Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw the use of the word 'monkey' and, instead, say we have these surrenderers, these people who do not have the guts to stand up for Australian jobs. Equally frightening, they appear to have no knowledge, although they claim to be representatives from Western Australia, of the very seismic shift that we are seeing in the nature of this industry.

If I could quote David Byers, the CEO of APPEA. He acknowledges that, with this technology, potentially there are fewer jobs for Australians in the construction phase. But he says that more benefits and job growth will come through the operational phase. He makes the point that if we do this right Perth is placed to become a global centre for FLNG development and technology. So we lose out in the construction phase but the gains really come in that operational phase. We have this potential. We are now looking at, first of all, the Prelude facility, for which there has been a final investment decision, so that is going ahead. We have got Woodside now looking at their Browse project. There has also been floating LNG and we hope that there will be a final investment decision on that next year. We know that Exxon and BHP Billiton are looking at FLNG for their Scarborough field. Similarly in the Northern Territory we see in the Bonaparte Gulf they are looking at going down the path of floating LNG. There is a seismic change in this industry, a seismic change that will be profoundly affected by this legislative proposal that we have here before us today.

I would really like to hear a response from the government on where in this new environment this industry is going. How do we then ensure that Australians have an opportunity to compete for these jobs? Not even a 457 visa will be required into the future. We have got this great opportunity as this industry emerges to be right at the forefront of that. We should be developing a centre of excellence for FLNG and I would obviously like to see that in Perth. I believe that we at the same time have to ensure that we are training those people that are going to be the world leaders in the maintenance and the operation of these facilities. That simply will not happen if we lay down the gauntlet and say that we are not going to put any protections on these jobs for Australians. So we have, as I say, a profound ignorance of the direction in which this industry is going and it appears that this legislation may have been developed without any cognisance of that. It certainly will be a great lost opportunity. I think it will be a very bad outcome for the companies involved, because companies like Shell and Woodside realise that there is a battle that is going on for their technology. Just last week in the state parliament in Western Australia the blue team and the red team combined to put out a report that was highly critical of the move to FLNG, the members of the committee wanting to support Mr Barnett's ill-founded dream of a gas hub at James Price Point. They point to the loss of jobs that will occur by going offshore. But what we have to do and what these companies should be realising that they need to do is go out there and win the hearts and minds of Western Australians and of Australians with this new technology and assure them that there will be these fantastic job opportunities, long-term jobs. These floating platforms have a projected lifespan of around 25-30 years on these gas fields in Australia. These are really stable, long-term jobs that we should be conserving for Australians and making sure that we do what is necessary to skill our workers up to be able to take their rightful place in the oil and gas industry given our ascendancy in this industry worldwide.

But this is not just a problem for the future. I have no shame in saying that I support the unions standing up for Australian jobs; I 100 per cent support the unions standing up for Australian jobs. There are around 500 unemployed seafarers at the moment in Western Australia and I have been told today that Saipan, the Italian company that is subcontracting to Inpex in terms of the laying of the pipes for the pipeline from Western Australia to Darwin, have indicated that they propose, presumably once this legislation is through, to bring in eight foreign vessels to be doing that work, that they will not be employing Australian workers on that job. They will be having foreign crewed vessels laying those pipes from that Inpex project. That is already an immediate loss of Australian jobs. We have seafarers that are trained and skilled, we have got young guys and women doing their training that want that opportunity with that Inpex project, and once this legislation is through those opportunities are going to vanish.

I just do not know how you justify this. These companies overwhelmingly are owned by overseas interests. One of the ways in which the Australian community gets benefit out of these oil and gas projects is by the creation of these well-paid jobs for Australian workers. That is what has caused Australian workers to get in there and be behind the oil and gas industry. If we see this wholesale employment of overseas workers without even requiring a 457 visa, without even the most rudimentary test being applied to see if there were Australians that can do that job, the oil and gas industry will start losing the support of the Australian community.

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