John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Regional Development, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Regulatory Levies) Act 2003 as a consequence of related amendments to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 to transfer regulatory oversight for offshore greenhouse-gas-storage-well operations from the responsible Commonwealth minister to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, or NOPSEMA.

NOPSEMA operates on a fully cost recovered basis through levies and fees payable by the offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage industries. This includes well related levies imposed in relation to petroleum titles. To ensure NOPSEMA can also recover the cost of its oversight of well operations under greenhouse gas titles, this bill will amend the levies act to extend the application of the well related levies to greenhouse gas wells.

This bill also amends the levies act as a consequence of amendments made to well related regulations under the OPGGS Act which commenced on 1 January 2016.

Prior to the amendments to the wells regulations, a new 'well operations management plan' was required to be submitted every five years. The amendments instead provided for a single plan to cover all stages of the life of a well, and require revision of the plan every five years. Currently, under the levies act, well activity levies are only imposed on applications for acceptance of a new plan. To ensure NOPSEMA continues to be fully cost recovered, this bill will amend the levies act to also impose a well activity levy on submission of five-yearly revisions of plans.

The amendments to the wells regulations also removed the requirement for a titleholder to apply to NOPSEMA for approval to commence well activities. This bill therefore removes well activity levies that relate to those applications.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.