Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table the explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have my second reading speech incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

For more than a decade, South Australians, ocean and nature lovers, surfers, the tourism and fishing industries, communities across the country, and the Australian Greens, have been fighting to protect the Great Australian Bight from Big Oil and Gas. We've fought off BP, Chevron and Equinor, and now we must win the ultimate protection—World Heritage Listing.

The Great Australian Bight is an SA icon and is home to a vast array of unique marine life, including treasured whale species and sea lions. 85 percent of the species that live in the Bight are found nowhere else on Earth. It is an essential calving sanctuary for southern right whales, and a feeding ground for threatened sea lions, sharks, tuna and migratory sperm whales.

Modelling has shown that an oil spill in the Bight would impact many Matters of National Environmental Significance. This would include up to 177 marine species, 47 species classified as vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered, and 50 coastal wetlands.

Thirty-eight marine reserves would be covered in sludge, resulting in the mortality of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and thousands of marine animals, including endangered southern right whales, blue whales, killer whales, dolphins, and endemic and endangered Australian sea lions. Hundreds of sea turtles would be dead. Hundreds—potentially thousands—of kilometres of shoreline would be covered in oil, causing extreme harm to both the birds that live on the coast and those that visit nearby.

This environmental devastation isn't the end of it. The Bight plays host to over ten thousand fishing and tourism jobs. These industries would be decimated and may never recover. That is why, all along the coast, local councils voted against drilling in the Bight.

Traditional Owners of the Nullarbor Plain, the spectacular Bunda Cliffs and the pristine waters of the Bight, the Mirning people, have staunchly defended their land, air and sea and the place of the great white Dreamtime whale Jeedara against Big Oil.

All of those directly impacted by oil and gas drilling in the Bight are supported in their opposition by more than two-thirds of South Australians.

We love our beaches and coastline and we want to keep them clean and pristine. South Aussies know that our beautiful Bight and coastline is worthy of protection and deserves World Heritage status to protect it forever.

We must ensure it is not put at risk again by any Government greenlighting new gas and oil developments. Right now, there are no active licences for oil and gas exploration in the Bight. There is no better time to protect it for good.

In 2019, our South Australian community stood up to big oil and told them they were not welcome. We won that battle, but now it's time to win the war.

This Bill would help protect our Bight from all offshore drilling for good. South Australians, and indeed the rest of the country and world, are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, and opening a new oil and gas field would only make that worse.

No longer should our coastal communities live with uncertainty, or have any risk of oil muck washing up on their pristine beaches. Any suggestions that our coastline, marine life and fishing and tourism industries should be put at risk for the profits of big oil and gas will be met with strong opposition.

Both the Federal and State Governments have been too slow to act, so the Greens are once again.

Our planet is on the verge of environmental and climate collapse. There is no time to lose in taking the action needed to save nature and humanity.

This Bill would give the Bight the protection it deserves, as well as ruling out new fossil fuels in this biodiversity hotspot, which is the only way we will stop irreversible global warming.

I urge Labor and Liberal to listen to voters and do the right thing for our environment, jobs, and economy—support this Bill and protect the Great Australian Bight for good.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.