Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the so-called Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. I've got to stifle a chuckle. It would probably be more aptly titled the 'Using Unproven Technologies to Try to Hide Climate Change Bill'. That would be a more accurate description of this bill, which from cover to cover is an exercise in greenwashing. I pity the poor person that has to come up with the titles for these bills, particularly when they're the opposite of what the bill is seeking to do.

What we have before us today is a con job that is there to facilitate more fossil fuels. This bill is an attempt to facilitate more oil and gas development in our oceans by pretending that carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is commercially viable and somehow an effective climate solution. More on that later. Again, you've got to laugh, or you will absolutely cry. Labor and the Liberals are ramming through this bill which benefits major gas giant and major donor Santos, and other fossil fuel giants. This is despite evidence that identifies CCS as a public relations con, merely a delay tactic by the coal and gas industry to pretend it's doing something other than jeopardising the future of this planet for its own private profits.

Pumping carbon pollution under the sea from gas rigs and storing it underground simply does not stack up. The importing and exporting of carbon dioxide for sub-seabed sequestration risks turning Australia's oceans and those of our near neighbours into dumping grounds for the world's pollution. We are incredibly concerned that this legislation appears to be motivated primarily to facilitate the Santos Barossa project and its related Bayu-Undan CCS and other fossil fuel projects off Australia's northern coastlines. As well as that, it's intended to provide this government and its mates in the fossil fuel cartel with political cover to open up new areas of our ocean to fossil fuel exploration. The Albanese government should be taking tangible, meaningful steps to fight the climate crisis by committing to no more coal, oil or gas and by ending the expansion of new fossil fuel projects, but instead it's taken the valuable and short time of the drafters to bring forward a bill that appears to have been written by the fossil fuel industry for the fossil fuel industry.

It's very telling that the Labor Party and the Liberal Party are in fierce agreement on this bill. We've seen mostly opposition from this opposition, but on this matter they are on a unity ticket. Nothing unites the two big parties like support for new coal, oil and gas. That's because they are both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the fossil fuel industry. You don't need to look much further than the $11 billion in subsidies given every year to the fossil fuel industry. It's taxpayer money, public money, being allocated to things like accelerated depreciation and cheap diesel fuel for fossil fuel companies—$11 billion every year. I thought we were in a cost-of-living crisis. Most people out there will tell you we are in a cost-of-living crisis. But we all know you can't turn off the tap of taxpayer subsidies for the fossil fuel companies! So we've got an absolute unity ticket from the two big parties on this bill to bury carbon pollution under the sea. Honestly, a three-year-old wouldn't think this up and think that it could work. We've got a unity ticket to continue giving $11 billion of public money to fossil fuel companies, even though they're raking in millions in profits and often not paying any tax at all, let alone the tax they should be paying under our pretty weak corporate tax structures. They're also ripping off their workers much of the time, I might add.

But we've also got the fact there is a very weak greenhouse gas reduction target in this country. It's not based on science. It's a political target. It's not a science based target. We saw the Treasurer in the last few days admit that we're not on track to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets or our Renewable Energy Target. We've also got both of the two big parties that accept millions of dollars in donations from the fossil fuel industry. Often you see many of the former ministers who, apparently, were meant to have been regulating the industry go off and work for industry once they leave parliament. There are countless examples of that. APPEA, the gas lobby, is headed by former ministers. In fact, some of the frontbenchers in the government used to work for Santos before they were elected. There's a revolving door between the fossil fuel industry and this parliament, and it absolutely stinks. It's why we've got bills today that will permit and seek to legitimise the ludicrous notion of burying carbon pollution under the ocean in an effort for onshore multinational corporations to claim that they're meeting their greenhouse gas reduction targets! Who can get away with it—burying it and saying it doesn't exist? Let's hope it doesn't leak. Let's hope there's no seismic activity that can lead to it bubbling up to the surface. Let's cross our fingers, shall we? What kind of a climate policy is that? What an absolute joke!

We see, today, a bill that attempts to subvert the effect of the safeguard mechanism. The government have taken the time to write this—or, again, perhaps the fossil fuel industry actually wrote the laws, and they've just changed the logo at the top! They've taken time to do this. They haven't taken time to draft a climate trigger in our environmental protection laws. They haven't taken time to actually fix our environmental laws. They certainly haven't taken time to write any other piece of legislation that says 'No new coal or gas'. Their priorities are speaking volumes, and it makes me sick.

I'm from Queensland, where sadly we've just had yet more people die over the weekend as a result of the bushfires burning in my state. We had about 70 fires burning a few weeks ago. We're down to 40 now. But it's really early in the season. Two weeks ago two people tragically lost their lives during bushfires in Queensland's Western Downs region, just out the back of where I live, in Meanjin. Glenda Chapman is one of those people; she is believed to have suffered a heart attack while attempting to evacuate from the bushfire zone. And Ulrich Widawski is believed to have died while defending his property in Tara. Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of Glenda and Ulrich. This sadness extends to the families of the 16 homes destroyed as a result of those Tara fires and the 350 people who had to be evacuated while 11,000 hectares of land around Tara were burnt. We're up to at least 58 homes destroyed in Queensland in just the last few weeks from these fires. The fire season started pretty early and it started early last year as well, in September. That leaves less time to do fuel reduction managed burns.

This is getting worse and worse, and this government's answer is a bill to let Santos and multinational companies bury their carbon pollution under the sea, while simultaneously giving them $11 billion of taxpayer money to shore up their corporate profits. Honestly, this is just ludicrous. I just don't understand what is going on in the heads of the people who are meant to be running this country. We see so many of them leave and go and work for those fossil fuel companies. I say to them: I'm sorry, but your job here is to represent the public interest, and, ideally, you should do it based on the science. When people are losing their lives, we demand better from you.

Yesterday, three people supporting the bushfire response in Queensland tragically lost their lives in the crash of a firefighting surveillance plane. These people were trying to help, and now they're not with us anymore. William Joseph Jennings was one of three people killed. He was a 22-year-old who was a recent mechanical engineer graduate. These Queensland deaths come after two firefighters were reported dead in New South Wales last month. This stuff is deadly. It's burning through tens of thousands of hectares of native bushland, with countless millions of native species lost. It's wrecking homes, and we're now losing lives.

Again, the coal, oil and gas frenzy that's supported by this government, with the complete sign-up of the opposition, is driving the climate crisis, and the climate crisis is what's making these extreme weather events more frequent, more damaging, more scary and more dangerous. I don't understand why they can't put two and two together. I don't understand why it's not a simple science based conclusion in the public interest to say, 'No new coal, oil and gas.' Australians voted for a change of government because they wanted a change of policy, including on climate policy, and so far they've been sorely disappointed. We face a really scary summer going forward.

This government's response to all that overwhelming evidence is to approve five new coalmines under Environment Minister Plibersek—and now a bill that will do the bidding of Santos and help encourage the burying of carbon pollution under the ocean, in some laughable attempt to pretend it doesn't exist. I might also add that the minister was arguing in court just a few weeks ago that she didn't have a duty of care to think about the future of our schoolkids when it comes to acting on the climate crisis. They want to bury carbon pollution offshore, they want to give $11 billion of subsidies to fossil fuel companies and they don't have a climate trigger. What are you doing, people? I say to the schoolkids who were up in the gallery just a few minutes ago: I'm really sorry that your government is teaming up with the fossil fuel industry and that the two big political parties are in lockstep to facilitate new fossil fuels.

We should be arguing about how quickly we should be transitioning off existing fossil fuels. That's the debate we should be having, and obviously the Greens want to do that as quickly as possible in a way that makes sure that no worker is left behind, that those resource based communities are asked what they want to come next for their community and that transition is planned arm in arm with those communities and those workers. That's the debate we should be having. Instead, we're begging you to not facilitate new coal, oil and gas in 2023. I've been in this place for a little while now, and I remember when last decade was called the critical decade for climate action. Well, it's 2023 now. What are we going to call this one—the really, really, truly critical decade? 'We're really not kidding this time.' I don't understand what is missing in this 'bozone layer', if I can be so bold, between the science and the two large political parties. I've already mentioned the large amount of donations that flow into their re-election coffers, and perhaps that has something to do with it, along with the incredibly overpaid lobbying jobs that no doubt await them.

I want to make a few other points. This bill, in particular, is really designed to get around the safeguard mechanism. Of course, the Greens sought and secured some strengthening to that safeguard mechanism, which imposed considerable additional costs on the Barossa LNG development. An estimated cost of between $500 million and $987 million out to 2030 would have been incurred by Santos. Boy, are they unhappy about that. So they've rung up their mates in government and said, 'Can you fix this for us, please?' and this is the bill that has eventuated. What an absolute sham.

A few of the non-government organisations who do excellent work have also made some comments about this bill. The Environment Centre NT says, 'This bill, if passed, will permit a new industry in Australia—the import and export of CO2 across international boundaries for subseabed carbon capture and storage. The bill is strategically significant since CCS is a crucial plank in the gas industry's sophisticated global strategy to maintain and improve its social licence by appearing to act on climate, while simultaneously opening up new fossil fuel projects against the advice of such bodies as the International Energy Agency and the IPCC.' I continue: 'This bill represents the Albanese government's collusion with and active pursuit of this gas industry strategy, including the greenwashing of significant fossil fuel expansion plans in Australia.'

What an absolute farce that here we are debating allowing the carbon pollution of new fossil fuels to be buried under the sea when most of my state is on fire, people are dying and you guys keep taking the money from the big fossil fuel companies. For shame.