Greens want miners to get water approval

The Australian Greens want mining companies to get approval from the federal government before starting projects that threaten water resources.

Greens senator Larissa Waters is planning to introduce a bill on Tuesday which would give protection to Australian water resources from mining, including coal seam gas (CSG) extraction.

The proposed legislation would give the federal government power to consider the impact on Australia's water resources during the assessment and approval of any mining activity.

"We simply don't know about the long-term impacts of coal seam gas on our groundwater resources," the Queensland senator told reporters in Canberra.

"We need to press `pause' until we can be sure that it's not threatening our groundwater."

Greens leader Bob Brown described the bill as pure commonsense.

"You make sure that you're going to secure both water and food resources and biodiversity before the impact of mining proceeds," Senator Brown said.

Senator Waters welcomed Independent MP Tony Windsor's plan to set aside up to $400 million a year from the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) revenue to fund assessments which would scientifically measure the impact of CSG and other mining practices on farmland.

The Greens also want to add gold to the mining tax.

However, Senator Brown said the Greens would not oppose Labor's version of the tax if the government did not agree to include gold.

"Opposing the legislation means going to the totally irresponsible alternative of (Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott," he said.

"That's collecting no money off these largely foreign-owned massive mining corporations exporting their profits overseas.

"We want to see some of that money stay in this country."

Senator Waters said that, ideally, she wanted a moratorium on the CSG industry until the full health and environmental impacts were known.