Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the minister's report on the security inquiry into Australia's offshore oil and gas resource sector and the progress of the work of Mr Mick Palmer on this issue. Protecting Australia's $24 billion a year oil and gas industry is vital for Australia's future energy security. As the minister notes, the industry employs some 10,000 Australians across the country. Offshore oil and gas production provides a major input into our economy and its infrastructure is of critical national importance.

There are around 170 oil and gas production platforms in operation around the Australian coast, from the Timor Sea, to the North-West Shelf, to Bass Strait. As we all know, some of those oil and gas platforms are actually a long way from our coastline. Australia's gas production for domestic and export markets continues to increase every year; however, petroleum liquids production is still falling. In 2000-01 Australia produced 272.4 million barrels of petroleum liquids. By 2009-10 this had fallen to 186.9 million barrels.

There is further scope for exploration and appraisal drilling to address the growing demand for petroleum liquids, although significant prospective areas offshore are out of limits because they are in national parks, in particular around the Great Barrier Reef, and so we will never know whether or not there are winnable resources in such areas. While Australia accounts for approximately 0.6 per cent of the world oil supply and 1.5 per cent of the worldwide demand, our oil and natural gas accounts for nearly 56 per cent of primary energy consumed in Australia.

With the rise in international piracy and the threat of terrorism, it is certainly timely to revisit the security requirements in place to protect our offshore oil and gas assets. Last year, pirates were involved in an unsuccessful attempt to attack and take over an oil rig off the coast of Nigeria, with a firefight erupting between the Nigerian navy and the pirates. As the minister notes, there is no suggestion of a particular threat against any oil and gas platform in Australia but vigilance is certainly necessary.

It is clear that a potential security threat would be extremely damaging to our national economy and affect our energy security if it were in fact to succeed. I note that the inquiry by the Inspector of Transport Security, Mick Palmer, will examine a number of important matters and report on potential improvements to our offshore oil and gas security regime. When the minister announced the inquiry on 1 February 2010, a draft report was due to be provided in late 2011. But I understand that is now to be an interim report, with the final report due out in the second half of 2012, which is quite a long time away. While it is important to get all of this right, as it deals with national security, it should be noted that it does look somewhat like another one in the long list of delayed reports by the Labor government.

There are also some policy conflicts here. While the inquiry is welcome, this report comes while the parliament is still considering the current budget, which slashes $21 million for aircraft surveillance of our coastal waters, which will result in 950 fewer hours of aerial surveillance each year. That does seem to me to be a bit inconsistent because, if we are seriously interested in security and assessing what happens in these particular production areas, the surveillance aircraft may well provide the first alert. There is also a wind back in other areas of border protection by this government. Almost every budget has cut the resources available for airport security and for customs and quarantine.

The coalition will always support sensible moves to enhance our maritime security regime. The coalition has a history of proposing and supporting sensible measures to enhance our maritime security regime and in this case the security of our offshore oil and gas assets. For example, in 2005 the coalition amended the Maritime Transport Security Act 2003 to require operators to write and follow security plans, including security risk assessments, and develop preventative strategies to manage risk. The coalition in government had a strong record of securing Australia's borders and strengthening security requirements across the maritime industry, including our offshore oil and gas assets.

The industry is of vital significance to Australia's economy. In addition to being a major employer, it is an important part also of our energy security. We must do what we can as a nation to keep these valuable resources, and the infrastructure that services them, safe and particularly protect them from any risk of terrorism, pirating or other dangerous activities. So I commend Mr Palmer. I note with satisfaction the cooperation that the industry are giving to this inquiry, because they also recognise how important it is to keep their valuable assets safe.

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