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

To follow up on that contribution, Senator McAllister, you mentioned, 'Should a project be seeking to export carbon dioxide across international boundaries', and in the final part of your contribution you said, 'If a company were to apply to do this'. Could I get clarification based on my questions yesterday around Mr Chris Bowen's comments to the media on 25 and 26 July. I will read them to you again.

As reported in the Financial Review, Mr Bowen said that the Barossa project, which is partly owned by Japanese LNG buyer JERA and is intended to ship gas to Japan, needed to be dealt with because it would produce more carbon emissions from one field than the entire Pacific islands. However, he said Labor supported passing special legislation that would allow Santos to send carbon dioxide from Australia to the Bayu-Undan oil and gas field in the Timor Sea. And then he said, 'We've introduced the legislation to enable that to occur.' I wanted to ask you, because you weren't able to answer the question yesterday—you said you hadn't spoken to Mr Bowen or his office or had those conversations, but it's been 16 or so hours since you said that—have you now spoken to Mr Bowen's office? Can you confirm that this 'special legislation' he was referring to in those comments is this legislation we're dealing with today?