Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, and on that point of order, Temporary Chair, I won't bring it up again. I'm very happy to not bring this up again while it's being looked at. In relation to Senator Patrick's comments on Northern Oil & Gas Australia, in the last week of parliament I said that this looked like the perfect scam—in terms of Woodside selling an asset at the end of its shelf life, probably written off to next to nothing on their books, with a massive trailing liability. I can't comment as to the intentions of NOGA when they bought this asset except to say they obviously thought they were onto a winner in buying a production asset that may have had some prospective exploration. I think I mentioned that in my previous contribution. I would hope that they had done their due diligence and realised that they were buying into a significant liability over time, and that they had the wherewithal to deal with that in terms of raising equity or other finance.

But I certainly don't stand back at all from my comments about Woodside Petroleum. They must have known that this came with hundreds of millions of dollars—if not billions of dollars—worth of future trailing liabilities. They must have known that when they sold the business. But I do accept the additional information that Senator Patrick has provided today—that there were other failings, including with the regulator. There absolutely were. I participated in those estimates questions as well. This is a collective mess that we never want to see happen again. While we have this significant issue ahead for Woodside Petroleum and their shareholders, with the massive liabilities they have bought by purchasing BHP, this is an issue we absolutely must deal with and it needs significant public debate. Once again, I thank One Nation for bringing this forward and I look forward to continuing my contributions in relation to Senator Patrick's amendments.