Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, may I thank all of the senators who have contributed to the debate on the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023 and acknowledge the many perspectives presented by senators in this place. I note also that amendments have been circulated on the floor today.

Secondly, while I note that the contributions this morning and this afternoon have been broad-ranging, as is so often the case in a Senate debate, this is in fact quite a narrow bill. I wish to emphasise that this is a bill that gives effect to Australia's international obligations that arise out of amendments that were made in 2009 and then in 2013 to the London protocol. So my initial contribution will address the bill at hand before turning to some of the broader questions around climate policy that have been raised during the course of our discussions.

It's worth noting that the full title of the international instrument that this bill deals with is the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. So in line with our obligations under this international instrument, this convention, this bill sets up a regulatory framework to prevent marine pollution. Should this bill not proceed, there would be no serious regulatory framework to deal with the issues arising in the bill, so operators and researchers could look for loopholes and create their own initiatives without government oversight. This is particularly relevant for marine geoengineering activities, which are already occurring and for which greater oversight is needed as these activities increase in scale. I say this because it is in fact the status quo that poses the environmental risk. Without this legislation, there would be no processes in place for environmental assessment and approval or, after that, for monitoring and enforcement.

I make this observation too: the London protocol is a respected piece of international law. It's a gold-standard, best-practice agreement with rigorous environmental impact assessments that have a much broader scope than our current environmental legislation in relation to these matters. So following the passage of this legislation to prevent unregulated sea dumping, there will be many years of preparing for and undertaking assessment processes before any project could be begin to be considered. This will be in parallel with the work that needs to occur in the bilateral agreement or arrangement that would need to be negotiated with relevant countries. These agreements will need to ensure that they have appropriately captured the requirements and our obligations as set out in the London protocol.

During the debate, senators have made a variety of comments about individual projects. It is important to note that this bill is not about specific projects. As I have already noted, any carbon capture project of the type that this bill would regulate would not arrive for many years. Other senators have asserted that financial costs to the public flow from this bill. We have been clear that any project would need to stack up of its own accord if it were to proceed. I note that last October Minister Bowen redirected allocations previously provided by the previous government to subsidies for commercial development of carbon capture and storage.

As I said, today the debate has been wide-ranging well beyond this bill, which deals with a narrow set of circumstances. Many senators in their contributions have emphasised the importance of climate action, and for good reason. After the years we have experienced characterised by extreme weather, fires, floods, droughts and Commonwealth inaction under the former coalition government, more needs to be done. Our government knows that we need to tackle climate change here at home and in concert with the global community. We have shown that we are absolutely committed to our obligations under the Paris agreement and, importantly, to our communities, who want us and need us to act.

We know that our resource sector and heavy industry need to decarbonise. It is why we have legislated a path to net zero, committed to 43 per cent emission reduction by 2030, committed to 82 per cent renewables by 2030. It is why we have doubled the rate of renewable energy approvals. Through the Safeguard Mechanism, we have established a policy framework to deal with emissions from large projects which ensures that every large project is aligned on a trajectory to net zero.

Meeting Australia's net zero targets will take a wide range of tools and technologies. We have legislated our target, we have implemented policies like the safeguard mechanism, and we have provided funding and financing for policies like Rewiring the Nation and the Capacity Investment Scheme to help deliver on these targets. In June last year the government formally submitted Australia's updated nationally determined contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change including our new target to reduce emissions 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. We are developing six sectoral plans—electricity and energy, industry, the built environment, agriculture and land, transport and resources—that will map out in consultation with stakeholders and industry and community decarbonisation pathways by 2050 for each of these sectors and seek to maximise the benefits of climate action.

To return to the issues in the bill that we have before us, these amendments in this bill are necessary to ensure we have a comprehensive regulatory framework that protects our oceans, including environmental impact assessments, risk assessments and management frameworks to ensure best practice is adopted. It is important to get this right. It is not anticipated that international projects will come about for many years, but it is good public policy to put in place a regulatory system before industries emerge so that we are not playing catch-up. It ensures that the right governance is in place to administer permits for a comprehensive and robust application, assessment and approval permitting process for two things: the export of carbon dioxide streams from carbon capture processes for sequestration into sub-seabed geological formations, in accordance with the 2009 amendment to the London protocol; and, secondly, the placement of wastes or other matter for legitimate marine geoengineering scientific research activities, in accordance with the 2013 amendment to the London protocol.

Amending the sea dumping act to regulate the export of carbon dioxide streams from carbon capture and storage processes, the sequestration into sub-seabed geological formations and to regulate marine geoengineering research delivers greater public confidence in our ability to protect the marine environment from these emerging international activities. It would be irresponsible not to have a comprehensive regulatory system in place to ensure these activities are legal and to protect the marine environment, and it is for these reasons that this bill has been brought forward. I thank senators again for their contributions today. I understand that we are to have a committee stage, and I look forward to the discussions that will take place at that time.