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

Scott Reef is our nation's largest oceanic reef system. Some senators might be surprised that it's not the Great Barrier Reef, but it is indeed Scott Reef. It is also one of the most biodiverse oceanic ecosystems in our country. Underneath Scott Reef, precisely because of its geology, lies the country's biggest untapped conventional gas deposit, the Browse deposit. If developed, this deposit would underwrite the North West Shelf assets for Woodside, and the planned Burrup Hub. One project alone would emit 4.3 billion tonnes of carbon into our atmosphere. That is equivalent to 10 years of this nation's emissions—every car, every cow, everything, in one project.

Not only will the planned wells that Woodside want to drill—up to 50 of them within two kilometres of this precious ecosystem—risk the endangered and rare pygmy blue whales that migrate through this area, green turtles and hundreds of other invertebrates and marine creatures; we'll be burning those fossil fuels at a time where we've seen, on the east coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef record the highest ocean temperatures in 400 years and the seventh mass coral bleaching event in just over 30 years. It's almost hard to believe we are even contemplating approving a project like this. It beggars belief. It flies in the face of all the evidence and the logic we know.

For the senators who've said it's somehow some kind of stunt that we've put up a motion on this, let me tell you why the Australian Greens have put up this motion today. We know that this is a corrupted political system and that big companies like Woodside Energy always get their way in this place, and they always have. And if you think the EPA WA declaration that was given—or leaked—to the media, saying that this project cannot proceed because it is too risky, means that they're beyond political interference, think again. I saw, in the paper the other day, Mark McGowan standing with the CEO of Woodside. We know there's been political interference with the EPA's decisions before. They very rarely ever reject a project, but they have very clearly said this is too risky. Remember the Great Barrier Reef was declared a national park and World Heritage Area to avoid oil and gas drilling on its structures. Woodside and the other oil and gas fossil fuel giants that want to access these resources for their profits are insatiable, and our political system supports that. That is why we are bringing this forward.

If we accept and approve these projects—and it is in front of the federal environment minister as it is in front of the Western Australian authorities—we are condemning future generations on this planet to climate hell. Every weather record around the world is being broken. We're still seeing record temperatures in our oceans around the planet. We saw record temperatures in Japan this week, after record temperatures in China and across the Middle East. We are in a climate breakdown. How foolish and stupid are we to even think about approving a project like this? We owe it to future generations to stand up and say: 'No. We can do better than this. We are smarter than this. We are not going to corrupted by the greed of a company fighting a rearguard action to protect its profits and its shareholders' profits.'

To finish my contribution: that is why the major parties are losing votes. I heard Senator Birmingham reflect on that earlier today. This is why one in three Australians are voting outside the major parties. Labor's Future Gas Strategy was a present to the fossil fuel industry. The Greens won't stand for this kind of development. (Time expired)