Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

As I was indicating—and I am sure that the member for Sturt is very interested in this matter—it is important that we seek to understand the cause of the incident, that we learn from it and that we put in place any measures that could stop it from happening again. For those reasons I appointed Mr David Borthwick, the former secretary of the department of the environment, to conduct the inquiry in accordance with the amendments supported by the House to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act. Those amendments provide a broad-ranging major incident investigation power for the commissioner.

I also note that the commissioner will consider the environmental impacts of the incident including reviewing environmental monitoring laws. In the last couple of years there have been four serious oil and gas incidents, two during tropical cyclone Billy involving floating facilities used in petroleum production, the recent Montaro accident and Varanus gas explosion which effectively meant Western Australia lost 30 per cent of its electricity for a considerable period.

I note that these facilities involve incidents which are regulated by a combination of Commonwealth, Western Australian and Northern Territory agencies. Each of these events has been or will continue to be subject to independent investigations. I can assure the House that I will be acting on the recommendations of those independent investigations.

See this speech in context