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

Senator McDonald is nodding her head over there. You can fund resources companies and advocate for them, but they get on their planes and they fly out of those locations. That don't stay there and they do not endure some of the impacts of what's happening for those communities.

Traditional owners tell me about some of the instances where there are sacred burial sites that are being uncovered. We had the debate in this place yesterday about the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage laws. They're not only being uncovered by some of the cultural heritage surveys conducted in this country but also by the rising sea levels. Our island nations in the Torres Strait have also taken court action against the government in relation to these. There is also smog and emissions that come from these facilities that are eroding sacred rock art in my state of Western Australia. There are songlines that are being placed at risk because of the gas pipelines and wells that are disrupting these sacred places. Most importantly, they tell me that no-one talks to them. No-one comes out and asks them about what is happening in their land and in their sea country. They are not providing consent to these projects, in order to receive compensation for that—reparation.

I'm glad Senator Duniam raised the issue of money, because that is not happening for some of these groups. Whilst this bill pertains to the emission of the project and seeks to address this legislative gap, this opposition from traditional owners shows another legislative gap that the government and the fossil fuel companies are, in fact, taking advantage of. This bill seeks to fix the part that's unbalanced. Really, it's the least the government could do.

Beetaloo Basin has been given the green light by the Northern Territory government. They walked back promises to fully implement all the recommendations from the Pepper inquiry. That's before fracking even occurred in the Beetaloo Basin. We talk about the emissions. They have estimated this could increase the Northern Territory's emissions by 117 million tonnes of CO2 per annum—not overall, per annum. This is 22 per cent of Australia's annual emissions—with a 43 per cent target. Wow. It gets better. Let's talk about Woodside's Scarborough project in Western Australia. It is estimated that their emissions over the life of the project—until 2055, and, in fact, they are looking to stretch that out to 2070—is now 1.37 billion tonnes of CO2. It's going to bust that emissions target on its own by continuing to expand Pluto 3 and 4 at Scarborough. Narrabri in New South Wales could add almost 130 million tonnes of emissions due to its operations. On top of all these, it's also been reported recently there are methane leaks from gas facilities. These are not even being measured. The irony of this is that we don't actually know how much of it is leaking out, because people haven't been monitoring or measuring it. But what we do know is that methane is more potent than CO2. These things are completely unacceptable and that is why we are here as elected members, to make sure that we have legislation that is fit for purpose. We are in the middle of a climate crisis. It is here. Not one of these projects should continue to go ahead, let alone all of the ones that I have just listed. These are the climate bombs that we can't afford to let off.

I have not even yet mentioned the billions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies that the government provides and the millions of dollars that fossil fuel companies donate to the major parties. We know that. Every year that is reported, and Senator Waters does an amazing job exposing that for our team, so thank you, Senator Waters, for your amazing work. This means this whole system is completely broken. It's not just one thing. The climate trigger will enable us to look at these projects better, to look at the impact for the environment. Currently, in some dark, smoky room, as my colleague Senator Shoebridge would say, the industry has set up this system that's in favour of the fossil fuel companies, working with the government against the environment, against the climate and against traditional owners in this country, as I have already said. This system continues to cook the planet. It's destroying cultural heritage in this country. It pays big for a select few, while the rest of us are left to suffer the consequences.

There is, in fact, a long, long fight ahead of us, friends. For those people out there watching today, the climate wars are far from over unless we do something about it today, unless we have the courage and show the leadership that we have brought to this place by putting a climate trigger in the EPBC Act.