Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill amends the current sea dumping act. The amendments to the act proposed by this bill would enable a permit to be granted for the export of carbon dioxide streams from carbon dioxide capture processes for the purpose of sequestration into a sub-seabed geological formation in accordance with the 2009 amendments to the London protocol, and enable a permit to be granted for the placement of wastes or other matter for a marine geoengineering activity for the purpose of scientific research in accordance with the 2013 amendments to the London protocol. This means that fossil fuel corporations in Australia get a free ticket to ship their CO2 abroad for the purpose of sequestration or storage under the sea.

This bill is a gift to the fossil fuel industry. It allows the gas industry to use carbon capture and storage to continue its expansion, and let's these polluters launder their reputation. This bill represents the pure collusion between the Albanese Labor government and the gas industry by greenwashing what is actually the expansion of fossil fuels. This is written by the fossil fuel industry for the fossil fuel industry. Carbon capture and storage is nothing but a public relations campaign led by the biggest emitters in the world. The only purpose is to delay the closure of coal and gas. CCS allows these coal and gas corporations to pretend they're doing anything other than completely jeopardising our future on this planet.

In a report released last year of the 13 flagship CCS and carbon capture utilisation and storage projects, it showed that more than half of them underperformed, two failed and one was mothballed. During the inquiry into this bill, the Environmental Defenders Office submitted:

… policies such as CCS and geoengineering carry the risk of justifying ongoing use and extraction of fossil fuels, and strongly recommends they should not be promoted or encouraged in order to sustain the life of the fossil fuel industry. CCS in particular also carries significant risk of additional and unintentional emissions pollution in its operation, while the environmental and social risks of large scale geoengineering remain unknown.

In their submission to the Senate inquiry, the Australian Marine Conservation Society expressed concerns about the impact of CCS on marine life, highlighting the effects of infrastructure, seismic testing and a lack of clear regulation.

A prime example of the complete failure of CCS is Chevron's Gorgon CCS project, which sits off the coast of Western Australia. This project was due to commence in 2016, but they didn't start their carbon capture until 2019. Despite being years behind schedule and only reaching one-third of their promised emissions reductions, Chevron still receive millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for their project. The Chevron example is just one of many CCS projects failing to meet their targets already. CCS is not a viable method of reducing emissions at scale. It's a complete dud. It is a false solution that prolongs dependence on fossil fuels and delays their replacement with renewable alternatives.

Along with my colleagues, the Greens are incredibly concerned that this legislation appears to be motivated to primarily facilitate the Santos Barossa project, it's related Bayu-Undan CCS projects and other fossil fuel projects off Australia's northern coastlines, as well as provide this government and its mates in the fossil fuel cartel political cover to open up new areas of our ocean to fossil fuel exploration. Santos claims it's Bayu-Undan CCS project will have the capacity of 10 million tonnes per year. But the maths just doesn't stack up for Santos, if it sticks by its claim, to have the ability to capture more pollution in one project than all of the world's current CCS projects combined, having no proven track record of doing anything anywhere of this scale elsewhere.

The disastrous Barossa gas project, if it goes ahead, could damage ancient burial sites, dreaming tracks and cultural artefacts. I commend the Tiwi Island traditional owners, who've been fighting fiercely and relentlessly to stop this project from destroying their country. They have successfully won an emergency injunction to pause the Barossa gas project from going ahead, forcing Santos to pause its installation of the 263-kilometre-long gas pipeline. The destruction of tangible and intangible cultural heritage would be devastating to traditional owners, who have spiritual connections to significant sites, songlines, totems and ancient burial grounds. The power and financial imbalance between big fossil fuel companies and traditional owners is enormous and unfair, but this injunction buys time. That is critical because, once destroyed, the damage cannot be reversed.

This is not the first legal challenge Santos has faced in relation to Barossa and traditional owners. Last year Santos lost an appeal against a landmark decision that overturned approvals for its $4.7 billion Barossa offshore gas project. This begs the question of why the Albanese Labor government is falling over itself to rush to the aid of Santos. Santos, like the rest of the fossil fuel industry in Australia, continues to reap the benefits of its buddies in the major parties, with Australian state and federal governments handing over $11.6 billion—I'll say that again: $11.6 billion—worth of tax breaks and subsidies to help them along. Considering Santos has donated over half a million to the Labor Party from 2015 to 2022, that's a pretty great rate of return for them.

What do the Australian people get out of this deal? Well, off the bat, it's Santos paying no tax on its $68 million taxable income. In a cost-of-living crisis, it's absurd that the Labor government is prioritising the needs of fossil fuel companies like Santos while refusing to give more help to Australian families doing it tough. Add to this, we have the Santos CEO saying:

… oil and gas is going to be here whether CCS is here or not. That's just a fact of life—you cannot replace oil and gas.

So, to clarify: on the one hand, the Albanese government wants to increase CCS because of some vague commitment to stopping climate change, and, on the other hand, you have the CEO of Santos saying that actually they have no intention of ever stopping.

The fact that this bill is being rammed through parliament shows just the lengths that the Labor and Liberal parties are willing to go to to appease their donor Santos and the Japanese government investors in Barossa. This bill is a cynical and blatant attempt by the Albanese Labor government to facilitate more oil and gas drilling in our oceans. To pursue such an outcome, in the service of the oil and gas industry, is ecocidal. Our ecosystem is being crushed under the weight of climate change. We are seeing accelerations of climate catastrophes like never before. As the UN Secretary-General says, 'The era of global boiling has arrived.' The forecasts are clear and unambiguous: 2023 will be the hottest year in recorded history.

Earlier this year we watched in horror the catastrophic wildfires that ripped through Canada and Europe, and the devastation in Hawaii. In my home state of Queensland, the predictions of an early and destructive bushfire season are coming true before our very eyes, with hundreds of bushfires across the state and 80 per cent of the state at high fire risk. Gladstone, my home town, has not been immune, with fires in Oyster Creek, Deepwater, Mount Tom and Colosseum forcing people out of their homes. Central Queensland has been choked in smoke, and it's barely November. Bushfires are destroying homes and properties and devastating lives. Along with my colleague Senator Larissa Waters, I extend my sincere condolences to the families of the two Queenslanders who have died in the Queensland fires in recent weeks.

Fire seasons are getting longer and more intense, and it's getting harder to prepare adequately. The Albanese government must stop pouring fuel onto the fire. The Albanese government should be taking tangible, meaningful steps to fight climate change by ending the expansion of new fossil fuel projects. Instead, it has taken valuable time and energy to draft and bring forward a bill that appears to be written by the fossil fuel industry for the fossil fuel industry.

The Albanese government must implement the Greens recommendations to change the EPBC Act, including adding a climate trigger. Otherwise, bills such as this are nothing more than the Labor government caving to fossil fuel industry demands. The environment minister and the Labor Party need to stop doing the bidding of their fossil fuel mates and start doing what the Australian people elected them to do: to meaningfully act on climate change. Rather than favours for Santos, the vast majority of Australians want more action on climate change and they want an end to new coal and gas projects. If the government fails to deliver, there will be dire consequences for generations to come.

In 2018 I went back to Gladstone as a teacher. I remember early on that year I was teaching a course in work education, and part of the program that I was given for that course was to encourage students to participate in community debate. The question that was before students in that lesson was: should we continue to dig up and ship out coal and gas? Keep in mind that this was a class of students in Gladstone, in Central Queensland, a town that was built off the back of processing and exporting coal and gas. The students were asked to put themselves on a continuum—to stand at one end of the classroom if they thought we should absolutely stop doing that as quickly as possible and to stand on the other side of the room if they thought we should keep going. I simply asked the students to stand and place themselves somewhere on the continuum so we could start the debate. Out of a class of around 28 kids, 27 went to the far end of the room to signal that they thought we should stop digging up and exporting coal and gas now—27 out of 28 young people.

The young people in this country know that we cannot afford to continue to dig up and frack coal, gas and oil. They know that their future depends on it. They are looking to the adults in the room and the adults who are their political representatives to give them a future. We have every climate scientist, the UN and the International Energy Agency telling us that if we are going to give our young people a future that is livable then we must stop digging up and fracking and drilling for coal, gas and oil. This bill, far from doing that, gives cover to the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual. I was a teacher for 30 years because I care about our young people. It is about time this parliament showed the young people of this country that they too care about their future.