Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Okay, back to the issue. This issue has the potential not to be resolved, not because of any loss of goodwill from our side of parliament or loss of determination or goodwill from the government. It needs to be managed precisely as we go forward. There are complexities in the legislation which, as the minister said, as late as this morning were still not resolved, and there are going to be issues between the shadow minister for resources, Senator Johnston, me as his representative in this House and the minister opposite and, I assume, the Senate economics committee as well. I understand their report may be released today but will not be formally reported to the Senate until 16 October.

All those processes need to take their full time. We cannot afford to rush this because, if we get it wrong, whilst we may have legislation in place we will have actually gone backwards. We are trying to do in Australia what no-one else has done. We are trying to lay down a framework also, on behalf of the Commonwealth, which will be adopted, we hope, by a majority of the states. Some states will choose a separate process, but if they are smart, quite frankly, they will choose this process. We need to get it right. We need to ensure the holders both of petroleum exploration leases and, perhaps, of leases that have gone past that into retention leases and production leases are satisfied with the process. They may not welcome this occurrence but they understand the reason it is happening. At the same time we need to ensure that legal entitlements are maintained.

This issue is of crucial importance, so I seek an undertaking from the government that they will ensure that all processes are given full run and that the debate and discussions that go on in the Senate are not forced through in such a way that the Senate Standing Committee on Economics is not able to present its report before the legislation is finalised. I commit the opposition to ongoing support of and dialogue with the government on this matter. I hope that we can bring about a satisfactory resolution for all parties involved.

See this speech in context