Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senators who have contributed to this debate. The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2016 will validate certain title extension and renewal decisions made under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006.

In Australia, offshore petroleum exploration and development is regulated by a title system authorising titleholders to carry out petroleum operations in Commonwealth waters. A petroleum title granted under the OPGGS Act is defined as a prior usage right for the purposes of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. If the title is in force immediately before the proclamation of a Commonwealth reserve that overlaps the title area, under the EPBC Act it is stipulated that such a usage right may only be extended or have its term renewed with the consent of the Minister for the Environment. A recently identified administrative oversight extending back to 2008 led to certain petroleum titles being renewed or extended under the OPGGS Act without the Minister for the Environment's consent being sought, as is required under the EPBC Act. Without legislative amendment there is a question as to the validity of the relevant extension and renewal decisions made under the OPGGS Act. The amendments proposed in this bill are therefore curative measures designed to validate the affected title decisions. Amendments to validate affected decisions are the only way to satisfactorily eliminate the risk affected decisions posed for title holders.

Despite the aforementioned administrative oversight on affected title decisions, the government is confident that all petroleum titleholders have undertaken their activities in good faith. They have continued to be subject to, and compliant with, the stringent environmental management requirements set out under the OPGGS Act and environment regulations. The government is committed to applying international leading practice in the regulation and the management of environmental safety and integrity risks associated with offshore petroleum operations.

I do also note the questions that Senator Siewert has foreshadowed, and I, of course, will be happy to answer those at the time, but I would like to just stress that this is a technical administrative oversight. It is something that came up due to a lack of process between the Department of the Environment and the department of industry, or its various predecessors responsible for the OPGGS Act. In this time the senator did mention changes that were made in response to Montara. Some of those amendments at the time did confuse this issue. There was a loss of staff, apparently, and these errors occurred. Senator Siewert, I am sure you are not suggesting errors are not made by all of us at different times. This is unfortunate and regrettable, but the best way to deal with something that has gone wrong is to fix it as soon as you can. We are confident that these changes in this bill will help fix that issue, while still maintaining our world-leading environmental standards and regulations, including those on Commonwealth reserve areas.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.