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

[by video link] I think the minister belled the cat there at the end. It's about satisfying the industry. It's a pretty fundamental concept: you can't manage what you don't monitor. Transparency should be in our genes. What is the issue with getting companies to provide the kind of information that Senator Patrick is talking about? I have a lot of faith in Senator Patrick's ability to draft an amendment. I know he's spent a lot of time and worked very hard on this. Can I also say that a number of stakeholders have worked very hard with the crossbench, including with the Greens—indeed, with all political parties—to raise awareness of these issues. I would like to acknowledge the work of some of those stakeholders, such as Jess Lerch and Tim Beshara at the Wilderness Society; Nathaniel Pell, previously at Greenpeace, now with Surfrider; and the Australian Conservation Federation.

This is a significant matter of public interest, because these environment groups know that there is a potential liability not just to the balance sheets of Woodside and other fossil fuel companies but also to the environment. I think it's an interesting quirk that we've had a debate today on retrospective legislation, when what is it if it's not retrospective that the big fossil fuel companies now want to change the liabilities that they signed up to when they put these production assets in the ocean in the first place? It is 20 or 30 years down the track and now they want to leave them there; they want to change the game. Based on what we've heard in this debate, no doubt we're going to hear a lot more about legislation and what the industry want in terms of reducing their liabilities. So why not support an amendment that provides more information so that the public are better informed? The only thing that I can think of as to why the Labor Party and the Liberal Party would oppose this is that the fossil fuel industry oppose it, and the only reason they would oppose this is that it helps us better understand their future liabilities. That's clearly not something that they want to talk about or that they want in the public domain, given the liabilities that they will face in the future to clean up this mess in the ocean. The Greens will be supporting Senator Patrick's amendments.