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

I'm very pleased to rise today and introduce the debate on this private member's bill, fighting for Australia's coastlines. PEP-11, petroleum exploration permit 11, has become a bit of a political enigma—something unprecedented in our political discourse and history. There is only one fossil fuel project I can name that both the federal Labor and Liberal governments have publicly opposed, and strongly opposed: PEP-11, an oil and gas exploration project off the coast of New South Wales from Newcastle to Sydney.

Why did our current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, in November 2021, as opposition leader and Prime Minister in waiting, so emphatically and clearly say: 'A Labor government that I lead will rule out PEP-11'? He stood with surfers, clubbies and the community, posing for photos with 'Stop PEP-11' T-shirts. In the lead-up to the last federal election, Anthony Albanese told voters: 'PEP-11 doesn't make sense from an economic, environmental or energy perspective,' and even reiterated to parliament that the project:

… should be consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. … This is a complete no-brainer. … The minister should just do his job and say no to this proposal.

And then our Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, stood with a number of federal election candidates on the beaches of Terrigal and also came out and strongly opposed the project. 'The project will not proceed on our watch,' the Prime Minister said, adding:

From Newcastle through to Wollongong my Government has listened to the concerns of local … Members and candidates and their communities and we're putting our foot down.

His candidates—all five federal election candidates—also commented. Mr Trent Zimmerman said:

There are few things more important than protecting our marine environment and this is why PEP-11 has engendered such a strong reaction from the community. It's the right call and I know will be a relief for those who have been campaigning so hard against …

Mr Dave Sharma notably said:

Sydney's offshore oceans and future generations will thank us for this decision today.

Mr Jason Falinski, also no longer in our parliament, said:

I can assure all of those who live along our pristine coastline that they will continue to be protected under this government for this generation and the next.

Lastly, Lucy Wicks said:

I will not support anything that could harm our waterways and precious marine life.

Yes, they said these words, and the Greens completely agreed with them. Then, again, something unprecedented and extraordinary occurred, something never before seen in our political history: we discovered that our ex-PM assigned himself secret ministries and used these powers. As far as we're aware, it was the only time he used these powers to override his resources minister, Mr Keith Pitt, and he killed PEP-11—or so we thought. It was ironic, from my point of view and from the point of view of many other people, that the then Prime Minister used such a dodgy process to do the right thing by the planet, but there you have it.

All this begs the question today: why did both our current Prime Minister and our former Prime Minister so eagerly oppose and kill PEP-11? Was it because they cared, as their candidates so openly said, about the risks that seismic testing and oil and gas drilling pose to our oceans, coastlines and communities? I'd like to believe that was the case; I really would. However, given the complete lack of concern shown towards other risky oil and gas exploration projects elsewhere around our nation, off our coastlines, I'm not so sure, and I will address that point again in a minute. So—you guessed it—it was most likely driven by political motives: not losing votes and seats, retaining power and winning government. That didn't work too well for the Liberal and National parties and most of the candidates who stood on the beach at Terrigal.

Underlying this strong political current is a simple fact: these risky projects, especially in a time of climate emergency, are deeply unpopular, and the opposition to more fossil fuel exploration off our coastlines is politically salient. That is the message that we need to listen to here. There is a reason our former Prime Minister went to such extraordinary lengths to kill this project and why our current Prime Minister was first out of the blocks to publicly and emphatically oppose an oil and gas drilling project off our coastlines.

At this point, it's important to congratulate the community and other stakeholders who campaigned so hard and so long to stop PEP-11, who brought this risky project to such political prominence, particularly Surfrider Foundation Australia, Save Our Coast, Surfers for Climate, the Wilderness Society and many, many others. I thank them for raising the profile of not just PEP-11 but oil and gas drilling off our coastlines right around this nation. Without them, this sorry saga would never have hit the media or landed here in Canberra on 'planet politics'.

Just a few weeks ago we found out that PEP-11, although buried, was not dead or cremated. It's back. Yesterday in the House of Representatives, our Prime Minister was asked by my excellent colleague Libby Watson-Brown to reaffirm his commitment to killing this project. He didn't. His response—patronising and arrogant, as was pretty obvious to me watching the video—to my colleague, that it's up to the law to decide, made a mockery of his strong opposition and election promise to kill this project. There were plenty of ifs and buts there, but, hey, that's not what he promised. Why did our Prime Minister make such a clear and strong pre-election statement if he was going to fall back on it being a matter of law and procedure that was out of his hands? Did he overstep in his assessment and is now walking this back? Did he mislead the Australian people and New South Wales communities? Was he naive or poorly briefed? Does he perhaps have it all in hand, but he just doesn't have the time or doesn't care enough to explain this to my colleague, the House, the communities he stood up for and the Australian people?

None of these excuses are good enough. The community wants answers. Our advice is the Albanese government can make the decision to stop this project any time, legally. That's what the New South Wales Liberal government are publicly telegraphing, too, and, unlike our Prime Minister, they aren't faffing about; we've all noticed. Today the Greens want to make it clear and make it even easier for our Prime Minister and his government to stop PEP-11 once and for all. This bill, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022, if passed, will make this current proposal and any future PEP-11 proposal illegal in perpetuity. Even if we do stop this project, that doesn't mean in the future we couldn't have another proposal brought back. We've all noticed the ferocious appetite that oil and gas companies have for finding more of the product that, when we burn it, is killing our planet.

Given that both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party so publicly and emphatically opposed PEP-11, they should vote for this bill if, of course, they meant what they said. I'm not cynical enough after 11 years in this place to not be prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt—that you did mean what you said, as political parties, on those beaches in northern New South Wales, about protecting coastlines, beaches and communities from the risk of oil and gas exploration off our coasts.

And you would be happy, if you meant that, to apply this legislation to the precious marine habitats off the coast of King Island in Tasmania, off the Twelve Apostles or off the Otway Basin. The Schlumberger-TGS oil and gas exploration project plan for the Southern Ocean, for example, will be one of the biggest in our nation's history. They're about to go and blast 7.7 million hectares of ocean with seismic testing, hoping to find another North West Shelf sized gas deposit off the coastlines of Tasmania and Victoria, threatening southern right whales, blue whales and humpback whales, not to mention the commercial fisheries in and around that area, not only with the risk of oil spills but also with seismic testing, which this Senate has looked at in comprehensive detail, and all the risks it brings to marine habitats.

Already, fishers in Lakes Entrance in Victoria have suffered a reduction in whiting catches of 99 per cent after seismic testing. The same area reported a reduction in flathead catches of 71 per cent. Similarly, in Bass Strait, following a seismic survey in 2010, scallop fishers reported huge losses in catch, with the industry attributing a loss of 24,000 tonnes—worth $70 million to the Tasmanian fishing community—directly to the impact of seismic testing. This bill will stop that.

I ask again today: if it's good enough for New South Wales, surely it's complete hypocrisy to have double standards for other parts of our magnificent nation—Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia? If we meant what we said on those beaches in New South Wales, then we must understand that other communities around this country feel just as strongly about oil and gas projects off their coastlines.

To finish off, it's plain and simple insanity to keep exploring for the exact same product while knowing full well that, when we burn it, it is directly killing our oceans, as we have been lucky enough to know them in our lifetimes. It's got to stop. The science tells us clearly: we must leave all new fossil fuels in the ground and transition as rapidly as possible to clean energy. That's what the conservative International Energy Agency told us in 2022. That's the year that all new fossil fuel projects must stay in the ground, if we have any chance of meeting our warming targets of 1½ degrees. We know Australia's warmed 1½ degrees on pre-industrial levels. CSIRO told us that a few months ago. We're already seeing rapid massive changes in our ecosystems and habitats in our environment and extreme weather events. This is all happening already on a global temperature rise of around 1.2 degrees. Even 1.5 degrees is still a real problem, and we're well on track for much higher temperature rises around the world and nothing will suffer more than our oceans. It's got to stop.

This bill we have before us here today is a good start. In supporting this bill we will be fighting not just for our coastlines, marine environments and fishing communities but will be supporting communities right around this country to actually transition, show leadership and do what we need to do.