Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Equinor—thank you, Senator Canavan—was the last one to pick up drilling licences from, I think, Chevron and Exxon. They simply made a decision that it wasn't economic to proceed with those explorations. They weren't government decisions. The state government and, to the best of my knowledge, the federal government had given those companies all the approvals they needed, but they made decisions, based on their own economic interests, not to proceed.

As I say, Barossa is now producing gas. Beetaloo is producing gas. I was recently at Santos's operations in the Cooper Basin; I think they're continuing to produce gas and, to the best of my knowledge, they are expanding their gas operations. In Western Australia we continue to produce significant amounts of gas. So I don't think Senator Canavan's characterisation of the Australian government's position is at all accurate.