Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson again. It is a very relevant and important question. The government fully supports those companies that are looking at that very question. The senator might be aware that AGL is apparently going through a process of looking at installing a regasification facility in southern markets. We fully support that. It is a commercial decision at this stage and it would be at cost, as I mentioned in an answer to an earlier question. It is not a free lunch. The estimates of gas costs coming in from the west through such a facility seem to be in the order of $9 to $11 a gigajoule. So there is quite a high cost for doing so. But, certainly, we as a government need to make sure that we look at all options to deal with these issues, not just in the next few years but over decades. We should be looking at other areas of potential resources, such as the Great Australian Bight. I welcome the support from the other side to make sure we continue to look at that, and I welcome Statoil's decision to continue to take on BP licences there. In the Northern Territory we need state governments to remove those moratoriums, because there are certainly very prospective potential resources there as well.