Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the committee's report on oil or gas production in the Great Australian Bight, I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I just want to put some facts very clearly on the record. In all of my deliberations on committee work as a senator, in the almost six years that I have been here, I always rely on my decision being based on the evidence and the merits of the case. In this particular exercise, we had a number of hearings, we had a number of witnesses and we had questioning of those witnesses. Suffice to say, it was a contested hearing in some respects, with different senators coming from different perspectives. I want to also put on the record that I have never, ever had the occasion to question another senator's right to express a view, up until now. I have the greatest respect for—and still have the greatest respect for—members of the Greens party. They were led by Senator Bob Brown, Senator Christine Milne and now Senator Di Natale, Senator Ludlam and Senator Waters. Their right to have a view is not contested.

But when they make additional comments in reports, which are an extension of the Senate, and put in reports matters which are not correct and in fact are disorderly, that is when I have a real issue. I have an issue when there are statements on the Hansard which say:

When is the Labor Party going to start standing up for proper action on climate change and staring down these climate criminals in these multinational companies?

I have an issue when you get statements that are clearly not related to the evidence taken by the committee and not related to the subject matter of the reference per se. Those arguments are brought into this place and thrown around in an attempt to disparage a committee view. There is no rule in the Senate that says every senator has to agree with the chair. There is no rule that says that a committee has to support the chair's draft report. There is plenty of precedent where this has happened. I think the honourable Andrew Wilkie, when he chaired an interactive gambling committee, a joint committee of the House, had occasion to propose reports which were not supported by the majority of the committee. I do not recall Mr Wilkie then going out to denigrate other members of the committee in Hansard, in additional comments, in a way that is not part of the reference and not part of the committee. I have no recollection of that, but I do see very clearly here that one particular senator, Senator Hanson-Young, has made very defamatory statements about matters that were never spoken about in the committee, and I find this extremely disturbing.

I am certainly not thin-skinned about all this stuff, and I think that willing debate is good. I think you should push debate as far as you can, but there are lines you cannot cross. Impugning the motives of a senator and actually misrepresenting the Senate should be brought into line. And I think, at the appropriate time, all senators should reflect on this. The standard that is set here is: if you do not agree with the chair and if you go with what you believe is the evidence to a committee, and if you sign off on a report with the majority of the committee, then you should not be maligned, impugned or have your motives questioned in the way that Senator Hanson-Young has done. And linking allegations to bribery and to siding with climate criminals—these are really beyond the pale. They are not matters that should be part of the normal discourse where there is a healthy divergences of views or where there are people of different ideological backgrounds. She put on the record this comment: 'I will withdraw that. I simply point out that Chevron donated money to the South Australian Labor Party.' That was not the subject of any evidence to the committee. I personally had no knowledge of any donation to the Labor Party, or to the Liberal Party, for that matter. And to bring that sort of discourse into this place and throw it around willy-nilly is reprehensible.

The simple facts are: we have an independent world-class regulator, NOPSEMA; we have, arising from a spill in Montara, a dedicated band of professionals securing the future of our oil and gas exploration in South Australia and Western Australia and anywhere around our coast. I happen to believe—and the evidence that was given to us—that they are doing a good enough job to merit going ahead with drilling in the Great Australian Bight. Senator Hanson-Young does not agree with that evidence, and I respect her right not to agree with the evidence. But she went on to make all sorts of wild, scurrilous allegations about other members of a committee she chaired. I always thought the job of the chair was to get consistent cooperation between all members of the committee, to hear all of the evidence with complete impartiality and to produce a consensus report. Clearly, that is not the way that Senator Hanson-Young operates.

Her view is that when she produces a report—which some of us believe was not underpinned by evidence—it is her way or the highway. If we do not support her report, she will then put in additional comments which contain disorderly behaviour. She withdrew it in the Senate but leaves it in a report of the Senate. There are avenues that we could all take to pursue that, but I suppose it comes down to this: if the chair of the committee is unable to carry a report on a vote of the committee, then it should not be the case that that chair then goes out and makes unsubstantiated allegations which were not a subject of the reference, either in additional comments or in this chamber.

I think that, when we move on in this space—and I note that Statoil has announced that they have acquired two of the permits with which BP was intending to drill—there may well be further discourse on this matter as Statoil and possibly Chevron or others move into the Great Australian Bight with a view to finding resources for Australia's benefit and exploiting those resources. There may even be another hearing. Who knows? But I really wanted to get the bottom of what the standard is that we are setting for ourselves.

Senator Back, as he normally does, said something really prescient: we need to treat each other in this place with enough respect that we can always return the next day. We might have our feathers ruffled. Make no mistake about it: I am not thin-skinned at all, but I do not think the standard is that, when you do not get your own way, you go out and make allegations either in here or in additional comments which are not the subject matter of the reference. I do not know if that behaviour is appropriate and can be allowed to continue.

I wanted to take this opportunity to very clearly put on the record that I personally thought the evidence that we got enabled me to make a decision about drilling in the Great Australian Bight. I care about the environment as much as anybody in this place. I have children and grandchildren. I like Kangaroo Island as much as any Kangaroo Islander. It is an iconic place in the world, sustaining really-high-value tourism. But we can do things, as the human race has proved. When we measure the risk and we take out as much of that risk as we humanly can, we can do things very well.

Look at whales. It is really ironic that it was the drilling of oil which produced kerosene, which replaced whale oil to light the world. In the 1860s, when we drilled for oil and we got the by-product kerosene, we stopped sending out hundreds of ships to hunt whales, which we used to boil to get the oil for lamps all around the world. Ironically, drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight is good for Australia, is good for the communities around those areas and is good for whales.

Question agreed to.