Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to support the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Compliance Measures No. 2) Bill 2013. Let me proceed in three brief steps. The principles which we uphold in relation to offshore oil and gas are very clear. The first is about the economy and energy security. We unashamedly seek to support energy security for Australia and the capacity to be an oil and gas producer and, potentially—certainly in the case of gas—exporter. These are good things for Australia and for the world. It is about human development. It is about the access to heating and cooling and all of the benefits which come with modern society. Encouraging and supporting a viable flourishing offshore oil and gas industry, with a particular focus on gas, is good for Australia, is good for human development and is one of the drivers of bringing not just tens but hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in India, Indonesia and China. That is a profound historic contribution.

The second of the principles is in relation to environmental safety, security and sustainability. Whilst we want to see genuine energy security and all the human benefits that flow from it, we do not want to make the trade-off where our environment is lost. That means we need strong, clear standards. This bill fairly and squarely addresses those standards as a consequence of the Montara incident and the Montara commission. We, for example, are categorically, clearly and implacably opposed to mining and offshore petroleum and gas exploration in the Barrier Reef. In my judgement it will not change in my lifetime or, beyond that, in generations. I think that that is something which will be an Australian standard for the entire foreseeable future across the full political spectrum. So our duties are clear on that side.

The third of the principles is to make sure that we try to minimise our emissions footprint. To the extent that gas replaces other forms of energy generation around the world, that is a way of doing this, but we also need to make sure that we have adequate measures. Where this broad bill addresses greenhouse gas storage—the act itself—is one way of reducing our overall national footprint.

Let me then move from the principles to the bill. The bill is a response to the Montara incident. I disagree with the member for Moreton, who made the point that it was a wild public overreaction. It was a very serious incident with very serious environmental consequences. I think it was well responded to by the authorities in general, but let us not understate the environmental incident nor overstate it. It was a serious incident. Having said that, we support the amendments which are proposed as a consequence of the commission—in particular, the alternative enforcement mechanisms, infringement notices, daily penalties for continuing offences; it is a tough regime. But our Australian companies have been, for the most part, outstanding. This was a case of negligence, and it is appropriate that there are consequences when there is significant damage to the environment. Let me restate that principle. We support the inspection regime. We support the statutory duties on petroleum titleholders. We support the regulator having the ability to take the necessary action and recover costs from the titleholder, and we support improving the effectiveness of insurance requirements.

Against that background, we also think that, in the future, there should be a one-stop shop for federal and state environmental approvals and assessments. In particular, I think we also ought to look—and here I move from policy to a personal view—at a single, horizontal, one-stop shop within the federal environment so that there is only one point of negotiation between a firm and the federal government rather than multiple agencies. I think a single coordinating agency for approvals, assessments and other activities would be far preferable to a multiple agency regime. That is a personal view as to how we can take the one-stop-shop concept in terms of federal-state relations to a true, national, one-stop-shop assessment. That would make the difference on projects, I think, such as Olympic Dam and Browse, where they had to run the clock for five or six years to get approvals and, in the meantime, the economic circumstances changed, the cost profile went up and the projects were lost.

That brings me, lastly, to the contrast between this bill and what we saw last night in the budget. The contrast is this. This bill is an example of good cooperation, and I thank the minister and his predecessor; they have both been very good partners in working across the chamber. By contrast, the entire carbon tax process has been a debacle. We saw a write-down of $5 billion of revenues because they had phantom revenue projections last night. However, there are still phantom revenue projections. The 2015-16 price of $12.10 in the budget and the 2016-17 forward carbon price of $18 in the budget are more than double and triple what the market is saying the price will be. In other words, there is still phantom revenue built into the budget, and that means a $2 billion black hole in 2015-16. The surplus is gone—evaporated; toes up; it no longer exists. And, in 2016-17—using, again, the forward price of the market, as opposed to the government's inflated phantom revenue projections—there is a $4 billion black hole. What we have there is the same thing as last year: phantom revenue, predicted, spent, but ultimately unlikely to eventuate. It is exactly what we said last year. Nothing has changed. Compare these two examples of phantom revenue with the way this bill was done on a cooperative basis with industry and across the chamber. There should be more examples such as the offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage amendment bill and fewer examples of phantom revenue for political purposes which is spent in advance and which ultimately evaporates.

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