Thursday, 18 May 2023

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (17:15): (187) My adjournment is to the Treasurer. The action I seek is for the Labor government to rule out any Victorian government money or support now or in future for the polluting brown coal Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain, or HESC, project. Why is Labor in Victoria doing deals with overseas corporations to expand our brown coal industry? It does not make any sense. In March the Victorian Labor Treasurer announced a $2.35 billion deal with the Japanese government for a project that takes our brown coal in Victoria to turn it into hydrogen gas for export to Japan. That is brown coal, the most polluting coal on the planet, and yet Labor wants to extend the life of this industry in Victoria. This project is an absolute disaster for our climate. If it goes ahead, it will put out emissions equivalent to 735,000 petrol cars being put on our roads. Right when this Labor government should be figuring out how to transition away from brown coal and away from fossil fuels, and support communities as we do it, instead they are signing deals to prolong the life of our coal industry. Labor says, ‘Don’t worry. The project won’t add to climate change because we’ll capture those emissions and we’ll bury them underground through carbon capture and storage.’ Never mind the fact that this technology – carbon capture and storage – has not been found to work at this scale anywhere in the world.

It beggars belief that Labor in Victoria thinks it is okay to support new coal projects. And this comes after Labor in Victoria has supported gas drilling near the Twelve Apostles; approved a new gas plant at Western Port Bay; lifted the onshore gas moratorium, opening up our land to dozens of new gas proposals; and supported offshore gas drilling in Victoria and seismic blasting. I have said it before in this place and I will say it again because there seem to be quite a few Labor MPs that simply do not get it: supporting new coal and gas in a climate emergency is criminal. It is not acceptable in this day and age to be opening up new coal and gas projects when we are facing climate collapse. We need to end coal and gas in Victoria, not prolong it, and at the very least Labor needs to stop supporting new coal and gas projects. Young people are watching. Future generations will judge us for what we do now in this house of Parliament, and supporting new coal and gas is being on the wrong side of history.