed due to the stronger emphasis on managing impacts once they occur, rather than introducing measures to avoid potential impacts from happening in the first place.

"The Great Artesian Basin and other aquifers will remain threatened while CSG companies retain the right to extract unlimited amounts of groundwater. We believe a far better approach is to convert the right under the PGA to remove groundwater to a licence to extract groundwater under the Water Act, which would require CSG companies to sustainably manage groundwater, rather than treating CSG associated water as a waste by product," Parratt said.

"In their current format, the proposed amendment's largely ignores the public interest and the precautionary principle, which must be rectified for them to be credible. Otherwise, this will be seen as yet another example of legislation that puts the interests of multinational companies before the environment and communities that rely on groundwater."