Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In the Albanese Labor government's first budget there was over $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, over $1.9 billion for the toxic petrochemical plant as part of the Middle Arm precinct and $2 million for new gas. Labor are showing Australians their love for dirty fossil fuel projects and, in fact, they're no different from the coalition. It is far from being sustainable when the so-called Middle Arm Sustainable Precinct in the middle of Darwin Harbour is planned to be a gas-fed petrochemical hub that poses serious environmental and health risks to those in the surrounding area. The industries this government has slated for this development at Middle Arm include: petrochemicals, processing, critical minerals processing, and carbon capture and storage, which we all know is a bit of a myth. Don't let the name of this precinct fool you; it is in fact a fossil fuel project.

The Petroni report estimates that the industrial hub itself could increase the Northern Territory's emissions by 75 per cent. But worse, it will increase the demand for some of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in Australia. Fracking in the Beetaloo and drilling the offshore Barossa gas field, this dirty gas is required to drive the petrochemical development, and these onshore and offshore projects in these fields will be exploited, with gas running through those pipelines direct into Middle Arm.

Exploiting the Beetaloo basin alone could increase Australia's total emissions by 20 per cent, at a time when we need to be transitioning to net zero. Comparable petrochemical precincts in the US, such as the one in Louisiana, have been dubbed 'cancer alley'; that is what they are called. Modelling shows that Middle Arm could increase industrial air pollution by over 500 per cent in both Darwin and Palmerston, resulting in $75 million of additional health impacts—direct links, no different, not separating them. This project is only three kilometres from Palmerston, where locals will be inhaling toxins produced at Middle Arm. This project could increase industrial cancer hazards in Darwin and Palmerston fourfold. We see an 800 per cent increase in carbon monoxide being released into the Greater Darwin region, and significant increases in releases of other harmful chemicals that have been linked to heart disease, respiratory conditions and in fact strokes.

Middle arm, just like many other projects that this government is throwing money at, is a dirty, fossil fuel project that does not deserve the Australian public's money. When many Australians are struggling to pay their rent and their mortgages, to put food on the table and fuel in their car, this government is now handing out public funds to foreign owned companies who will destroy our natural environment and wreck our climate. When many Australians can't afford to access health care, this government is lining the pockets of billionaires who are in fact making us sicker and in need of that health care. So while the government loves to give money to billionaires, much of that investment in Australian fossil fuel projects comes from overseas investors such as Japan and South Korea. The resources minister, from the other place, was in Japan recently, assuring foreign companies that their investments in Australia's fossil fuel is warmly welcomed here in Australia.

Middle Arm precinct is one of those 114 fossil fuel projects currently in the pipeline for expansion. Public money for Middle Arm amplifies the public money for the Beetaloo and Barossa basins to be fracked and those gas fields opened up. These projects all depend on each other. They are all, in fact, making and achieving net zero a fantasy in this country. Both the federal and the Territory governments have committed large amounts of public money to Middle Arm already. Of the money that has already been spent it has gone directly into the pockets of these fossil fuel companies, like Santos. Santos received $100 million in the previous federal government's budget for carbon capture and storage. I'm not even going to get into that yarn, because we don't have time today. But the previous federal government announced the $1.5 billion for this precinct in April.

The current resources minister couldn't wait to get into a helicopter, sponsored by Santos, and head up there in the first few weeks to support this funding continuing. This is what we hear from locals. She didn't even have the decency to contact her Labor colleagues from this jurisdiction to let them know she was flying in on this wonderful helicopter. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Minister King, said on 25 October that while the funding commitment to the Middle Arm industrial area was previously committed by the coalition, Labor would be funding it—not as a potential defence project but rather to get hydrogen and other goods in. It's a very vague comment from the minister. So it may be for hydrogen—maybe, potentially, possibly—for all those scenarios that she's floated. It's one of the things that's been talked about only as a possibility.

What she wasn't talking about is the fossil fuels that this project will actually support and use. The Labor government want an equity fund for this project, and they want the Commonwealth to have a stake in it. The Northern Territory government claims to be developing a 'globally competitive sustainable development zone for low-emission petrochemicals, renewable hydrogen, carbon capture and storage and mineral processing'. All that language is greenwashing—all of it. I don't even know how you get low-emission petrochemicals; I just outlined the health impacts for people living in Darwin and Palmerston, less than three kilometres away.

This government today has a very important decision to make: do they continue to throw billions of dollars at projects that wreck the climate, destroy the natural environment and cultural heritage of this precinct and, ultimately, make Australians who live in the direct area sick? Or do they commit with the same intensity to use public funds to transition this country to a cleaner future with renewable energy? Australians are demanding a green future. They in fact are sick and tired of governments using greenwash language and continuing to use the Australian public's money to prop up a dying industry in this country.