Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's my pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on this energy motion raised by Senator Pocock about Australian gas. As a proud senator representing the greatest state, Western Australia, in the best nation on this earth, I know how critical gas is to Western Australia's domestic economy. Gas powers 60 per cent of WA's electricity, providing energy for many businesses and homes. While the Greens continue to criticise gas, I'd like to read a couple of figures into the Hansard for their benefit. Australia's oil and gas industry contributes approximately $105 billion a year to the national economy and supports 215,000 jobs around Australia, including many in regional and remote communities and many in my state and Senator Ghosh's state.

Last week, in fact, I had the pleasure of meeting some of these workers, here with a delegation of gas industry leaders and local community representatives, who met with parliamentarians to share their positive experiences working in and with Australia's natural gas industry. To those workers I met: thank you for your time; I wish you well in your careers.

Unlike those opposite, the Albanese government is committed to fixing the gas market mess left by none other than the former government, that mob. In the previous term, the Albanese government took strong action on gas supply and price, ensuring more gas was available for domestic use. Thanks to the Albanese Labor government, Australia has a stronger heads of agreement with LNG producers so gas is offered to the Australian market before it can be exported; a reformed Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which can reserve gas as a last resort if there's a shortfall; stronger powers for the market operator so it can issue directions to gas industry participants to resolve an imminent supply shortfall; and the gas code, which has secured more than 644 petajoules of gas for Australian homes and businesses. We have also legislated emissions targets, reformed the safeguard mechanism and invested in electrifying homes. We are building renewables at record rates. We also published the Future Gas Strategy, which maps out the role of gas in Australia and for our key trading partners as we decarbonise.

The Albanese Labor government has done a lot to make sure there is sufficient gas supply. To be very clear, no gas supply shortfall has eventuated. The Albanese government is focus on practical solutions that deliver affordable and reliable gas to households and businesses. Successive governments have put in place a range of policies and regulations to manage a crisis of supply or price or both.

Now for the best bit—way back in 2006, former Western Australian Labor premier Alan Carpenter, a very decent man, introduced a policy where between 10 and 20 per cent of domestic gas from the reserves around Western Australia would be made available to the Western Australian economy. How's that for leadership? It wasn't done by the Howard government; it was done by the Western Australian Carpenter government. When speaking about the WA domestic gas reservation policy in the Western Australia Legislative Assembly on 27 September 2006, Mr Carpenter said:

That policy is good for not only the Western Australian economy because it will establish our energy security for the next 30 to 40 to 50 years and in the absence of that policy, there will be no energy security, but also the national economy because what is good for the Western Australian economy is good for the national economy …

How true is that, Senator Ghosh?