Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have a follow-up question in relation to Senator Hanson-Young's question. I was wondering if this might have something to do with the timing of this bill, Minister, and I'd like to get your view on this. On 8 October, it was reported that Australia and Japan had met to pledge deeper cooperation on energy security and climate change during high-level government talks, where Labor sought to reassure Tokyo that future LNG supplies will not be threatened by its green energy policies.

That included these talks and Japan's Minister for the Economy, Trade and Industry, who, at the time, talked to the Australian media and stressed the need for Australia to have a stable investment environment. He discussed Labor's emissions reduction rules on future LNG projects, including the safeguard mechanism, and he discussed a number of issues, including CCUS, in talks with our trade minister, Senator Don Farrell, our energy minister, Mr Chris Bowen, and our resources minister, Ms Madeleine King. Interestingly, although he had previously raised concerns, which I mentioned in my earlier questions about Australia's relationship with Japan, these concerns weren't raised again following this meeting. In fact, he made a comment that, following the meeting with Senator Farrell, Mr Bowen and Ms King, he was now confident of a win-win scenario between Japan and Australia in relation to LNG investment.

Minister, I could read you more about these meetings, but, firstly, were you aware of these high-level talks between senior ministers in our government, which I note didn't include the environment minister but did include the resources minister, the trade minister and the climate change minister? Were you aware of those talks, and was the timing of those talks anything to do with the introduction of this bill through the Senate this week?