Barbs traded across CSG divide

Critics of coal seam gas (CSG) and the peak petroleum industry are trading barbs over whether claims made to a Senate committee are true.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) claimed on Wednesday that activist group Lock the Gate had made several errors in submissions to a Senate inquiry into the management of the Murray Darling Basin.

APPEA attacked Lock the Gate president Drew Hutton, saying he'd made claims that were misleading and untrue about CSG, which is a technique to produce natural gas locked within coal seams of which Australia has large supplies, particularly in Queensland and NSW.

The industry has come under fire amid claims the process to remove the gas can poison underground water sources.

In a media release, APPEA questioned the truth of claims that CSG was exempt from many pieces of legislation, that no federal law specifically addressed the CSG industry, or that CSG is not subject to any formal federal review or environmental process.

The APPEA also said claims that there were no follow-up or field checks at CSG sites were "simply not true" and it was "grossly inaccurate" and misleading to say the industry was regulated only through conditions on a licence.

Mr Hutton told AAP the attacks by the APPEA were not new and he supplied a letter written to Queensland ALP senator John Hogg on October 6 in which Lock the Gate defends its submission.

Comments by APPEA misinterpreted and took out of context parts of Lock the Gate's submission, Mr Hutton said.

Mr Hutton agreed there could be a quibble over what constituted "many" pieces of legislation from which the CSG industry was exempt.

But he supplied six different laws from which he said the industry was fully or partially exempt.

Mr Hutton also denied he had misled over his claims that no federal law addressed the CSG industry.

"There is no commonwealth equivalent of state-based petroleum legislation," he said.

Mr Hutton also argued against other points raised by APPEA but conceded that his organisation should have used different language over whether there was a reliance on self-assessment and self-monitoring by CSG companies.

"It would have been more accurate to say an emphasis on self-assessment and self-monitoring," Mr Hutton wrote.