Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to discuss the enormous potential of the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory. There is growing frustration amongst those of us who take a more reasoned approach to debate around resource development and combatting climate change through sensible, rather than hysterical, debate. For years now, the doomsday soothsayers have talked about the world ending. They have talked about the single greatest crisis facing humanity. They have told those of us who disagree with them and don't fall into line that we are all going to hell in a handbasket. They have told us that if we dare challenge their thinking then we are a denialist; that we are not worthy thinkers. I find that to be so condescending from a group of people who also champion free speech. I guess it is free speech as long as the speech is in agreement with those views.

Today, the front page of the NT News was headlined 'Battery investment' and, further inside, 'Half a mil to supercharge NT battery manufacturing'. It stated:

The Northern Territory government has announced a $500,000 grant to turbocharge investment in battery research and manufacturing.

The Territory's plentiful natural resources are also expected to become attractive to the growing battery sector, which is expected to play a crucial role in the globe's transition to renewable energy

Do we see the irony of that statement? Transition to renewable energy is reliant on the NT's natural resources.

Given the current public debate about investing in fossil fuels, it occurs to me that this is a classic case of applying the Animal Farm mentality—that is, you support government spending money in areas as long as it fits with your resource development philosophy. The fossil fuel industry is not evil. It doesn't matter if we're talking about intermittent generators, oil and gas, coal or even nuclear; they all have a role to play in the future energy needs of the world and they have an even bigger role to play in the manufacturing sector, something the government is currently trying to turbocharge.

Here is the absolute irony of the opposition to fossil fuel development. You might be able to keep the lights on using renewable energy, but you won't be able to manufacture or supply a wide range of products that modern society depends upon. The lefties would have you believe that we can simply replace oil and gas with so-called renewables or intermittent generators. But we all know and understand that the use of intermittent generators requires firming—that is, a source of power to provide power when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. In my maiden speech, I indicated my support for a nuclear industry. I even spoke about this yesterday. I am even more resolute now. If we are to have a zero-emissions target forced onto us, then nuclear will have to be part of the mix. It cannot be avoided.

Here is a stark comparison of nuclear versus an intermittent generator such as solar. In the Northern Territory there has been a heap of talk around the Sun Cable project. Sun Cable is located in the Beetaloo basin area, which is known for its cattle as much as its gas. Sun Cable will occupy 12,000 hectares. At full capacity, under ideal conditions—that is, no dust and temperatures under 24 degrees and full sunshine—it will generate 14,000 megawatts. The plan is to sell the power to Singapore. We can compare this to the NuScale small modular nuclear reactor, which has been the first to receive US regulatory final safety evaluation. The NuScale reactor will produce 1,000 megawatts continuously, 24/7, on 18 hectares. Sun Cable will be 47 times the size of NuScale in land area to produce similar output if operating 24/7, which it would be lucky to do for about one-third of the time.

Many of those opposite, and all of the disarray in the corner, would have us use no fossil fuels for anything, ever—and you could say, if we have intermittent generators backed up by nuclear power, why would we need to? Again, the irony here is that intermittent generators, and even power stations themselves, are constructed with products of the oil and gas industry. These products are used for a very wide number of products that modern society simply could not do without—things like plastics, fibres, rubber, explosives, solvents and a whole range of industrial chemicals. Methane, ethane and propane are all products of the oil and gas industry and are available in the Beetaloo basin. Imagine, even in this chamber, if all these products suddenly disappeared. There would go the carpet. There would go the glasses that you're wearing on your head. There would go some people's clothes. Phones, tablets, computers, shoes—a whole range of products that we use and rely on would simply not exist. This is not to mention some very vital uses of these products such as in medicine, food production, agriculture and vet science. In medicine, everything from syringes to implants to highly complex life-saving machinery relies on products of the oil and gas industry. We simply could not do without this industry.

We may well be able to generate power from other sources—ironically, made from the oil and gas industry precursor products—but there is a whole range of things that we take for granted in our modern society that we simply wouldn't be able to do. How many lives would be lost? We talk about losing lives from COVID-19 and, yes, every single loss of life is a tragedy. How many more lives would be lost if we didn't have access to modern medicine products? Even something as simple as going and getting the so-called 'jab' for COVID-19 requires the use of a needle and a syringe, made from—you guessed it—products of the oil and gas industry. Every single time you go into hospital there are thousands of products used in procedures, used in preparation for procedures, used after procedures, for every single operation or intervention that's done on a person—thousands and thousands of products of the oil and gas industry. If we clicked our fingers tomorrow and wiped out those products then how many hundreds of thousands—millions—of people would die?

I would put it to you that there is not a single person in Australia and around most of the world who doesn't use products of the oil and gas industry, apart from power, in their lives almost every single day. So this is the great importance of the Beetaloo Basin. Sure, the Northern Territory has plenty of uranium. We can generate nuclear power for many thousands of years to come. But what we have is even more valuable in the capacity to produce the products that everyday Australians and in fact everyone around the world rely on for modern life. Unless we want to go back to living in a cave and belting animals over the heads with clubs, we need products of the oil and gas industry, and that is the true benefit of the Beetaloo Basin.