Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I ask a question of the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Minister, in this budget, your government committed $1.5 billion in equity investment for the development of the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct in the Northern Territory. We know that opening the gas field between Katherine and Tennant Creek, the Beetaloo Basin, was the first cab off the rank for the previous government's critically condemned and electorally rejected gas led recovery. We have to remember that this funding for Middle Arm was not this government's idea. It was the member for New England who announced billions in funding for the Middle Arm precinct as part of the former government's five basins gas plan. This seems a peculiar name for an allocation of funding that we are now led to believe is not a subsidy for a gas plan. It has been very difficult to get a straight answer from anyone in this government about what this precinct is for.

The Tamboran CEO has promised that its acquisition of gas assets in the Beetaloo basin will 'bring significant employment and royalties to the Northern Territory'. Can we trust this promise? He has also said that Tamboran's fracking of the Beetaloo basin would be a net-zero gas project. This is like claiming to have invented a smoke-free fire. According to him again: 'Gas that will be extracted from Beetaloo will be necessary for a full range of industrial purposes at the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct near Darwin.' This includes ammonia and urea production for fertiliser, hydrogen production, energy-intensive manufacturing, power generation and LNG export. The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, recently said:

Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness. Such investments will soon be stranded assets—a blot on the landscape and a blight on investment portfolios.

Members of the critical minerals industry are very concerned that investors in critical minerals—investors making decisions about funding clean energy projects—will withdraw their investments if the precinct is powered by gas. They fear that this $1.5 billion in federal funding jeopardises the private investment we so desperately need to supercharge the critical minerals industry in Australia.

Climate scientists have been saying for years that the Northern Territory is highly vulnerable to climate impacts, particularly those from sea level rise given its low-lying coastal areas and its extreme tides. Repeated studies by independent bodies like the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have clearly shown that large parts of Darling Harbour, including Middle Arm, will be underwater well before 2100, possibly as early as 2050, even under projected low greenhouse gas emission scenarios. This leads a whole new dimension to the idea of stranded assets. This project has not yet been subjected to a full environmental impact assessment. My questions to the minister are: Do you respect the scientific reports of the CSIRO and the latest IPCC climate modelling, and give credence to their modelling about rising sea levels in the Northern Territory? If not, what evidence can you present to this parliament that this project does not pose serious health, climate and environmental risks to the people of the Northern Territory and beyond?

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