Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everybody talks about going back to normal after this crisis. But I don't want to go back to normal on some things; I think we can do better than that. We have the opportunity to reset and transition our economy to a renewable energy one that creates thousands of jobs as we deal with a global recession, a pandemic and the climate crisis. Apparently the government doesn't see it that way. The make-up and focus of the COVID commission that is meant to be leading our economy is a dead giveaway on exactly what the government is focusing on coming out of the crisis—what is essential and what the government wants 'recovered'. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the commission is focused not on the real future but on going back to the future. The head of our COVID-19 recovery commission is deeply embedded in the gas industry, and his commission is stacked with big business and the oil and gas industry.

The climate crisis is still with us and will continue to be with us. We need a real plan—a plan for a future based not on the past, not on old fossil fuels, but on renewable energy. Gas is a fossil fuel. Burning and producing gas drives climate change and is not a transition fuel to a cleaner economy. Emissions from the extraction, processing and export of gas have been a key driver behind Australia's emissions staying so high. Just today a group of leading Australian scientists have written to the Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, saying that his support for gas as an energy source is not consistent with a safe climate.

In 2018, the WA government lifted the moratorium on one of the most invasive and destructive ways to get gas out of the ground: fracking. Whilst the WA government was making claims of protecting 98 per cent of WA, it has left vast areas of the Kimberley exposed to this controversial practice of fracking. This beautiful region that has long been in the sights of petroleum exploration companies who want to push the exploration of Canning Basin is at deep risk. Oil and gas fracking companies have compared parts of the Kimberley's Canning Basin to places in the US and Canada which have more than 30,000 oil and gas wells. The plan by Texan company Bennett Resources, owned by Black Mountain Metals, is to drill and frack wells in the Fitzroy River catchment. This would be just the beginning. They are pushing for a west-east gas pipeline that would open up the Kimberley to fracking, and the COVID-19 Commission has been talking to them about it. The Fitzroy River catchment, Roebuck Plains, Lagrange Bay and the Great Sandy Desert are in the fracking firing line.

There are lots of companies sniffing around the Kimberley. As I said, there is Black Mountain Metals, as well as Theia Energy, Buru Energy, Goshawk Energy and Squadron Energy. These companies see the Kimberley not for what it is—they just see fracking wells all over the place. Black Mountain Metals has plans for seismic surveys in 2021. They have had discussions, as I articulated, with the head of the COVID-19 Commission and are pushing the west-east gas pipeline. Theia are also exploring their options. Conceptual drawings show Broome to be the oil port, and gas would be piped south. Oil ports exporting this scale of resources usually have one tanker per day loading while two more are at anchor. This poses a great risk of Broome, its tourist economy and the fragile marine environment of Roebuck Bay. There are plans for a new proposed floating jetty, which also includes oil and gas and can be accessed 24/7, which current facilities up there don't allow. This has already been approved, conceptually, by the WA government. Onshore storage of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil would be required to achieve this sort output, again posing a significant risk.

We envisage a much different future for this country, one based on renewable energies that do not destroy our environment, that do not destroy this planet and that will actually contribute to addressing the climate crisis that we are also facing at this time.