Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I last year had the opportunity to visit the Woodside onshore processing facility out near Dampier. This is a huge investment. Unfortunately for the member for Batman, infrastructure cannot be built as quickly as he would perhaps like. But let us remember that it was this government that put together the $25 billion deal with China. It was this government that participated in the onshore delivery facility in China. And this government is looking at markets. Every week there are people coming to this country looking for more and more supplies of gas from Australia. But infrastructure development is also at times held up through environmental issues that need to be dealt with, and again I point to the Woodside facility, which has some issues to deal with—Aboriginal stone artefacts and paintings. That is but one. All of the other fields and platforms are taking time in process. If we look at the Timor facility, that is taking a long time just in the negotiation of treaty to establish a commencement date. In fact, I had the pleasure of, on behalf of the minister, putting the bill before this House on the financial split under the Sunrise treaty and the cooperation that will go beyond.

I agree with the member for Batman: there is huge demand for our gas in this country, but part and parcel of that is getting the infrastructure developed to access it. I also point out to the member for Batman that this country, through Geoscience Australia, has invested a massive amount of money in exploration—by seismic and other methods—to understand where these pockets are. In addition to that, the government is committed to facilitating, through free trade agreements, even greater access to overseas markets for our product. We will continue with that. In relation to the questions that the member for Batman asked prior to that, we will take those on board and we will respond. I could not quite hear what he was saying, and I apologise for that—that is my hearing going—but I thought that he was asking about mandated levels of blended fuels. As I said, the government’s position on that is well known: we are not going to set a target, but we will encourage industry to develop and be competitive in the marketplace.

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