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

I'm very pleased to rise today and introduce the debate on this private member's bill, fighting for Australia's coastlines. PEP-11, petroleum exploration permit 11, has become a bit of a political enigma—something unprecedented in our political discourse and history. There is only one fossil fuel project I can name that both the federal Labor and Liberal governments have publicly opposed, and strongly opposed: PEP-11, an oil and gas exploration project off the coast of New South Wales from Newcastle to Sydney.

Why did our current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, in November 2021, as opposition leader and Prime Minister in waiting, so emphatically and clearly say: 'A Labor government that I lead will rule out PEP-11'? He stood with surfers, clubbies and the community, posing for photos with 'Stop PEP-11' T-shirts. In the lead-up to the last federal election, Anthony Albanese told voters: 'PEP-11 doesn't make sense from an economic, environmental or energy perspective,' and even reiterated to parliament that the project:

… should be consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. … This is a complete no-brainer. … The minister should just do his job and say no to this proposal.

And then our Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, stood with a number of federal election candidates on the beaches of Terrigal and also came out and strongly opposed the project. 'The project will not proceed on our watch,' the Prime Minister said, adding:

From Newcastle through to Wollongong my Government has listened to the concerns of local … Members and candidates and their communities and we're putting our foot down.

His candidates—all five federal election candidates—also commented. Mr Trent Zimmerman said:

There are few things more important than protecting our marine environment and this is why PEP-11 has engendered such a strong reaction from the community. It's the right call and I know will be a relief for those who have been campaigning so hard against …

Mr Dave Sharma notably said:

Sydney's offshore oceans and future generations will thank us for this decision today.

Mr Jason Falinski, also no longer in our parliament, said:

I can assure all of those who live along our pristine coastline that they will continue to be protected under this government for this generation and the next.

Lastly, Lucy Wicks said:

I will not support anything that could harm our waterways and precious marine life.

Yes, they said these words, and the Greens completely agreed with them. Then, again, something unprecedented and extraordinary occurred, something never before seen in our political history: we discovered that our ex-PM assigned himself secret ministries and used these powers. As far as we're aware, it was the only time he used these powers to override his resources minister, Mr Keith Pitt, and he killed PEP-11—or so we thought. It was ironic, from my point of view and from the point of view of many other people, that the then Prime Minister used such a dodgy process to do the right thing by the planet, but there you have it.

All this begs the question today: why did both our current Prime Minister and our former Prime Minister so eagerly oppose and kill PEP-11? Was it because they cared, as their candidates so openly said, about the risks that seismic testing and oil and gas drilling pose to our oceans, coastlines and communities? I'd like to believe that was the case; I really would. However, given the complete lack of concern shown towards other risky oil and gas exploration projects elsewhere around our nation, off our coastlines, I'm not so sure, and I will address that point again in a minute. So—you guessed it—it was most likely driven by political motives: not losing votes and seats, retaining power and winning government. That didn't work too well for the Liberal and National parties and most of the candidates who stood on the beach at Terrigal.

Underlying this strong political current is a simple fact: these risky projects, especially in a time of climate emergency, are deeply unpopular, and the opposition to more fossil fuel exploration off our coastlines is politically salient. That is the message that we need to listen to here. There is a reason our former Prime Minister went to such extraordinary lengths to kill this project and why our current Prime Minister was first out of the blocks to publicly and emphatically oppose an oil and gas drilling project off our coastlines.

At this point, it's important to congratulate the community and other stakeholders who campaigned so hard and so long to stop PEP-11, who brought this risky project to such political prominence, particularly Surfrider Foundation Australia, Save Our Coast, Surfers for Climate, the Wilderness Society and many, many others. I thank them for raising the profile of not just PEP-11 but oil and gas drilling off our coastlines right around this nation. Without them, this sorry saga would never have hit the media or landed here in Canberra on 'planet politics'.

Just a few weeks ago we found out that PEP-11, although buried, was not dead or cremated. It's back. Yesterday in the House of Representatives, our Prime Minister was asked by my excellent colleague Libby Watson-Brown to reaffirm his commitment to killing this project. He didn't. His response—patronising and arrogant, as was pretty obvious to me watching the video—to my colleague, that it's up to the law to decide, made a mockery of his strong opposition and election promise to kill this project. There were plenty of ifs and buts there, but, hey, that's not what he promised. Why did our Prime Minister make such a clear and strong pre-election statement if he was going to fall back on it being a matter of law and procedure that was out of his hands? Did he overstep in his assessment and is now walking this back? Did he mislead the Australian people and New South Wales communities? Was he naive or poorly briefed? Does he perhaps have it all in hand, but he just doesn't have the time or doesn't care enough to explain this to my colleague, the House, the communities he stood up for and the Australian people?

None of these excuses are good enough. The community wants answers. Our advice is the Albanese government can make the decision to stop this project any time, legally. That's what the New South Wales Liberal government are publicly telegraphing, too, and, unlike our Prime Minister, they aren't faffing about; we've all noticed. Today the Greens want to make it clear and make it even easier for our Prime Minister and his government to stop PEP-11 once and for all. This bill, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022, if passed, will make this current proposal and any future PEP-11 proposal illegal in perpetuity. Even if we do stop this project, that doesn't mean in the future we couldn't have another proposal brought back. We've all noticed the ferocious appetite that oil and gas companies have for finding more of the product that, when we burn it, is killing our planet.

Given that both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party so publicly and emphatically opposed PEP-11, they should vote for this bill if, of course, they meant what they said. I'm not cynical enough after 11 years in this place to not be prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt—that you did mean what you said, as political parties, on those beaches in northern New South Wales, about protecting coastlines, beaches and communities from the risk of oil and gas exploration off our coasts.

And you would be happy, if you meant that, to apply this legislation to the precious marine habitats off the coast of King Island in Tasmania, off the Twelve Apostles or off the Otway Basin. The Schlumberger-TGS oil and gas exploration project plan for the Southern Ocean, for example, will be one of the biggest in our nation's history. They're about to go and blast 7.7 million hectares of ocean with seismic testing, hoping to find another North West Shelf sized gas deposit off the coastlines of Tasmania and Victoria, threatening southern right whales, blue whales and humpback whales, not to mention the commercial fisheries in and around that area, not only with the risk of oil spills but also with seismic testing, which this Senate has looked at in comprehensive detail, and all the risks it brings to marine habitats.

Already, fishers in Lakes Entrance in Victoria have suffered a reduction in whiting catches of 99 per cent after seismic testing. The same area reported a reduction in flathead catches of 71 per cent. Similarly, in Bass Strait, following a seismic survey in 2010, scallop fishers reported huge losses in catch, with the industry attributing a loss of 24,000 tonnes—worth $70 million to the Tasmanian fishing community—directly to the impact of seismic testing. This bill will stop that.

I ask again today: if it's good enough for New South Wales, surely it's complete hypocrisy to have double standards for other parts of our magnificent nation—Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia? If we meant what we said on those beaches in New South Wales, then we must understand that other communities around this country feel just as strongly about oil and gas projects off their coastlines.

To finish off, it's plain and simple insanity to keep exploring for the exact same product while knowing full well that, when we burn it, it is directly killing our oceans, as we have been lucky enough to know them in our lifetimes. It's got to stop. The science tells us clearly: we must leave all new fossil fuels in the ground and transition as rapidly as possible to clean energy. That's what the conservative International Energy Agency told us in 2022. That's the year that all new fossil fuel projects must stay in the ground, if we have any chance of meeting our warming targets of 1½ degrees. We know Australia's warmed 1½ degrees on pre-industrial levels. CSIRO told us that a few months ago. We're already seeing rapid massive changes in our ecosystems and habitats in our environment and extreme weather events. This is all happening already on a global temperature rise of around 1.2 degrees. Even 1.5 degrees is still a real problem, and we're well on track for much higher temperature rises around the world and nothing will suffer more than our oceans. It's got to stop.

This bill we have before us here today is a good start. In supporting this bill we will be fighting not just for our coastlines, marine environments and fishing communities but will be supporting communities right around this country to actually transition, show leadership and do what we need to do.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government, of course, doesn't support the bill that is currently before the chamber. I want to come to PEP-11 in a moment but the coverage of the bill is much broader than PEP-11. It would apply to petroleum exploration leases right across eastern and southern Australia. It would have a profound effect on our $90 billion oil and gas sector. The proposition that his government would support a blanket ban on oil and gas exploration and development is completely utterly unacceptable to the government. I want to make a few comments about why then I want to come to the issue of PEP-11. I respect the fact that Senator Whish-Wilson not only had a number of other particular potential developments in mind in his own contribution today but also other matters that he's brought to the Senate in relation to some of these developments.

We don't support a one-out approach of making special measures in Australia of knocking over fossil fuel development or oil and gas projects in Australia and that's because we support the global framework. That's because the position of the Australian government is that we, like the previous government and future governments, are signed up to the Paris framework. That means that we have to take measures for our own domestic emissions. Other countries, other companies, are responsible for the emissions that are created through their consumption of Australian oil and gas and coal and other products. It's an attractive slogan to put to people who are legitimately deeply concerned about the impact of dangerous climate change on our environment, on our welfare, on our security, on our safety. Its impact is felt very differently around the world. It's felt most dramatically in the Pacific and South-East Asia where efforts are focused on managing the impacts of changing temperatures, changing patterns and rising sea levels.

I spent some time last year in the Mekong Delta, where the impact of ever-rising sea levels in the flat, low delta is having a profound effect on food security, rural poverty and agricultural production. You could not have two more different looking river systems than the Murray-Darling and the Mekong. But 30 years of deep agricultural research between Vietnam and Australian industry and Australian government agencies shows our history of dealing with soil salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin means that there are very important research collaborations assisting their response.

It is legitimate to argue that the scale of the global response is not sufficient to meet the challenge. If that's the case then that is an argument for more concerted global action. That is an argument for nations to comply with their obligations and argue for more—

An honourable senator: Leadership.

leadership, indeed, because that's been lacking for the last decade. You don't take one-off action that undermines the cause of collective global action. It's at best wrong-headed and, at worst, it distracts people into a cul-de-sac of action. A bit of free advice on the environmental approach here—and feel free to ignore it—what it means is that, if people are focused upon this idea that cancelling particular projects and undermining Australia's overall response and the level of community support across the community for cohesive, concerted government action and they think that's going to assist the cause of global emissions reduction, that is entirely wrong. It undermines community support. It's big in some suburbs, but it undermines community support for action that delivers reduced emissions, lower energy costs, investment in the technology of the future and, critically, global cooperation.

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

Why did the minister commit to this?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to come to PEP-11 in a minute, don't you worry about that. In terms of the principle, in my view it is utterly wrong-headed to campaign on the basis of the climate response to particular projects in the way that Senator Whish-Wilson has described. I respect the fact that there are other reasons why local communities agitate on these issues, particularly in areas of deep environmental significance and areas where there are real environmental, biodiversity or other values—or economic values, indeed. I did hear Senator Whish-Wilson talk about there not being much flathead around in Tasmania. I can tell him that I am surprised and grateful that there were quite a few flathead around the South Coast of New South Wales over the course of January, and I caught some of them. Coming back to the debate, as a matter of principle, I think that's the wrong approach.

There should be an argument for broader global action—no quibbling with that—but countries of the world have to take action together. You can adopt that approach in the way that former prime minister Abbott did, which was an argument for no action, or you can say it's an argument for leadership. I can tell you, from the response of leaders around the world, Australia's return to a sensible, cohesive, active position in this debate is very welcome indeed. The last government and the two governments before that, the governments of Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott, were pariahs in the international community on climate action. They isolated Australia in a way that didn't just damage our capacity to be effective on climate; it also damaged our economic interest. They damaged our position in the region and they damaged, as has become very clear, our reputation in the Indo-Pacific in particular.

On the PEP-11 project itself, I'm required to say that there's a process still before the courts. Even though we're in the parliament here, there's a requirement to be circumspect about some of the matters that are before the courts. The core of the problem is what the former prime minister did over the course of the last two years. I do think that the position of the Greens on these questions is—I say it respectfully—wrong-headed in terms of principle; but you've moved from wrong-headed to wrong—just wrong.

The idea that a prime minister would so pervert the processes of government that he swears himself in secretly to a range of portfolios and the only action undertaken—the only thing that, so far, we know that this bloke actually did, the former member for Cook—the member for Cook; he's not gone yet, not yet—was this stunt, and he didn't mean it. He didn't mean it! He perverted the processes of government in a way that he must have known was improper and that he must have known would lead to endless court action. He must have known that it was wrong and he took the action in a way which undermined the stated public policy objective.

If you were fair-dinkum serious as a government about achieving the public policy objective that he claimed, on the beach with the sand between his toes in Terrigal, he actually cared about—trying to sandbag those seats—he would have gone to the cabinet. He would have had the courage of what remained of his convictions and he would have done what a sensible, proper prime minister does—that is, have a discussion with cabinet, have the courage of your convictions, make a properly founded cabinet decision. Instead, it was an improper, shonky stunt. Where are we now? We're where we always ended up with Mr Morrison: an announcement, some crude politics that people saw straight through, but an utter disaster and a legacy of more delay and more uncertainty, with Mr Morrison's legacy left even further in tatters.

Until the senators opposite, and their colleagues in the Liberal and National parties, really come to grips with how much Mr Morrison actually perverted the processes of government and what that means for their legacy, they haven't got a hope. They haven't got a hope, because one of the things you have to do, if you're going to be a fair dinkum opposition instead of a pretend one, is you actually have to come to grips with the legacy of your own government. And it was crook. At the beating, desiccated heart of that miserable government lay a person who centralised the processes of government so much and hid it from his colleagues, who perverted the cabinet processes so much that the government was not functional. It was a government by fiat, and it was enabled by all of these people over here—all of them. It was enabled by the leader here, by senior cabinet ministers, by staffers, by ministers, by backbenchers. They all knew what was going on but never had the courage to stand up to the bloke and say, 'This has got to stop.' Until you come to grips with that, you're not going to be a fair dinkum opposition. If you can't come to grips with that legacy, you're not going to be able to be a fair dinkum opposition.

On PEP-11, the government will follow the processes utterly scrupulously because that is the only way not to botch this process the way the former government did. (Time expired)

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022. I'm fascinated. I have just been listening to the contribution from Senator Ayres, which was all over the shop. I was hoping for a cohesive, logical debate about not supporting the bill, but instead he actually ended up supporting the bill by his comments. That's not very useful to me at all, but I guess you can expect nothing less of a very politicised government.

My concern is that this legislation and the Greens party are hell-bent on destroying the resources sector, the same sector that has paid $37 billion in salaries to Australians in the last financial year, in 2022. The same sector that pays $43 billion in royalties and taxes that pay for schools and roads and hospitals right across this nation. The same sector that makes up 11 per cent of Australia's GDP.

Australia has a robust approvals process. We have some of the highest environmental standards in the world for our mining and resources industry, and the state and federal laws have been designed to ensure that due process is followed; that we have a logical and coherent set of steps that allow for approval applications, approvals, appeal processes. I would say it's almost too lengthy because we also have some of the longest approval processes in the world. But it does provide an equal and level playing field for all projects. The important thing to note is that if we start legislating for specific projects we undermine that level playing field.

Senator Ayres made a comment around Australia's reputational risk. He was talking about a different topic, but I'm raising the reputational risk for investment in this country that comes from this kind of legislation. What we are saying to investors—and it doesn't matter if they're investing in coal or gas or critical minerals or renewable projects or agricultural projects—what we are saying to the rest of the world is that we would be a country that could not be relied on under its approvals process, that we are too risky for investment dollars. We rely on investment dollars. So this legislation is risking the very foundation that Australia is built on of taking capital, whether it be domestic or international, whether it be from institutions or mum-and-dad investors, that we are becoming unreliable as an investment destination.

On principle, we do not support using a blunt tool of legislative intervention to block a specific project. If this bill is allowed to proceed, it does set a dangerous precedent for parliamentary intervention on any project because we know, because the Greens have told us, that this will not be the last project.

If this bill proceeds, it is guaranteed that the Greens will come back to introduce bills to block other resource projects and development, and then the next and then the next. I'm sure it's an unintended consequence from the Greens, but—a very predictable response to this sort of legislation—the Greens are advocating for higher energy prices and higher cost of living, forcing manufacturing and well-paid jobs offshore and eventually energy shortages and blackouts across the nation. We have to be clear: this is the inevitable result of this piece of legislation blocking this project and then every other project that comes behind it. It is dangerous for Australia's way of life. It is dangerous for the income streams that we have come to know and rely on, because it is those royalties and taxes of a very highly regulated sector that allows us to have a high standard of health care, a high standard of education and many other government projects right across the country.

Proper process from government is what I'm advocating for. Project approvals must have a clear and transparent approval process, and, of course, we remain committed to an increased supply of gas, particularly as we are now in a current gas shortage crisis. The introduction of the price restrictions last year has already resulted in projects, whether they be import terminals or gas projects, not proceeding and investment uncertainty, and that is leading to gas shortages. The ACCC's most recent report has again indicated that, and respected commentators are making it very clear that we can expect gas shortages, energy shortages, later this year. This is incredibly serious.

Gas continues to remain a vital heating, energy and manufacturing resource for this country. These risks of gas shortages and blackouts increase across the east coast because of Labor's bad policies and rushed legislation. It is vital that we continue to develop supply to ensure that Australians can turn on the lights, power up the stove, heat their homes in winter. So further exploration is necessary to ensure long-term gas supply. However, the gas crisis is already on our doorstep and countless projects are now being torpedoed by Labor's destructive intervention and the government must do what they can to bring them back online.

We can see that the government has no interest in properly managing the gas and cost-of-living crisis facing Australians, and, through their policy decisions, we have seen approved and viable gas projects shelved or under review, further fuelling both the short-term and medium-term crisis. I'll name just a few. Senex's Atlas expansion in western Queensland is a proven gas field. It was forecast to supply 60 petajoules of gas to the domestic market, and it's on hold. An LNG terminal proposed for Port Kembla in New South Wales has also been put on hold. The Santos Narrabri project, which could supply half of New South Wales total gas supply, is also facing further challenges and delay. The Viva import terminal is at risk. The EPIK Newcastle import terminal has been shelved—a terminal capable of supplying 80 per cent of New South Wales gas demand.

I'm sure the Greens would love to introduce legislation to block all of these projects too. But these projects were critical to Australia's future gas security, particularly as the ACCC continues to forecast gas shortages across the east coast in 2023 and in future years. But the government's inability to work with industry to secure solutions is becoming more and more apparent. Rather than working to develop solutions that will benefit Australians, Labor and the Greens are content with ramming through destructive legislation, stifling debate, blaming others, but, most seriously, removing Australia's standing as an attractive investment house for important resources projects, which we have relied upon for generations to allow Australia to be the First World country that we are.

The transition that the government keeps talking about and that the Greens keep talking about is going to be some time in the future, and it is going to be without a bridge. We have no bridge to move from the current position to what the government has legislated for in 2030. What we have is a government that's ensuring that we're going to have shortages of gas, higher energy prices and power blackouts, and we know who we can thank for that. We can thank the Albanese Labor government—its sneaky deals, its rushed legislation and its lack of concern for planning for the future for Australians, Australians' jobs and Australians' way of life.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022, and I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for his leadership on this. I thank him for this opportunity to talk about what is such an important issue to Australians across the country. The IPCC and the International Energy Agency have been clear; the climate science is clear: we cannot afford any new fossil fuel projects. In this place and elsewhere, you'll hear that weaponised by the major parties, saying, 'If you say we shouldn't have any new fossil fuel projects, you are against fossil fuels; you want to take us back to the Stone Age.' That is not correct.

What Senator Whish-Wilson's bill, as I read it, is proposing is that, on PEP-11—where there is broad consensus from communities affected and from scientists and a very clear commitment at the election from the now Prime Minister that this will not go ahead—we should rule it out; we should stop this happening and we should stop digging, given we're in such a big hole when it comes to climate change. We shouldn't be exploring for new fossil fuel projects at the moment. We simply cannot afford to do that.

It's clear that there is strong local opposition to this project. I listened to Senator Ayres describing this sort of approach, opposing individual projects, as wrongheaded. I would respectfully disagree and say that there are thousands of Australians across the country that, because of a failure by the major parties when it comes to a sensible, timely response to climate change, have been forced to take a project-by-project approach, trying to stop damaging projects that are going to damage the local area and community but then also contribute, as was pointed out, to the global climate crisis, where we desperately need leadership. We need Australia to step up and say, 'Okay, no new fossil fuel projects.' It's been a big part of our economy in the past, but resources can and will still be a big part of it in the future. We can move into critical minerals. We can start processing iron ore here. There is a really exciting future for our resources sector, but not if we see the kind of climate that we hear scientists predicting, where we will be facing a mounting and spiralling climate breakdown and the types of extreme weather events that we're already seeing in Australia.

This 'wrongheaded' approach has been taken by farmers who stood up against Whitehaven's Maules Creek coalmine in Leard State Forest, which went ahead—in a critically endangered ecosystem—and farmers who stood up against Shenhua's proposed coalmine on the Liverpool Plains, one of our best farming areas. Those farmers were successful. They stopped that, and they celebrated that victory. We have ongoing pushback against Santos's CSG project in the Pilliga. Farmers, First Nations people—Gamilaraay people—are pushing against this new fossil fuel development in the largest intact dry eucalypt forest in Australia.

In 2023, given what we know about climate change, given the summer that we've just gone through—I would hate to know how little time Minister Watt has had with his family, given it seems that he's just flying from one extreme weather event to the next, having to talk to communities who are being impacted by climate change. This is here now. And, if we're willing to listen to scientists, we know it's not getting any better. We have to take decisive action on this.

We can't have our cake and eat it too when it comes to the climate crisis. We can't say, 'We've got adults back in charge'—as we've heard many times—'and we're going to deal with this crisis, but at the same time we're going to keep exploring for coal, oil and gas.' We've got Beetaloo, Browse and Scarborough coming online, we've got Narrabri which needs to be fast-tracked—we can't have it. Australians are saying, 'We want elected representatives to start dealing with this in a way that actually reflects the challenge that we face.' This is a huge, huge challenge. It's not going to be easy. We need politicians leading on this.

Again, I want to go back to how important it is that decisions that are made in this place are in the best interests of Australians. The former government argued against having a duty of care to young people. I, frankly, find that mind blowing. If we're not in this place to make decisions that are good for young Australians, that are good for future generations of Australians, what are we here for? Every morning we talk about thinking about future Australians and making decisions. New fossil fuel projects are not that. They are not that, and Australians expect more. We've heard about reputational risk. The biggest reputational risk we face as elected representatives is what we do on the climate and biodiversity crisis. There are many other challenges we face, and there is much attention being put on them, but future generations will judge us on our actions now.

We have never known more about the challenge that we face. We are one of the last generations to be able to actually deal with it, to make the changes necessary, to show the leadership that is necessary on a global challenge. It's happened before, and we have an opportunity to do that today. I urge the new government to step up and show leadership on this. Leadership is following through on your promises. It's ensuring that you're actually looking after the people who elected you to represent them.

Before the election, the now Prime Minister, talking about PEP-11, said:

Absolutely, we will stop PEP-11 going ahead, full stop. Exclamation mark. No question. Not equivocal. No ifs, no buts.

That was on the Central Coast. Here's a bill that will do that. Here's a bill that will respond to the millions of Australians who are concerned about climate change, the young people who are protesting and the young people who took the federal government to court, saying, 'You should be thinking about us when you make these sorts of laws'—the kind of bill that we're debating today. You can say to them: 'We hear you. You shouldn't have to protest. Politicians should be looking after your futures.' We have an opportunity today to do just that. I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for his leadership on this matter, and I will be supporting this bill.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been very interesting to listen to the debate in this chamber this morning on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022. Just to be really clear, we will not be placing a blanket ban on oil and gas tomorrow morning. This is not a responsible way to govern. We have stepped out a whole range of things on where we're going, but placing a ban on oil and gas tomorrow morning is not the answer. The transition to more sustainable energy sources needs to be done carefully. It needs to be done in a balanced way. It needs to be done responsibly. I think the eight months of this Labor government has shown that we are making significant progress after 10 long years of irresponsible action.

Oil and gas are going to play a part in our future. Our transport system, turning on the lights, cooking your dinner and using the internet all require us to have a sensible approach to the issue of oil and gas in this country. We support the international frameworks. We've committed to global emissions reductions, and we are establishing a more credible place for Australia in the world. We've been made the laughing stock for many, many years, and we are now changing that. We are now making those changes to get this country on track.

The last 10 years of stagnation from the previous government have been planet-destroying at worst and irresponsible at best. We are changing that. We have made moves already in eight months, and we will continue to make those moves, but we will make them responsibly and we will make them in the context of the global actions that have been taken by our colleagues. We'll be doing it so that we can provide sustainability and confidence that what we do is clear and transparent and has a meaningful and sensible pathway.

At COP 15, for example, we led from the front. We campaigned for strong targets and clear measurements, and we now have a global agreement to protect 30 per cent of our land and 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030. We're not looking at that and saying, 'This is it; we can all go home to bed now.' It is about crafting a pathway forward. It is about genuinely making a difference. We have secured a high ambition on restoring degraded land, inland water and coastal marine ecosystems. We have good targets on reducing invasive species and recognising island sites. We've successfully advocated for placing rights and interests of First Nations people at the forefront of nature conservation, when they've been ignored for so long. Large companies will be required to disclose their nature related risks and impacts. They will be held to account. Australia has led the way on these negotiations, pushing for an ambitious agreement.

But we are getting on with delivering the plans at home as well. Our 'protect and repair' program for the environment has been announced. The minister is taking serious action to ensure that we change the way that this country is dealing with those threats that we are all so clear about and that have been articulated in debates in this parliament.

We are implementing a stronger emissions reduction target with a clear pathway to net zero. Rewiring the Nation for renewable energy will enable those renewable energy sources to tap straight into the grid, and we will have cheaper, cleaner power. Our environment protection agency is going to be able to enforce our laws on the ground. We have had more than a decade of challenges, more than a decade of knowing that our environmental laws are broken, but we are fixing that. As I said, in eight short months we are fixing the problems that this country has faced for the last decade and longer. We need to get to net zero. We need to protect the planet, we need to do it responsibly and we need to do it in a manner that provides clarity for business and clarity for people who care about the environment and people who don't. We need to provide that clarity so that everyone knows what this playing field will look like.

Over the last eight months we have changed that playing field. Conservation organisations have welcomed these changes, and business has welcomed these changes. These are changes that everyone can see need to be made. The opposition left animals, plants and places without the protection that they need and hid the contents of the State of the environment report—and no wonder. Two years out from an election, releasing that report would have shown that nothing had been done and the country's environment was in a dire state.

On our approach to coal and gas, we aim to get to 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, and the detailed plans we have put in place will get us there. Our plans are clear and transparent and open for anyone to look at. New projects that do go forward will need to meet very specific requirements. They will need to meet rigorous environmental checks, which we are changing as I have set out. They will also need to comply with the safeguard mechanism reforms that we are currently consulting on. Our approach to reducing the emissions of our biggest emitters will be addressed through those planned reforms. All big emitters should reduce their emissions. The challenge we have in getting to net zero is a challenge for all of us. To be clear: the majority of businesses realise that this must be done so that their business can operate. This is not, as is claimed by some in this chamber, business-killing action—it isn't. It is about setting up Australia to operate effectively, efficiently, profitably into the future.

The reforms of the safeguard have been designed so that all facilities, whether they are existing or new, are required to reduce their emissions. New coal and gas projects covered by the facilities will be required to keep their emissions below their baselines from their first year in operation and their baselines will reduce over time on that pathway, as I've said, to net zero by 2050. This recognises that new facilities can use the latest technology. This is not about stopping things; this is about learning how to do things differently. This is about embracing innovation. This is about changing the way we do things—not just stopping things but utilising the amazing science and development industries that we have, to change the way that we do things, to move ourselves into a state of renewable, sustainable energy, to power this country from the resources that are indeed renewable. We believe this sends a very strong signal to investors, because we need investment. We need investors to see that Australia is an excellent place to invest in—that we can see the future, that we have vision and leadership, and that our leadership says, 'We will embrace the future and we will do it cleanly,' not that we will stop doing everything that people don't like.

The previous government's design for emissions reduction was seriously flawed, and emissions actually increased over time. The detail is important, and the commitment of our industries and our communities is really important. We are getting there. We are consulting with people, and we are getting very positive responses. Even organisations that a couple of years ago would stand staunchly against making emissions reductions are now coming to the party, and that is because they know that their future relies on them getting on board, changing the technology that we're using, changing how business is operated and preparing ourselves to be a leader of the future. The projects will meet both of those—the emissions reduction piece and also the environmental piece.

Senators may have noticed I haven't said 'PEP-11' yet. That is because looking at one single project does not give us the outcome that we need. Looking at one single project does not change the structure and shape of this country and how we approach energy into the future. The PEP-11 process is in front of the New South Wales court, which is its jurisdiction, where it is appropriately being dealt with. We will see how that plays out. My colleague Senator Ayres has stepped out the disaster of the past few years on PEP-11—the previous government, the politics, the grandstanding, the divisive actions, which all led to the mess that we see here today. Let's not forget that when the previous Prime Minister, the member for Cook, made his declarations, he wasn't just the Prime Minister; he was also the resources minister and held a bunch of other ministries as well, as we know from the mess that he created by feeling that he was the only one fit to run any of those portfolios, given his distrust of his colleagues. That creates huge challenges in our legal system and our parliamentary system. Secrecy and lies are not something that you will see from the Labor government. It is no surprise that we had come to expect this kind of action from the previous government and the previous Prime Minister—confusion, grandstanding and political pointscoring.

We are committed to following due process, respecting our legal structures and respecting our parliamentary structures. That is what we will be doing as a government. The PEP-11 process is in the hands of the New South Wales government at this point in time. That is where it is supposed to be and that is where it will be dealt with in the first instance. As we have done in the eight months that we have been in government, we will provide reliable, transparent processes so that everybody is clear about the future and so that everybody is clear about what we are doing and how we are doing it. We will not follow the previous example of chaos and mismanagement.

This debate has covered the issues of individualistic and systemic approaches. I think it's pretty clear from what I've said that the systemic approach is the one that will lead us into a clean and reliable future. The individualistic approach of just picking out your favourite projects, picking out the things you want to worry about on a particular day, is short-sighted.

Looking holistically at our oil, gas and renewable energy environment is leadership, not individual calls on individual projects that sit in another jurisdiction. Leadership requires responsibility. Banning oil and gas doesn't provide leadership, it doesn't provide responsibility and it doesn't provide certainty into the future. Yes, we are totally committed to net zero. Yes, we are totally committed to looking at a future that's cleaner, more sustainable, that people can rely on and understand exactly what's coming into the future.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

VAN () (): This bill should be opposed because it's only going to add to the cost-of-living pressures that all Australian families face. Most of these types of bills these days have, in parentheses, some misleading statement about the bill. This one is called, in mundane terms, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Fight for Australia's Coastline) Bill 2022. That should be amended if we are to be truthful to the Australian people to say, 'higher petrol prices for all' bill because that's what this would lead to. I don't know about other Australians but I did a lot of driving over the summer. It is eye-watering every time you fill up your tank and look at how much the bill is going to be. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford that but I cannot fathom how some struggling Australian families afford to just to fill up their car at the moment. It's costing more to fill up the car than it does to fill up your trolley at the grocery shop. It is an enormous bill going to hundreds and hundreds of dollars. It would be very rare you get to fill up the tank and don't have to put your pin in when you swipe your card because it's always going to be over the minimum threshold. It's very, very expensive.

How are we going to bring down petrol prices? How are we going to bring down the cost of living for all Australians? This bill doesn't do it. It definitely will not do that. It will only put pressure on those petrol prices because it will tell us that we will produce less oil and gas. If you want to bring the price of something down, you have to supply more of it. We need more oil and gas exploration in this country to help bring down petrol prices for Australian families and also to help provide energy to the world, which is suffering under the jackboot of Russian authoritarianism at the moment.

The Greens obviously have not got the memo that net zero is dead and the world is walking away from the commitments to restrict fossil fuel use and production, and it's doing so at a rapid rate. Just this week, the woke British oil and gas company BP has come out and backed away from its climate commitments. BP has been famous for progressively adopting over the last 10 years more and more stringent commitments to walk away from oil and gas. Indeed, a company that used to be known has British Petroleum has instead tried to get itself known as 'beyond petroleum' in recent years. This week BP actually came out and said, 'No, it's not 'beyond petroleum' anymore; it's 'back to petroleum'. They're going back to petroleum because, as the Financial Review reports today in its headline, 'BP dials back climate pledge amid soaring oil profits'. The article goes on to say BP 'was revising its plan to lower emissions by more than 35 percent by the end of this decade. Its new target is a 20 to 30 percent cut'.' Twenty to 30 per cent is a very big range for BP; it gives them lots of flexibility. The article mentions that BP, over the past year, has made $39.8 billion of profit. Shell has made $41.6 billion of profit; Exxon Mobil has made US$55.7 billion profit; and Chevron, $35.7 billion in profit. I don't want to see those profits that high. That is bad for consumers, bad for the economy. Good luck for those companies; they made the investments. They would be laughing all the way the bank over their net zero commitments. They convinced the world not to approve competitors to the big oil companies.

The Greens have been the greatest enablers of oil and gas companies in history, because, by successfully shutting down alternative sources of competition to the incumbent operators, they have helped to boost their profits. But the way to get those profits down—do you know the way to get them down?—is not by taxing them and not by restricting oil and gas exploration permits, as this bill does. It's by allowing smaller oil and gas companies to get into offshore petroleum areas and compete with these companies. That's how to get the profits down. That's how to get the prices down for consumers.

A lot of these companies—I've dealt with them a lot—are sometimes quite happy to, not publicly but behind the scenes, support bills like these. As I said, the Greens are the enablers of the incumbent large resource companies. These companies like to see some of these areas shut down because they don't want to see new, innovative and nimble smaller companies come in and compete with them to supply scarce resources like oil and gas. That particularly goes to areas like PEP-11, where a small company here is trying to get a start. It's not BP, it's not Mobil, it's not Chevron and it's not Shell. Those larger companies are quite happy to see the Greens do their dirty work by restricting competition in this space and therefore keeping their profits higher than they would otherwise be.

The Financial Review article goes on to say that apparently BP is still committed to net zero. Yeah, right! I'll believe that when I see it. It's very easy to make commitments 27 years hence when, as we know, their 2030 target is now seven years hence and they've immediately dropped it. We'll see what BP does in 2043 on this matter. I imagine that, if they're still making $40 billion of profits a year, they will quickly revise their goals and objectives.

The other area that of course has got the memo on this is the European Union. They are at the forefront—on the front lines—of Russian aggression. They had naively and ignorantly become far too reliant on Russian oil and gas over the past decade, and the war in Ukraine has brought to a screaming halt the dreams and visions of green aligned parties right across Europe to deliver on net-zero emissions commitments. Over the past year, countries in the European Union have announced plans to build 18 new liquefied natural gas facilities. We have a kind of schizophrenia here, where we have some—

Debate interrupted.