Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for your acknowledgement that your question may traverse old ground. I will provide a brief answer. The purpose of this bill is to implement our obligations under the London protocol, to which we are a signatory. There was amendment made to that protocol in 2009 and then another one made in 2013. The first of those, from 2009, seeks to deal with circumstances where there is a transborder movement of carbon dioxide. The reason sit eeks to do that is that, under those circumstances, the international community and the signatories to the protocol judged that it would be important that there be a shared commitment to proper regulation of any such movement. I should indicate that that is movement for the purposes of subsea storage. It applies narrowly to that category of purposes.

The approach taken under the protocol and reflected in this legislation is that, prior to any such movement being contemplated, there would need to be a bilateral agreement between the parties. That would be required irrespective of whether or not the parties were both signatories to the London protocol or only one of them was. The obligation on the signatories is to ensure that this agreement is in place and that it canvasses a range of matters relevant to safely and clearly identifying the arrangement that would be put in place for environmental protection and environmental assessment. Subsequent to that, the bill envisages that, should such an arrangement be put in place between Australia and any other country, there would then be a permitting regime established.

It is not proposed to narrow the application of these arrangements to some projects and not others. Essentially, the regime that's proposed would be available to any project proponent that sought to move carbon dioxide across national borders. The purpose of the regulatory arrangements is to ensure that, if that happens, there is an appropriate environmental impact assessment and a range of other protections in place.