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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This Bill significantly protects our oceans and takes effective climate action.

Australia's destiny is encircled by our seas, figuratively and literally. Most of our population live on or near our coastlines. Australians love our beaches, we love our oceans, they are such an important part of our culture. Our oceans also feed us, and dictate our weather, our fortunes.

As our oceans warm from rising fossil fuel emissions, the rapid changes we are seeing right before our eyes are frightening.

The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the past ten years, due to unprecedented marine heatwaves linked directly to rising emissions; this is something many of us didn't believe we could see in our lifetimes. Since 2016, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered four mass bleaching events. The most recent, just this year in March, took place during a La Nina weather event, a weather pattern that should bring cooler weather. Without radical climate action extreme weather events are expected to get much worse.

The loss of my home state lutruwita/Tasmania's millions year old giant kelp forest habitat, so critical to the billion-dollar abalone and rock lobster fisheries, is another brutal consequence of exploring and burning fossil fuels in a time of climate emergency. We are in an existential crisis.

This is why the International Energy Agency told us 2021 must be the year we end all new fossil fuel exploration. This is why the UN Secretary-General said following the release of the latest IPCC report we are "on the edge of an irreversible disaster" and are facing a "code red for humanity". It is insanity to be risking our beaches and marine life by opening up new areas of our oceans, to explore for the exact same dirty fossil fuel product that is cooking and killing them.

This was seemingly recognised by our previous Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his LNP government, when they recently stopped and banned oil and gas drilling in an area of ocean designated Petroleum Exploration Permit 11—PEP11—representing 4500km[2] of ocean and coastline, from Manly through to Newcastle. Communities and campaigners were gratified to hear then Prime Minister Morrison and numerous LNP election candidates declare that they would not be supporting offshore petroleum exploration in PEP 11 because they were "protecting local communities and the environment", their beaches were "too important to be put at any risk" and that the LNP would "safe guard this natural asset for future generations".

This sentiment was shared by the comments of the now Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who said "PEP 11 doesn't make sense from an economic, environmental, or energy perspective."

The Greens wholeheartedly agree.

However, there is nothing to stop the area of PEP 11 from being exploited in the future. Any proposed exploration would threaten critically important whale migration routes and dolphin habitats. This bill presents an opportunity for both Liberal and Labor parties to demonstrate their commitment and make good on their promises. PEP 11 is dead, and this legislation is a chance to, if I may quote Prime Minister Albanese once again, consign this or future projects to the dustbin of history.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, 31,000km2 of pristine ocean in the Otway Basin is also under threat. While I am gratified to see that no applications were made in the recent round of acreage releases, the Basin is not protected from future attempts. With potential sites just a handful of kilometres from the Great Ocean Road, one of the most famous landmarks in Australia—the 12 Apostles—could become synonymous with rigs and discharge flames. Just like off the coast of NSW, this project poses an unacceptable risk and is not compatible with community expectations.

And in my state of lutruwita/Tasmania, the oceans and fisheries off King Island are now at risk, as these precious waters are exposed to seismic testing and drilling.

This reckless disregard for the sanctity and health of our oceans has to stop.

If it was good enough for the Labor and Liberal Party to oppose and stop drilling for oil and gas off the coast of NSW, why not in the Otway Basin or off the coast of beautiful King Island? If our Prime Minister "got it" when he publicly recognised the risks of offshore fossil fuel exploration, he should apply this standard to other parts of our magnificent country and coastline.

Just last year, I led Australia's first parliamentary inquiry into the environmental and social impacts on our oceans and marine life of seismic surveys from oil and gas exploration.

It took three attempts to get the inquiry established, with evidence provided to the committee that government ministers were keen to avoid the scrutiny of a Senate inquiry, quietly getting concerned fishing stakeholders together with the fossil fuel industry, to hammer out an alternative to an inquiry and resolve differences behind closed doors.

Evidence also demonstrated that this secretive process failed to provide comfort for commercial fishing stakeholders who, after years of dealing with the oil and gas industry or their lackeys in government, had reason not to trust them.

For the first time ever, the Senate heard evidence from all stakeholders, from both the fishing and the oil and gas industries to environmental NGOs, governments, scientists, academics, and community groups.

The committee heard an abundance of evidence detailing the risks to our oceans and fisheries from ongoing oil and gas exploration. No witness disputed that seismic testing is potentially harmful and under-researched. What was disputed was whether this risk was 'acceptable', with the oil and gas industry and the regulator NOPSEMA saying this meant avoiding "permanent or irreversible harm". Harm is OK, as long as it wasn't permanent or irreversible!

But seriously, who would know, given the almost complete lack of historical research into long term, cumulative seismic testing impacts on fisheries?

I find it hard to comprehend that a trillion-dollar industry that has been conducting seismic testing for decades has hardly spent a cent on better understanding the impacts of their activities.

The committee heard evidence that the current regulatory framework does not provide financing for research, monitoring, or sufficient environmental or economic protections from the impacts of seismic surveying and gives too much latitude to a regulator who is perceived to be too close to the petroleum industry.

There are other voices though, not quiet but loud and clear. They are the voices of our coastal communities, and they have boldly said what their expectation of 'acceptable' really is. No harm is acceptable, too much uncertainty exists. We should proceed with caution. The principle that states that a lack of full scientific certainty should be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

Yet, where the government is concerned, in the absence of research, the onus seems to be placed on those who have concerns to prove damage, rather than the proponents or regulator having to prove it does no damage.

We are all here, in this place, as Senators because of a commitment to listen to all voices, and not just become enablers for private vested interests who donate to big political parties for their own benefit.

Fossil fuel companies can draw off extensive resources, utilising millions of dollars to pursue dangerous and destructive offshore drilling and seismic testing. Local communities, forced to fight for their future when those in power will not, have nothing like the kind of money at the disposal of these big corporations. But they have the Greens in parliament. We will stand with them every time.

What we see around the nation today is a David and Goliath stand-off, with a handful of multinational oil and gas industry giants on one side, and multi-generational local fishing communities and ocean lovers on the other.

Evidence abounds that the Australian community expects the precautionary principle to be applied in favour of the environment, not in favour of exploration and commercial interests, and be applied to any reasonable threat of environmental damage, not just a threat of serious or irreversible environmental damage.

The Australian Government has acknowledged that new research is important to understanding the broader impacts of seismic testing on marine ecosystems.

Particularly after recent research publications continues to highlight risks from seismic testing to commercial fishing species. Research undertaken by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies has raised significant questions about the impact of seismic testing on Southern Rock Lobsters. Research completed in 2020, partly funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, found that seismic surveying reduced whiting catch rate in the Gippsland Basin by 99.5%. So serious was the situation that the oil and gas surveying company was ordered by NOPSEMA to pay out fishers in Lakes Entrance. The evidence is building.

However, a newly elected government gets to decide if they will continue to hand out permits for offshore oil and gas exploration, backed with taxpayer subsidies, right around the country while being fully aware of this uncertainty, and while doing nothing to address this.

We are not prepared to play games with the future of Australia's coastline communities. The time has come for strong and meaningful action.

I urge all Senators to support this necessary bill to ban new offshore oil and gas exploration, I urge them to speak to marine biologists, climate scientists, coastal communities; their first nations elders, their fishers, those who care for the sea, they will tell you their way of life is under threat, and that their local economy relies on a thriving ocean, now increasingly broken by the burning of fossil fuels.

Australia would not be alone in taking such action.

In 2018, the New Zealand government banned all new seismic testing and oil and gas drilling off its coasts.

Denmark, the EU's largest oil producer, has also announced a transition to do the same, phasing out offshore oil and gas drilling by 2050.

Legislation has even been presented to the House of Representatives in the US.

Greenland, Spain, Costa Rica, France, Belize and Portugal have all implemented bans on new oil and gas exploration—there is no reason Australia shouldn't do the same.

Mr James Shaw, Leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa in New Zealand, on his nation's announcement, said:

"Today we have drawn a line in the sand and set our country on the path to a clean energy, low carbon future. This represents an enormous opportunity for the creation of new jobs and new technologies that our dependence on fossil fuels has held back for too long.

As we move towards a fossil fuel-free future, we will move together—communities, government and business alike… This is truly the nuclear-free moment of our generation, and the beginning of a new and exciting future."

There is no reason why Australia shouldn't be moving toward the same new and exciting future.

With a serious lack of research into the impacts of seismic testing and inadequate regulation, and in a time of climate emergency that consistently threatens our marine ecosystems, the Greens do not believe we should be risking our oceans, communities, fisheries and coastlines for the sake of a few profit-driven interests.

The community's expectations, combined with the clear evidence of unaddressed risks from seismic testing, should be reflected in strong action to legislate a narrowly focused amendment to the OPGGS Act that would allow for a ban in three areas of fossil fuel exploration off the Sydney Basin, Otway Basin, and King Island.

The Australian Greens will continue to fight for healthy oceans and coastlines, local communities and small business. Many senators here represent the areas affected; this is your chance to do something for the people you represent, and the critical ocean ecologies that need protecting.

It is our time in history to be making brave decisions, take the strongest possible action on climate change, and transition our economies and our communities to a renewable energy future.

Listen to your communities. Listen to the science.

Stop PEP11. No way in Otway. No gas across the Bass.

Take climate action, and support this bill.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.