Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister, for the long time that you've been in here this week answering questions in this committee stage. I acknowledge that I haven't been in here for a lot of the time, so there is a lot of ground that's probably been covered that I'm also going to be covering now.

But I just want to start by setting the scene. From some of the debate that I've heard, there have been assertions by the government, I understand, that this bit of legislation actually isn't connected with facilitating new gas projects.

Obviously, the huge concern of the Greens and why we are willing to stay here for as long as possible is that it seems pretty clear to us that the point of this legislation is to facilitate new gas projects—and a massive new gas project in particular: the Barossa gas field, which is a carbon bomb which, if it went ahead, would result in the emission of about 13 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, about three per cent of Australia's current emissions.

Minister, can you clarify for me this assertion that, from what I understand from having been in here on and off during the last four days, this particular bit of legislation is disconnected from the expansion of gas projects?