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

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. I want to associate my comments particularly with those of my Greens colleagues Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Hanson-Young on this issue. To name this bill 'sea dumping' is a disgrace. It's a weak attempt, again, at greenwashing. It should be called the 'greenwashing bill', in fact, not 'sea dumping'.

This bill allows for the import and export of carbon for the purpose of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, as it's referred to. Before I go into the issues, I want to put on the record what this bill does. In fact, this bill does nothing about climate change apart from accelerating it. That's the only thing it does. This bill is the government throwing a bone to its international investors and to Santos because the changes that the Greens secured in the safeguard mechanism that Senator Hanson-Young already spoke about added significant costs and cast some doubt about the viability of the Barossa gas project in particular that is linked to the Darwin harbour and to the Middle Arm project that both sides of this chamber continue to support. They continue to do that. Santos is the only company that is wanting to export carbon for CCS on waters outside of Australia. The key element of the Barossa project is being able to use the depleted gas field, Bayu-Undan, in the Timor Sea for the storage of carbon which will be emitted from the Barossa gas field.

This bill is not the government using new technologies to fight climate change. This bill is, in fact, as my colleagues have said, about the government doing the bidding of the fossil fuel companies in this country and enabling dirty gas fields to be developed and to destroy our climate but also destroying First Nations underwater cultural heritage.

Let's start with Santos. They're proposing to drill and build a pipeline through some sacred songlines and some burial grounds. They originally failed to consult the traditional owners in the Tiwi Islands, leading to a historical case in the Federal Court that was upheld on appeal by that Federal Court. What a win for the Tiwi Islands people. As a result of this case, Santos had to go to the Tiwi Islands to talk to the traditional owners and consult with the traditional owners, not just send an email or leave a voice message, like they've done before, and have that unanswered. What I've been told by traditional owners is that they went there during the time of sorry business. Sorry business was taking place. Anybody that goes into our remote communities or any of our communities knows that sorry business is an important time.

The anthropologists that were engaged to conduct a report have left because they were appalled by the way Santos was asking them to conduct this process. They actually left the consultation process, saying it goes against standard practice and goes against the code of ethics based on the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018. When someone walks away from a project like that, you sort of have to think to yourself: 'Why would they do that? Why would they question that?' Because it's not ethical; that's why. You go into a community for a purpose, you want to capture a purpose and you use all of your power and all of your money to get the answer you want from that. You do not do that based on ethics. You do not base that on human rights and the human rights of First Nations people in those communities. It also goes against not just the Australian code for the responsible conduct of research but also the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research. So not only are we contravening the terms of the Australian code; we're contravening the terms of the code built specifically for First Nations communities.

Further, we have been advised that the people who were since engaged by Santos to complete this report were in fact only given a six-week turnaround. Imagine that: for a process that should have taken 18 to 24 months, Santos have said, 'Go into this community and ask about underwater cultural heritage, and you've only got six weeks to do it.' The traditional owners have told me that this information was not even collected in a culturally appropriate way. They didn't even talk to the elders and the knowledge holders, who were the right people to share that sacred knowledge. Instead, they went and spoke to people who happened to be sitting at a cafe or wandering the street. They talked to anybody who was willing to talk to them. They refused to pay people for their time and their knowledge, since Santos didn't even allocate any funding to collect any of stories in an appropriate way. This is business as usual for these types of corporations in our communities.

The traditional owners worked exceptionally hard. They've worked with their legal team. Senator Whish-Wilson has been involved in some of the listening, and I know Senator David Pocock has also met with Tiwi Islands traditional owners, as have others in this place, to hear about the extensive work that they continue to do. They want to make sure that people who are speaking with elders and attending workshops are doing so at events organised by traditional owners, not running consultations that are disrespectful. Elders are being told things like, 'There's nothing you can do to stop Santos from putting up pipeline through your 160-plus sacred sites, and nothing you can do to protect your underwater cultural heritage.' This has in fact caused so much distress for some of those elders that they've had to seek medical attention. It is so profound to hear how damaging that is when people are saying: 'There's nothing you can do. You have to sit back and let Santos take everyone for a ride.'

Does this sound like a company that needs a free kick from the government? I'll tell you what: this is the best gaslighting venture I have ever heard. This is gaslighting 101. It's that psychological abuse. It's that constant: 'Are you sure that's what you heard? No, I don't think you did.' It's the constant questioning. The narrative is always about destroying the psyche of those people, the natural resistance for them to stand up for country, for their land and their sea country, against a big corporate entity.

I want to take this moment to congratulate those traditional owners from the Tiwi Islands. They put up a mighty fight against Santos. They have put the importance of consultation with First Peoples front and centre in this country, and they have helped further the conversation about how we as First Nations people and our culture, especially intangible cultural heritage like songlines, fit into a western legal system. They are making remarkable change. Just last week, the traditional owners had another victory, and it's worth highlighting in this place while I have the time. An emergency injunction was granted hours before Santos were due to commence laying their pipeline. This was in response to NOPSEMA's failure to consider reports of underwater cultural heritage, songlines, burial grounds and, in fact, the first human contact for this continent.

How remarkable is that? That is Australia's story, not just First Nations people's, but we are custodians of that land and sea country. All of this is at risk if that pipeline goes right through the middle of that. I don't see anybody in this country sticking pipelines through cemeteries or the Shrine of Remembrance or the Australian War Memorial. That is not happening in this country. Why should it happen for Tiwi people? That is my question. My message to those traditional owners is to keep up this fight across this country, particularly Tiwi people, because you have us here in the Greens in your corner all the way. Taking on the fossil fuel industry is no small task. Traditional owner Antonia Burke said, 'We are the cultural giants'—we are the people taking that on—and she is absolutely right in her commentary.

This behaviour from Santos is disgusting and shameful, but we expect nothing more from them, because they're all about themselves. They're just another fossil fuel company that is solely concerned about lining the pockets of its executives and its shareholders at the expense of the climate, First Nations people and the environment, particularly in our oceans. That's why I have the Protecting the Spirit of Sea Country Bill 2023 as my private senator's bill. Another example of their disdain for First Nations people is their use of the highly respected Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri elder Uncle Moogy without his consent. Santos have done that: they've put Uncle Moogy up there as a pin-up saying that they're doing the right thing by First Nations people. They're convincing us that they care about blakfellas in this country, but their actions tell a very, very different story. Like I said, we expect this dodgy behaviour from Santos, but we don't expect this from the government. This government is giving them a leg up for this project, for Barossa, for Middle Arm, for Beetaloo. They're doing that. They're masking the climate action that is required, and that is shameful. They should come into this place and hang their heads in shame.

Mind you, this is support of a technology that has not been proven. Senator Roberts comes in here and talks about the science. It has not been proven to scale. It is not a viable option to reduce any emissions. All the current evidence points to solely that PR spin that Senator Hanson-Young talked about—the PR tactic to justify the continued use, the new and expanded projects, of coal and gas in this country. It is disgraceful. That's about as useful as CCS is. It's political and PR spin. This government should be taking tangible and meaningful steps toward fighting climate change, such as shutting down and not expanding fossil fuel projects; ending native logging, which my colleague Senator Rice talked so passionately about; investing in renewables; building new transmission; and reforming our environment laws. Yet this government is taking this so-called 'climate action'—wow.

CCS has not met any expectations either offshore or onshore. Perhaps the most obvious example I would like to talk about is in my home state of Western Australia. The Chevron Gorgon facility at Barrow Island, which is being propped up by the government, is the largest CCS facility in the country, and it's only running at one-third of its capacity—more wasted time, energy and public money. In spite of this, this government is pushing ahead with this bill and propping up that unproven technology. This government is sinking taxpayer money into a review of this technology when it already knows what it is. I think all of us sitting in this block of the chamber know exactly what that outcome will be, and we'll continue to fight for the truth to be revealed and the science to be listened to. At the end of 2022 there were 30 operating CCS projects in the world, and if they were operating at capacity, they would sequester 42.6 million tonnes of CO2 annually. This might sound like a lot, but it's actually only one-tenth of Australia's 2022 emissions.

It's important to note here that there are a number of operating CCS projects globally, including enhanced oil recovery, or EOR, which is where the technology for CCS originally came from. EOR involves pumping the CO2—and Senator Whish-Wilson already talked about this—into the wells and into these nearly depleted basins to get more oil out. It actually increases the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions. The takeaway from this, folks, for noting, iswhat these projects could sequester if they were at operating capacity, and the actual numbers are a lot worse. The Australian Institute estimates that, combined, all CCS projects globally may be sequestering only 6.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas per year. However, Santos claim that they're able to sequester 10 million just at their facility in the Timor Sea—how very ambitious of them! If only that were feasible or there were any scientific evidence to back up this claim! I find it very hard to believe that one project alone will store more carbon annually than every CCS project globally. This is all going to happen on your watch, Labor, as you're the government that are in power.

There are so many flaws in this bill and in the technology that it seeks to facilitate. The Greens cannot support this bill. It is greenwashing and it is a shameful move, as has already been outlined by my colleagues. The government is claiming to take strong action on climate change—it's a joke.