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

While world leaders gather in the United Kingdom this week at the G7 conference to discuss, amongst many things, the importance of climate change and decarbonising our economy, what does our Prime Minister, Mr Scott Morrison, do? He sneaks off and does a videoconference, a direct call, to the oil and gas industry annual conference—the APPEA, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, conference—and announces that 80,000 square kilometres of our oceans will be new acreage put up for the fossil fuel industry, to help our gas-led recovery. That's all the world needs to know. That's who Mr Scott Morrison is, but that's not who this country is. I've only got three words for the Prime Minister: WTF? Seriously? In this age of climate emergency, facing an extinction crisis, we get politely invited to a world summit to discuss how we can engineer and act and get out of this mess we find ourselves in, and, in the middle of that, this government announces 80,000 square kilometres of new ocean permits for the fossil fuel industry. At the same time, we've got the Beetaloo Basin being opened up—a bigger carbon bomb than Adani—and public money being put into it. I don't know why we even get invited to these summits, considering the travesty that is our lack of climate policy in this country. Some of the new permits are just five kilometres off precious places loved by Australians, like the Twelve Apostles in the Otway Basin off the coast of Victoria—five kilometres off one of Victoria's most prized tourism areas. It's a precious coastal ecosystem, loved by most Victorians, and we're opening it up for seismic testing and oil and gas drilling? You've got to be joking.

It's no wonder that Australians want to vote for change. I'm going to announce tonight, having just chaired and initiated a long-ranging Senate inquiry into the impacts of seismic testing on our oceans, that I will be introducing a bill in this place to ban all new offshore oil and gas acreage for seismic testing and for oil and gas drilling. If you don't think that's possible then just look across the ditch at New Zealand, because that's exactly what they did. They banned all new fossil fuel exploration that risks our oceans. How is it that, at this point in history, we can be making 80,000 square kilometres of our ocean available to explore for the same product that is killing our oceans—burning fossil fuels and causing rising emissions, warming oceans and ocean acidification? It is madness. It is sheer lunacy, and I say to Australians: you can protest, you can agitate, you can disrupt, you can defend and all those things are important, but every environmental problem is first and foremost a political problem, and this is a political problem of the highest magnitude.

Given the fact that a government would be doing this for the petroleum and fossil fuel industry in a time of climate emergency because of their close, cosy relationships with big donors in the fossil fuel industry and given, of course, the politics in this place of the National Party, who, by the way, in recent days, warned the Prime Minister not to lock in any binding emissions targets while he's at the G7—'Don't commit your country to climate action'—it's no wonder that former Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull called these people 'the terrorists within the Liberal Party' and said that they will blow things up when they don't get their own way. Call it a coincidence, but the timing of this offshore oil and gas acreage for the fossil fuel industry in the middle of the G7 stinks, too. I have no doubt at all, from my time spent in this place, that that timing is not a coincidence. It is designed to send a direct message to the donors to the Liberal Party and the National Party: 'All is okay. We will continue with business as usual. While I might be over here making vague promises to the world about Australia being responsible and being part of a global solution to tackle the greatest challenge of our time—climate change—I'm going to sneak off and present to the oil and gas industry 80,000 square kilometres of our oceans for them to go and explore for fossil fuels'. Well, it's not going to cut it.

I have seen in the last five years the changes to the oceans. I have seen things I never expected I would ever see while I was on this planet, let alone in this parliament, and I know a lot of other Australians have seen this too: in the Great Australian Bight and off the east coast of Tasmania, with the loss of our giant kelp forests. Half the coral cover is gone in the Great Barrier Reef after three mass bleachings in five years. Australians know what's causing this, and they are marching and voting with their feet. They are paddling out at beaches all around this country and protesting this age of fossil fuel exploration—this time in history when we must say, 'No more.'

We have to have a plan for transitioning and decarbonising our economy, and that plan is a positive one. It involves new industries, new job opportunities, new research and development and new entrepreneurial spirit. Mr Keith Pitt said in his media release today that this year's release provides opportunities for COVID recovery and for 'access to reliable and affordable energy both now and in the future'. The most reliable and affordable energy, and the energy solution for Australians and everyone around the world, has to be in renewable energy, from electric vehicles through to virtual power stations being run by millions of households with solar panels, with batteries and with systems to trade their power. That is the future: a decentralised, decarbonised economy that all Australians can rely on and participate in. They're just some of the many solutions available for the industries of the future. Agriculture, seaweed farming, industrial hemp—the opportunities are limitless if we change our mindset.

Instead, the government are opening up 80,000 square kilometres of our oceans, including off the coastline of my home state, Tasmania, and off the coasts of Victoria and Western Australia, even after we've been exploring these oceans for nearly 50 years, providing fodder for more profits for a few fossil fuel interests who are fighting a rearguard action at this time in history. They are trying to lock in as quickly as possible whatever they can because they know that the curtains are coming down. They know that the curtains are coming down very rapidly. They are in a sunset industry. It makes me furious that this government not only doesn't respect the international community's wish to get a global agreement on decarbonising our economies but also doesn't respect the wish of the Australian people. All surveys unanimously show that the Australian people care about climate action and want meaningful climate action, not opening up of our oceans to oil and gas companies. (Time expired)