Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my 10 minutes this evening, I rise with some disappointment to speak about a policy decision taken by one of Queensland's biggest companies, Suncorp-Metway. On 21 August 2020, Suncorp-Metway released its most recent annual results. At the same time, it released its Responsible business report. I quote from page 28:

In 2020, we strengthened our Fossil Fuels Sensitive Sector Guideline to cease underwriting, financing or directly investing in new oil and gas projects, phase out underwriting and financing oil and gas by 2025, and directly investing by 2040.

Here we have Queensland's largest company announcing that it is going to turn its back on the oil and gas industry, a sector which has invested more than $70 billion—that's billion with a 'b'—in Queensland, including $49.7 billion between 2011 and 2018. It is a sector which employs close to 5,000 Queenslanders and provided 39,000 jobs between 2017 and 2018; a sector which provides gas to our manufacturing and metal-processing industries, which employ 225,000 Australians; a sector which is vital to our future if we are going to increase manufacturing in this country, if we are going to make more things in this country, if we are to become independent and self-reliant in every sense of those words, instead of having our supply chains totally dependent upon imports; a sector which generates billions of dollars in export income, exporting energy to the world and lifting millions of people out of poverty; a sector which the Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, says is vital for our future because 'natural gas fired electricity can pick up where batteries and pumped hydroelectricity run short.'

This is a sector, Madam Acting Deputy President, which Suncorp refers to in its Responsible business report 2019-20, in a section entitled 'Responsible Underwriting, Lending and Investment: Sensitive Sector Guidelines'. In the same section of this so-called Responsible business reportit deals with cluster bombs, biological warfare, chemical warfare, child slavery and forced labour. Those things are in the same section as the oil and gas industry. How out of touch has Suncorp become? How out of touch with Queenslanders has Suncorp become?

What are we Queenslanders meant to think of this? Go no further than 4BC talkback radio on 21 August and my friend Scott Emerson's afternoon talkback radio show. Our quiet Australians are not so quiet about this travesty. Ray, who has Suncorp insurance products, after hearing the managing director defend the policy—or try to miserably—said: 'If he's not on our side, well, I'm not going to be on his side. He's making a political statement.' Wayne, with Suncorp shares, said: 'I'm fairly disgusted. Suncorp are just shutting the door on us.' I felt exactly the same way when I heard that Suncorp were taking this policy position.

I reflect on what some great Queenslanders who were part of Suncorp-Metway's journey would make of this. Former Premier Borbidge and former Treasurer Joan Sheldon actually pushed for the amalgamation of Suncorp with Metway. Great Queenslanders were chairpersons of the board of directors: Martin Kriewaldt and John Story, great Queenslanders; Ken McDonald and Erin Feros, outstanding legal representatives for the Queensland government; Tony Bellas and Jon Grayson, senior government public servants. I wonder what they would all think of this. I wonder whether they envisaged this for the great financial institution they helped create. It continued the legacy of something started all the way back in 1916 or 1917, when the Queensland government set up the State Government Insurance Office of Queensland to insure state government assets but also to provide Queenslanders with life insurance, general insurance, and car and home insurance. The other institution which was part of the merger was known as the Metropolitan Permanent Building Society and was established in the 1950s. Those two great institutions were brought together in 1996. I reflect on what all those people involved in that would think of this. I reflect on whether it was a mistake when in 2010 the then Queensland Labor government watered down the requirements for Suncorp to have a majority of its directors resident in the state of Queensland. I reflect on that because I think Suncorp has lost touch with how important the oil and gas industry is to Queensland. It has lost touch with its historical roots and it has lost touch with us Queenslanders.

But there is perhaps a path to redemption at hand. If Suncorp-Metway really wants to earn its social licence in Queensland, one of the things it could do is help Queenslanders—especially Queenslanders in North Queensland and Far North Queensland—to secure insurance. After all, as I said previously in this speech, the State Government Insurance Office was established in 1916 to actually assist Queenslanders to procure insurance. Fast forward to 2020 and we now have a devastating situation for many Queenslanders in my home state where they simply cannot secure insurance. I saw some advice from an insurance broker to the owners of a strata title complex in Far North Queensland. They sought to obtain insurance for the owners of those strata title apartments. Not a single Australian insurer would provide insurance in relation to that strata apartment block. Not a single Australian insurer. Suncorp said no. Vero, a subsidiary of Suncorp, also said no. The only insurer the owners in that strata title apartment block could find was a UK insurer at an exorbitant cost. That was the only place they could go to obtain insurance—to the UK.

What a far way we have come. What a far way Suncorp-Metway has come from 1916, when the State Government Insurance Office was established by the Queensland government primarily to insure state owned assets and provide insurance to Queenslanders. If Suncorp really wants to reinstate its standing amongst Queenslanders, the best way it can do that is to make sure that every single Queensland can access affordable insurance. Every single Queenslander has a right to affordable insurance. If you can do that, Suncorp, if you can recapture the spirit of the SGIO which was set up in 1916, I will be the first to rise in this place and sing your praises.