Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will indeed, Mr Acting Deputy President. I will say it again. Such a transfer of wealth is unprecedented, totally unwarranted, unfair and devoid of even a scintilla of equity at all.

Earlier I referred to the authorisation process contained in the bill. The bill requires that such authorisation must include details of an independent assessment of the current and future risks associated with the proposed coal seam gas mining activity on or affecting the food-producing land and any associated groundwater systems. It is unclear whether this assessment would mean an environmental impact statement, an EIS. If so, it clearly would impose a significant impost on landholders. What does this mean? It means this: the bill is seeking to deal with environmental issues by privatising assets owned by the community and setting up a further but protracted environmental process which will not produce improved environmental outcomes, since the existing Commonwealth EPBC Act and state environmental processes will continue to apply.

In that context, let me turn to the work that has been done on the package of clean energy bills for the last nine months. We all know there has been nine months of exhausting committee work. We know that the Greens accepted an invitation from the government to provide the deputy chair to that committee. We know also that it has concluded its deliberations and that its policy recommendations have been examined and accepted by government. We now know that the work of that committee on the clean energy bills has been referred to a parliamentary committee for some six, seven or eight days of exhaustive examination. We know and we hope that that package of bills will be passed in this chamber prior to Christmas. And we know that that package of bills is about carbon reduction, carbon abatement and a clean energy future.

In that context, the carbon pricing package contains more than $10 billion to promote renewable energy, but early emissions reductions are expected to be driven by the carbon price forming a switch from coal-fired electricity generation to gas-fired generation, which of course has significantly lower emissions. There have been numerous repeated and respected scientific inquiries and findings from universities all around the world that say that the output of carbon emissions from the gas production and gas use process in manufacturing energy is something in the order of 50 to 70 per cent below that of coal. So efforts by the Greens in this bill to prevent the development of gas in this country are totally inconsistent with the transition to a lower carbon future. It is manifestly clear that gas-fired electricity generation is more reliable than renewables at present. The coal seam methane industry is a stunning example, a great example, of our success as a nation and a government at state and Commonwealth level in attracting investment. Three years ago this industry was not even thought about. Now, we have got a $45 billion investment. If the Greens want to reduce CO2 emissions, they must understand that gas is going to make a huge contribution to that because it is clean energy, it is plentiful, it is cost-effective and it is reliable.

I might be tempted to say what the opposition would say of this bill. They might say it is green extremism. They might say it is absurd bureaucratic process. They might say it is a misuse of policy to achieve an adverse predetermined outcome. But I do not say those things. The opposition might say them in due course, but I do not say them. What I do say of this bill is that it is an example of poor thinking, confused thinking, woolly thinking and silly thinking. It seeks to achieve sound environmental outcomes by absurd bureaucratic processes.

As I said at the outset, the bill effectively provides an absolute veto of coal seam gas activities by the owners of food-producing land, which is broadly defined in the bill. The bill seeks to overturn state laws which seek to properly balance—