Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the Government's commitment to protecting Australia's marine environment including the Great Barrier Reef through the:

(a) Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan;

(b) $1.2 billion investment to ensure the health of the reef; and

(c) $100 million Environment Restoration Fund which supports cleaner oceans and waterways;

(2) opposes oil or gas drilling off the coast of Sydney, including by:

(a) recognising that through Advent Energy's own admission on 29 December 2010, the exploratory well had failed to find gas; and

(b) not renewing the Petroleum Exploration Permit 11 licence; and

(3) notes the importance of Sydney's coastline and waterways to the ecosystem as well as tourism and investment.

When I was a teenager, I would ride my bike from the family home in Belrose, through Oxford Falls and down Wakehurst Parkway to Narrabeen Beach. I have fond memories of sitting on the beach, sand between my toes, swimming in the ocean and the rock pools of Narrabeen, looking out at the surfers and thinking how lucky I was. When I looked out at the sea I would ponder, in awe, how it could be that in one generation the son of a migrant who'd fled totalitarian regimes behind the Iron Curtain could now get to call one of the most beautiful parts of the world his home. To this day I raise my family in Collaroy, and I continue to enjoy the very same coastline. From Palm Beach to Manly, from Bondi to Little Bay, and across Pittwater to Patonga, Sydney has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Its rich biodiversity and all-round stunning views make it a wonder to behold. Not only is it something we locals derive great pleasure from; it is a pivotal part of Sydney's tourism economy. In a post-COVID world it will be more important than ever.

However, there is a shadow looming over the coast's longevity. Petroleum Exploration Permit No. 11, PEP 11 for short, like Damocles's sword, hangs over the head of our communities. A stretch of ocean covering 4½ square kilometres from Palm Beach to Newcastle, PEP 11 threatens to continue exploration activity off our coast when, after 16 long years, no useful data has been uncovered and no useful discovery has been made. There has been so much risk, so much worry, and never before has there been so little reward for all of this.

This licence has been held by several energy companies since it was granted by the then Carr Labor government in 2004. During this time, various exploration actions have been undertaken. The last one, about three years ago, was when permission was given to undertake seismic testing. The results of those tests were clearly disappointing. Even the most generous reading of the actions of the current holders of the PEP 11 licence would lead any reasonable person to conclude that it was, at best, inconclusive and most likely demonstrated there was little of value in terms of exploration. After all, the holders of the licence, Advent Energy, themselves admitted, on 29 December 2010, that the exploration well had failed to find gas.

Therefore, in moving this motion, I'm calling on the government to oppose oil and gas drilling off the coast of Sydney, and specifically in the PEP 11 zone. My community have spoken loudly and clearly. We do not want to see the renewal of the PEP 11 licence. Save Our Coast have been leading the charge in opposing this licence. They have collected over 76,000 signatures, many of which have already been presented to the parliament. Natasha Deen, Brendan Donohoe and many more locals have been very vocal in their opposition to the licence because it just doesn't make sense.

After all, this government is one which is taking strong and appropriate steps to protect our oceans. The Great Barrier Reef, we know, is a global tourism icon, a wonder of the natural world and critically important to the Australian economy. Before COVID-19, it contributed around $6.4 billion a year to Australia's economy, along with 64,000 jobs. These actions are those of a government which cares about our oceans. We are an island nation, so it is our responsibility to look after the water around us.

It is a hard argument to allow this issue to be swept under the rug. But it would be impossible to say it will just go away, because it won't. My community do not want gas rigs off our beautiful coast. We do not want to see the rich biodiversity that occupies our great coastlines put at risk for an area of ocean which clearly doesn't have anything to offer in terms of gas but has so much to offer our generation and future generations. Therefore, PEP 11 should not go forward. (Time expired)

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Opposition members interjecting—

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would remind those on my left that interjecting at any time is not permissible, particularly when you're in those cheap seats—it's even more offensive. Please constrain yourself during the course of this debate, particularly when the member for North Sydney is speaking later on!

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today to stand with my community and express my strong opposition to oil and gas drilling off the coast between Sydney and Newcastle, which includes my part of the world, the Central Coast. I call on the government to stop PEP 11 in order to save our coast. The Central Coast of New South Wales, home to my electorate of Dobell, is a beautiful part of the world. It is a place I am so proud to call home, my family having lived there for generations. As well as our friendly people and our relaxed way of life, our region is known for its iconic stretch of coastline. It's popular with visitors, too. Last year nearly two million people holidayed on the Central Coast, adding $692 million to the local economy, and more are expected this summer. This year, regional coastal communities like ours have shouldered the burden of bushfires, floods and COVID-19. There are currently 20 jobseekers for every vacancy on the coast, and tourism, hospitality and retail will have an important role to play as we recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic.

Under this government, our valleys and our beaches—the stunning natural environment that attracts people to live in and visit the Central Coast—are under threat. First, the proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coalmine, which I have opposed since I was a councillor for Wyong Shire. It's a risk to our precious water catchment and to valleys like Dooralong and Yarramalong. This government weakened the EPBC Act's water trigger, and the former minister waved through the project, despite the opposition of our community.

Now this government is looking at offshore drilling. My office has received over 470 emails, letters and phone calls from locals concerned about PEP 11 and the risk it poses to our marine environment, our coastline and our way of life and wellbeing. We love our coast. Glenn from Bateau Bay said:

I have been able to raise my children here on the Central Coast, passing on to them a love for our ocean, coastline and marine life. The excitement at dolphins swimming close to them, their looks of amazement at the sight of a whale fully breaching the water still gives me a feeling of happiness to this day.

Cathy from Berkeley Vale said:

The beach is our happy place. We moved up from Sydney a few years ago to have a quieter and more relaxed life on the coast. We love it here. For our family of 5, we love going to the beach as our way to reset.

She echoes the views of hundreds of other locals.

According to the Environmental Defenders Office, the PEP 11 project could see drilling commence in a world-renowned whale migration route and dolphin habitat, risking devastating the marine ecosystem and exposing locals from Newcastle to Manly to the prospect of petroleum spills or gas rigs just kilometres from the coastline. Locals are acutely aware of this risk. Katarina from Wyoming said:

I've spent my childhood growing up on the Coasts beaches and I can't imagine that someday due to the proposed PEP-11 operation our Coastal landscape will be severely damaged.

Alicia from Long Jetty said:

Our beaches are serene and blissful. I and many others don't want them to be interfered with.

Locals, people like Glenn, Cathy, Katarina and Alicia, are deeply concerned about our environment and our way of life.

Worse, the government wants recognition for protecting Australia's marine environment, yet this is the same government which ignored the findings of its own review. The Samuel review of the EPBC Act outlined the need for national environmental standards to set clear rules for decision-making. The government made no reference to these standards in the amendments to the act. When the amendments came before the House, the government guillotined debate, denying myself and others the chance to speak against changes that weaken environmental protection.

It must be remembered: the responsibility for offshore drilling sits with the government. The Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia has the final say, as the federal representative on the joint authority. This decision isn't being made under delegation but by Minister Pitt and New South Wales Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade, John Barilaro.

I stand with my community in their strong opposition to offshore drilling off the coast of Newcastle between Sydney and Newcastle, and off the Central Coast. I'm going to finish with the words of Karen from Long Jetty: 'We ask you to please consider communities, the coastal ecosystem, the climate and the economy in this time of uncertainty and upheaval and urgently stop PEP 11 to save the coast that so many Australians love and depend on for their wellbeing and their livelihoods.'

This motion today won't be voted on. What matters is the decision by NOPTA, the decision to be taken by Minister Pitt and Minister Barilaro. As I started, I will finish: I stand with my community in their strong opposition to offshore drilling off our coast. I stand with them in calling on the ministers to stop PEP 11, to save our coast. This motion will not be voted on. What matters is the decision by the joint authority, to be made by Minister Pitt and Minister Barilaro. I call on this government to make a decision in the interests of our community, our marine life and our way of life and to stop PEP 11 to save our coastal communities.

Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is an oceans superpower. We have the third-largest exclusive economic zone of any nation in the world—some 10 million square kilometres, larger than our landmass of 7.7 million square kilometres, and this gives Australia a unique responsibility, indeed, a duty, to protect the health of the world's oceans.

Oceans cover almost three-quarters of the world's planet. They are a source massive biological diversity, containing upwards of 10 million marine species. They're a source of livelihoods. Over three billion people get almost a fifth of their protein from the ocean, making fish a bigger source of protein than beef. Fishing and aquaculture underpin the livelihoods of one in 10 people around the world. But, perhaps most importantly, our oceans and their interaction with the atmosphere do much to determine our climate and our weather systems. Marine phytoplankton, the plant components of the plankton community, produces 50 per cent of the oxygen on earth. Oceans have absorbed as much as half of all anthropogenic carbon emissions over the past two centuries, and blue carbon ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrass beds, tidal marshes, and other marine and coastal vegetative ecosystems are among the most intense carbon sinks on the planet.

But our oceans are under pressure—under pressure from neglect, under pressure from overfishing, under pressure from pollution and under pressure from climate change. Almost 90 per cent of fish stocks are fished at or beyond their sustainable limit around the world. By the middle of the century, the ocean could contain more plastic than fish by weight, causing immense damage to the animals and ecosystems that depend on the ocean. The warming of the oceans, caused by climate change, is doing damage to corals, including our own Great Barrier Reef. Greater concentrations of carbon dioxide are making it more acidic, making it less hospitable for creatures like crabs and oysters, with calcium carbonate shells.

As the custodians of the Great Barrier Reef and of much of the world's oceans, Australia has a unique responsibility here. This is why the health of the reef, one of the subject matters of this motion, is so important. We have introduced the Reef 2050 plan to improve the health of the Great Barrier Reef. We have the $100 million Environment Restoration Fund, which is targeting the cleaning of oceans and waterways. We are spearheading efforts to get more plastics out of the ocean, including in cooperation with our neighbouring countries in the Pacific. And a bill that will be debated later today, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill, is one step further towards building a circular economy in Australia, where we take more responsibility for our own waste and process it on shore. We are also doing our part to tackle climate change, meeting our targets to reduce our emissions in line with our Paris commitments.

People in my community of Wentworth, and, indeed, many of Sydney's residents, feel especially attached to the ocean. They live and breathe it every day, whether it's taking the ferry to work; volunteering at a surf club on the weekend; taking their kids down to Nippers; having a swim or a surf at the start or the end of the day; or doing one of the amazing coastal walks, like the Bondi to Bronte walk or the Hermitage Foreshore walk. We in Wentworth are all very attuned to the health of the ocean and want to do our part to protect and preserve it for future generations. That's why community opinion is so strong against the application to extend the petroleum exploration permit 11 licence, or PEP 11, covering the coastline off Sydney, the waters off the New South Wales South Coast between Newcastle and Wollongong. This is one of the most densely populated and trafficked strips of ocean in the world. It's also one of the most beautiful and most iconic.

I think many people are surprised to learn that such exploration is even happening right in our backyard, never mind that there is a prospect of renewing such exploration. After 10 years of exploration nothing has been found. In those 10 years, as times change so do values and so do priorities. In the Great Barrier Reef, it was a coalition government that banned oil and gas exploration on the Reef. It was a coalition government that helped the Great Barrier Reef win World Heritage status in 1981. And it was a coalition government that expanded no-take zones to increase from five per cent to 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. I think this PEP 11 is a clear issue where times and values have changed and where what might've been acceptable 10 years ago is no longer acceptable.

This is a joint decision of the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments. I will be making known my opposition and that of my community of Wentworth to both of them. The people of Wentworth stand for the protection of our oceans and waterways and against the renewal of PEP 11.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to contribute to this discussion on the PEP 11—Petroleum Exploration Permit. I thank my Labor colleagues for agreeing to select this motion today. They know how important it is for me to be raising this issue, my concerns and those of my community on this critical matter, and I certainly welcome this debate. I also want to recognise the member for Mackellar—now Deputy Speaker—for raising this issue. He's right: oil and gas exploration should absolutely not continue in the waters from Newcastle to northern Sydney. But let's be real, this motion won't even go to a vote, let alone force the hands of Liberal governments in Macquarie Street or Canberra to act. So I do hope that the member for Mackellar has backed his words with action. Has he written to the two government ministers responsible? Has he met with them? Is he fighting to insist that this motion be put to a vote in the Australian parliament? These are the things that separate genuine political action from hollow grandstanding.

Let's be clear, this permit should never have been granted in the first place. We don't need this project. We don't want this project. If anything goes wrong, we will more than regret it. Australia has plentiful energy sources. We don't need drilling rigs set up within spitting distance from major cities and towns. There are some six million Australians, almost a quarter of us, that live near the PEP 11 coastline. The argument for PEP 11 is even weaker now than it was in the beginning, with the Australian Energy Market Operator confirming that the cheapest source of new electricity is a combination of renewables and storage. The spectre of oil and gas fields off the coast of Newcastle has loomed over my community since PEP 11 was first granted back in 1999, causing enormous uncertainty and distress, and it hasn't improved since. Frankly, this project has all the hallmarks of an operation in disarray. We've seen a complex and confusing web of companies attached to it. Despite this, I found it near impossible to find somebody in authority willing to speak. Phone calls go unanswered. Meetings were cancelled at the last minute. Once when I tried to get in touch I even found that Asset Energy's phone had been disconnected and their website was down. If they can't even keep a website up why on earth should they be trusted with our precious oceans?

My community has been subjected to botched community consultations and controversial seismic testing being rolled out with seemingly zero regard for the deep local concern. Despite two decades of exploration now, there seems to be no adequate evidence of viable oil or gas reserves to justify or attract further development. After years working to minimise the impacts of PEP 11 on my community—through ministerial representations, a parliamentary petition and working with government agencies on better community consultations and protections of our oceans—I awaited the permit schedule to February 2021 expiry with anticipation. If common sense had prevailed PEP 11 would have been left to die a natural death. The fact that it didn't, and that Asset Energy has instead applied for an extension, is disappointing. The fact that it hasn't been rejected out of hand by this government is worse.

When I learnt about the proposed extension, I went back to my community to seek further feedback. The message I got from Novocastrians was loud and clear: no oil and gas rigs for Newcastle; no way, no how. As a coastal city, the ocean is at the very core of our identity, and Novocastrians feel any threat to it very deeply. I have shared my concerns and those strongly held views of my community with my Labor colleagues. I am confident that Labor understands just how important this issue is for the people of Newcastle and just how important it is for me to make this statement today.

But it is not federal Labor who will make the decision on the future of PEP 11. Indeed, there are no avenues for public input or parliamentary intervention that could influence the outcome of the extension application. No, this decision rests solely with the joint authority consisting of the federal Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia, Keith Pitt, and his state counterpart. Minister, I urge you not to approve the PEP 11 extension. It doesn't stack up. It never stacked up, and it never will. Listen to the voices of the people and reject this application once and for all.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion, and I want to congratulate the member for Mackellar for putting this before the House today, because it is an issue that is so important to the future of our marine environment but also an issue that I know has touched the hearts and minds of so many Sydneysiders and indeed Australians. That's reflected in the views that I've heard loudly and clearly from my own constituents. Australia is famously a nation girt by sea. Our coastline and our marine environment have shaped the development of our nation for tens of thousands of years, and that is the case no more so than in the area that is covered by the Sydney Basin and our coastal environment. Sydney is home to the most magnificent harbour in the world, and that joins what is the most magnificent coastline of any capital city in this country, I'm confident to say.

But of course that has not always been the case. It's fair to say that, for more than a century, Australians and Sydneysiders treated their harbour and their coastline poorly. For too long our harbour was used as a drain for industrial waste and stormwater, which has been slowly addressed. Our coastline, our beaches and our seas were used as dumping grounds for sewage. It was those phenomena that led to great community activism. Sydneysiders were not prepared to tolerate a harbour that was increasingly becoming more and more polluted and not sustaining the incredible biodiversity which for so long it had sustained. Off our coastline we were certainly not willing to tolerate the fact that our swimmers shared the waters with—how can I put this euphemistically?—Mr Hankey, the Christmas poo. That's probably the best way to describe it! That led to incredible community activism which over the last three decades has seen phenomenal change in the way in which we manage our harbour and coasts, and that is how it should be. So, instead of seeing that pollution that once we witnessed, we now have a harbour that is home to seals and incredible marine diversity and we have a coastline today which is famous not for Mr Hankey but for the whales that migrate along the shoreline each year and are now a source of great inspiration to so many people.

It's no surprise that our coastline and harbour are revered by all Australians, and it's equally no surprise to me, as someone who worked in the tourism industry before coming to this place, that it is one of the things that attracts international visitors to Australia most frequently. I know that when we survey those visitors from some of our major markets and ask them what was special about their visit to Sydney, the answer is so often, 'Clean skies and blue waters.' That is something that we have an obligation to protect.

We have seen that incredible change, but we know that the risks still exist. We cannot put that at risk through activities such as exploration and drilling for gas. When I go to Barrenjoey Lighthouse in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Falinski, as I did a few months ago, and sit in the serenity of the rocks overlooking the ocean, I want the chance to glimpse whales and dolphins. I don't want to sit there looking at drilling rigs marring the horizon which otherwise is so peaceful. I want to ensure that we, as a government, are making sure that that marine environment, which has so much improved, remains something that actually continues to improve and that the rich diversity of our marine ecosystems continues to flourish and to recover. And that's why I think this motion is so important: because the PEP 11 exploration licence does put those values at risk, not just from the impact, visually, from our coastline but also from the risk it poses to the very marine diversity that is such an important part of the Sydney experience.

So I really want to say to the governments, the ministers, that will make this decision before February next year: you have the chance to make sure that what every Sydneysider loves about our great part of the world is preserved and protected, and you can do that by doing what we did, just as the member for Wentworth alluded to, with the Great Barrier Reef, in banning exploration and drilling there, under the Fraser government. We say that exploration and drilling for gas is not and will never be acceptable for the wonderful coastal environment that is our legacy and our responsibility to protect and preserve.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member. The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour this day.