Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also support this urgency motion moved by my colleague Senator McKim, and I wholeheartedly support the comments of our previous Greens speaker Senator Hanson-Young. Let's be really honest about what the Middle Arm precinct or hub is. It is a petrochemical and gas project. It always was—and always will be, if this government does not get serious and admit the truth. This project was hatched out of the 'gas-fired recovery' under the previous government in this place, the Morrison regime. It was hatched by, or was the brain-child of, Andrew Liveris, who worked with the Morrison government to create this petrochemical and gas hub, right there in the Middle Arm development in Darwin Harbour.

As to what we know about this and what we found out through the course of this inquiry that has been run by my colleague Senator Hanson-Young, I, respectfully, want to say to those in the government: stop greenwashing this. Stop greenwashing the fact that there are petrochemicals and fossil fuels. The 'gas-fired recovery' has just been reheated as your new Future Gas Strategy. That's all it is.

What you've done is to say to the Australian taxpayer: 'You're going to give $1.5 billion to make sure that industry is the tail that wags the dog of the government in this place.' And it continues to do that. The Minister for Resources continues to allow the fossil fuel industry in this country to dictate policy in this place. They continue that revolving door.

We heard Senator Brockman come in here and talk about meeting with the Japanese government. They have a transition plan. They don't want any more gas from us. It might be under contract, but they don't want that oversupply of our gas.

It's billions of dollars in their pocket, that they are making—to the detriment, mind you, of people like the Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation in Beetaloo, who attended this inquiry and said: 'We don't want fracking on our country. We don't want our gas being piped into Larrakia country, into Middle Arm.' The ignorance of these people! They've ignored the traditional owners who fought Santos many times in the Federal Court over the Barossa project, and ignored the Nurrdalinji people of the Beetaloo Basin, who've said the same thing: 'Stop ruining our water in the Northern Territory by fracking gas'—for export, not for domestic use. It's for profit, for your donors—the people that are happy to be the tail that wags the dog in this place. And that's what Middle Arm actually does.

We're not protecting sea country. We heard from many, many traditional owners: from the Larrakia people, during this inquiry into Middle Arm, who talked about the importance of protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage in the Middle Arm area. They talked about being locked out of that area under the Darwin LNG agreement. For many, many years, they haven't been able to return to that area.

For $1.5 billion of taxpayer money, we can fix the hospitals, as Senator Hanson-Young said. We can make the area a tourist hub. The ecotourism operators in this area have written a petition, which we supported, because of the destructive effect that Middle Arm will have on their businesses.

So for the Labor government to sit here and say, 'No, we don't agree,' is ridiculous. They don't care about the people in the Darwin Harbour precinct. They care more about Middle Arm—this petrochemical and gas hub—than they do about the local people.

We've already heard about the impact on air quality. It is all there—all that information is laid bare in the report that is coming as part of this inquiry. Stop giving $1.5 billion to these people—