Wednesday, 16 October 2024

Bills

Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (14:54): Before lunch I had just started on my contribution. I was busy talking about the contribution of the member for Thomastown and talking about renewable energy and their passion for renewable energy, which is common across both sides. However, they are the recipients of the renewable energy that is produced in our regional areas, and that is why I was saying that you need to consider the thoughts and the businesses of the regional areas when you are building these solar factories or wind farms that Melbourne clearly is a beneficiary of. I just urge them to continue to consider those communities, which they are certainly not doing up my way at Meadow Creek.

This is the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. If there is an issue that is all over the place with this government, it is certainly gas. The Minister for Climate Action and Minister for Energy and Resources, who clearly hates gas and has said that on numerous occasions, is determined to stamp out gas, which is a cheap energy resource –

A member interjected.

Tim McCURDY: No, no. I think there is still plenty of gas around. Is that why you are doing this bill, so that you can store gas that is not there? It is a cheap source of energy. The minister, who clearly does not understand the cost-of-living crisis that mums and dads who are counting every dollar are going through, is not concerned about cheap energy for our communities, and gas is one of those. We know the Premier has been handed a ticking time bomb with the gas issue, and she has certainly flip-flopped with the gas process over the last few weeks. I think there were a few journos who ended up with a bit of egg on their face when they believed that the Premier really had backflipped but she had not and then she changed her mind and they did not know where they stood. But there was a bit of egg on some of the faces of the journos.

Victoria and Victorians do not know whether they are coming or going. The bill is a commonsense bill. There is no doubt about it. Building infrastructure to have gas storage at Golden Beach is a commonsense solution: storing gas locally for future use. Banning gas or not banning gas – that argument continues on in cabinet, and we are now storing gas for future use. What has changed in the gas debate? I do not think there is that much change in the debate itself. It is just good old-fashioned polling, and when the polling shows the government is in a bit of trouble, all of a sudden they need to backflip on a few ideas and start to look at commonsense issues like this to make sure they can remain in power. They are governing to remain in power, not governing for all Victorians, which we always hear them say. There are some examples of that.

I spoke earlier in the day and yesterday about the Queensland fruit fly program up in my area. That is about governing for Victorians, that is about giving support to communities where fruit fly from towns affects fruit growers who manage fruit fly on their own farms. But again they have ripped this funding away. and that is an example of communities that are just going without. While the government says that they govern for all Victorians, we know they do not.

Meadow Creek solar farm is another example. It is a solar factory that nobody wants in Meadow Creek. Of course we all support renewable energy, but who in their right mind would put 2.5 million kilograms of lithium iron in paddocks when that are going to end up with greater lead storage in the soil and in good waterways. It looks good on TV in Melbourne, but it does hurt the communities that are affected by it.

This bill will establish a pipeline and infrastructure to transfer onshore gas to offshore reserves for future use. Victoria does face gas shortages as early as next year. Normally that would not worry Labor at all because it is a fuel that they want to see not used in Victoria, but of course when you have got an election a couple of years down the track it changes things. All of a sudden you need to be seen to be supporting communities because energy is one of the biggest costs, our communities are telling us, in their cost-of-living concerns. As I said, all of a sudden, once we are two years out from an election, somebody says, ‘We’ve got to turn this ship around. It’s time to try to win some people back, because certainly the pendulum has gone too far to the left.’

This flash of common sense at Golden Beach natural gas storage involves filling it in the summer and drawing down on it in the winter, and again I suspect we will see the same thing in future generations with these solar farm factories that I have been talking about on prime agricultural land. Meadow Creek have invited the Minister for Planning to come. She says she cannot make it, which is an awful shame, because she needs to understand what these communities are saying, how they feel and the landscape, not just the reports that have been given, which we know are very inaccurate. Down the track I suspect future generations will say, ‘We can’t feed our nation, but we’ve got all of these solar panels on prime land. What will we do?’ In the meantime generations of farmers like the Conroys at Bobinawarrah will get squeezed out of food production, and they will disappear.

Solar factories cannot feed a nation. They will grow and they will be a scar on the landscape and a stain on our countryside. Young kids who want to be farmers, who dream of nurturing animals and growing crops, which is the true definition of a farm, will be resigned to moving away and working in town, because the farming sector and prime agriculture like Meadow Creek are demoted or downgraded to lithium ion panels. Not only do the government stand by and watch, they actively endorse and encourage this when we know these reports are so wrong. As we are in this planning phase and this application, I sincerely hope that the minister does consider all the submissions and be serious about making decisions that are going to be the best thing for the community – and Victoria, I get that. But it also has to be the best thing for that community.

As I said earlier, I have seen soil tests on farmland that has no lithium ion solar panels on it that show up to 22 units of lead in the ground, and where there are solar panels, underneath those solar panels there are up to 252 units of lead in the ground. They are issues that need to be taken into consideration. I think the damage that can be done will be irreparable. As I said, if you are going to govern for all Victorians, we need to consider the people of Meadow Creek, because that decision will be made in the coming months. That will not just decide Meadow Creek; it will be the foundation, the building block, and decide the future of tens of thousands of acres or hectares in the next three to five years.

When we talk about this bill, good governments should listen, understand and act. This Victorian Allan Labor government listen – they listen to friends, families, donors and supporters – but they do not listen to the local communities, the communities that have been affected, and businesses get hurt. And the government understand – they understand personal agendas. They understand political climates and outcomes, but they do not understand ramifications five or 10 years down the track and the families that are affected. And they do act – they act in the interest of themselves, beneficial to Labor ideals, but they do not act for all Victorians. They do not consider the long-term effects; they are just thinking about the next election.

This gas storage bill will have benefits for Victorians. However, it will have ramifications for local fishermen, and we heard that from the member for Gippsland East – Lakes Entrance fishermen. I do urge the government to listen, understand and act on the issues and the concerns that the Lakes Entrance fishermen have, because those local communities and local businesses are the ones that are affected the most when these programs and projects take place. I heard the member for Sunbury yesterday when he was speaking on one of the bills, talking about showing leadership and responsibility for all Victorians. Well, it is not too late for the Premier to show some leadership, meet with locals, consider our views, act accordingly and start governing for all Victorians.

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (15:04): I am pleased to follow on just after being mentioned and to have the opportunity this afternoon, after question time, to contribute to debate on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. This bill of course forms part of a wider package of investment and reforms that have been delivered by this government over a substantial period of time. The Minister for Police, who is at the table, is ever signing cards. I am yet to receive one of those cards, but I live in hope. This is a significant and important bill. It is a piece of legislation that has come to the house that goes to our security and storage and making sure that we provide for provisions within our state to know and understand what is happening, both within the market and of course within the context of energy supply within our growing state.

As other members in this house have mentioned, I have had the opportunity to speak on a number of bills over a significant period of time now that go to what is significant investment in terms of the transition. We know and understand, and it is in many ways incredibly disappointing, that we lost close to a decade of federal leadership in this space when it comes to energy supply across our country. What was incredibly disappointing I think for not just Victorians but people right across our great nation was indeed that lack of investment and leadership from what was previously the federal coalition government. What of course we needed in this space was leadership. I am very pleased, and I think that the vast majority of Victorians are very pleased, when we move about our local community as local members and speak to local residents about solar panels on roofs, about the delivery of factories and about the investment in wind technology, knowing of course that this market is something that is undergoing significant transition and is indeed a very important part of the equation that comes to supply. As I mentioned before, it is a dynamic, changing market that is in need of constant checks and balances.

This bill relates to gas storage by amending the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act ‍2010 to clarify that offshore underground gas storage is permitted in Victoria. This comes after a significant piece of work, a large body of work that has been done, to ensure that the technology, the provisions and the legality around storage are indeed provided for by this piece of legislation. It is not meant to be seen as a standalone piece of legislation that does not fit in with the wider narrative, with the important framework that is being delivered as part of energy within our state.

I have heard many references to the minister responsible for the portfolio. I do just want to say, as I think the member for Bentleigh said, that the minister is the longest-serving energy minister in the nation. I just want to put on the record my thanks for and acknowledgement of the work that has been done by the minister, her office and relevant departments and agencies, because what is incredibly important is that the government is listening to local communities, as I mentioned earlier, but also providing those options and opportunities for people to assist with what is a really important transition. That transition comes as there are challenges right across the globe with supply and of course challenges with cost. I do not think any member of this house or any member in the other place is by any stretch saying to local communities or under the assumption that this space, this sector, is not undergoing significant transition. Those pressures that are within communities are around cost and supply and the dynamic nature we are seeing within the energy market.

Not so long ago we had what was yet another severe weather event. These events not only harm the network and create increasing and ever-demanding issues within the transmission lines to get energy to where it is needed right across communities but increase costs when they happen. What we want to do as a team is ensure that we have got those provisions in place that go to both storage and delivery and the use of new technologies, whether it is solar and wind or batteries, as I mentioned earlier – those opportunities to make sure that we have got what is in many ways a nimble, flexible, dynamic way to generate and supply all of our communities right across our state safe, reliable and cost-effective energy.

It is incredibly important to understand that it is in all of our interests to make sure that all of the technology is used within this space and all of the investment in, as I mentioned before, if you think about it, what is a rapidly transforming environment. Think about what the debate must have been like even, dare I say it, 10 years ago or 20 years ago in this space, and think how far we have come in terms of a local community level but also from a network perspective. Using those technologies is of course incredibly important. I know when I studied science at uni many of the technologies that are in place today were never heard of. If we can think about what governments can do in terms of levers and in terms of opportunities for the next decade and of course many, many years after that, I think what we will be able to do is set in place a really important framework that will ensure we as a state are transitioning in a very effective way.

This bill is just one piece of the puzzle. It is one area which we know and understand, when it comes to gas and the pressures, and has been very well canvassed by the minister and others. This is an opportunity for storage, but as I said before, you can look at the challenges before us as a large piece of the puzzle. I am really proud to say that we have been part of a team that is absolutely transitioning in what is a very, very, very good way. That is not to say that everything is perfect, because of course it never is. We are making sure that we are working with communities and we are listening to and understanding, as I mentioned before, key partners in industry, and the advances in science and tech are of course an ongoing conversation that we are always prepared to have. Our door needs to constantly remain open, and we need to keep investing, whether it is through the budget process or whether it is through projects, programs and initiatives.

I have to say that when I move around my local electorate – Acting Speaker, I hope it is the same for you and all members of the house – having an opportunity to talk about that transitioning market is really important. There are challenges, and those challenges are exacerbated by severe weather events and by supply and storage, which of course can be a challenging situation with what is a growing population. But what we remain constant on is our determination to bring more renewables into the mix, to work with industry and to work of course with our partners on the delivery of the SEC, making sure that we are providing those opportunities for communities and –

Members interjecting.

Josh BULL: It has taken 9 minutes, but they have just fired up over there. They have gone from zero to hero over there, those three.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Josh BULL: I am excited that you are excited, member for Polwarth. I am excited that you are excited about our energy transition. There are all sorts of skits that I could see looking at you three, but I am not going to be drawn, not with 30 seconds to go. There are all sorts of references about the three – I am not even going to go there. This government remains focused on and committed to ensuring that we are transitioning in a safe, effective, reliable way. If it was up to those opposite, we would not be where we are today. I very proudly commend the bill to the house.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (15:14): I would also like to make some remarks on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. Victorians are terrified, and they are right to be. We are watching on our TV screens hurricanes decimate entire towns in the US, a stark reminder of the floods, the extreme weather and the bushfires that we ourselves have experienced here in Victoria and are very likely to see decimate our towns in the future. The climate crisis is here and it is here now. These impacts are what we are seeing at just 1.5 degrees of warming. Imagine what 2 ‍degrees, 3 degrees or 4 degrees would do to our beautiful state of Victoria and our lives. The earth simply cannot afford a single new coal, oil or gas project. You cannot put out a fire by pouring more fuel onto it. It is that simple.

But both our federal and state Labor governments continue to open the floodgates for new fossil fuel projects. They continue to support and approve new fossil fuel projects, and it is no wonder that people are turning away from Labor and from the Liberals in droves if they will not do anything to protect our future from the impending climate crisis. This is the context in which this bill is brought before us. The United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and even the International Energy Agency have said that no new fossil fuel developments can possibly be allowed if we want to avoid worsening climate disaster. Yet this bill that the Labor government has put forward is precisely about allowing new fossil fuel projects. By enabling new offshore underground gas storage, the bill will facilitate more gas drilling, production and consumption.

To explain this we just need to look at the project the bill has been designed to facilitate: the Golden Beach gas project off the coast of Gippsland here in Victoria. The Golden Beach gas project has two phases. Phase 1: GB Energy drills the Golden Beach gas field 3 kilometres off Ninety Mile Beach in Gippsland and pumps out about 40 petajoules of gas – that is about a quarter of Victoria’s annual usage. Phase 2: GB Energy converts that site into a gas storage facility, which it then plans to refill with gas to store for a rainy day. Essentially this bill is enabling the storage element of this project, but in doing so it also enables the gas drilling, which probably would not happen and probably would not stack up financially for the gas company without the storage part being allowed afterwards, which is what this bill is all about facilitating.

Both gas drilling and storage create all sorts of immediate safety and environmental concerns now and into the future. We know that oil and gas pipelines leak all the time. We have had three leaks off Victorian waters this year alone, and it is October. We are so worried about it that Parliament just passed an inquiry into how we decommission that ageing, rusting infrastructure which is leaking. Who knows what drilling the ocean and then refilling, pumping and refilling the wells again could lead to in our oceans. GB Energy plans to operate this site for 40 years, so that is 40 years of immediate risks to marine environment and 40 years of continually pumping gas into a climate that cannot afford it.

But the other thing is Labor’s plan to store offshore gas is not happening in isolation. We have had three oil and gas leaks in Victoria’s oceans in this year alone. They were all leaks from old wells and pipes run by Esso – or ExxonMobil as they used to be known. But just a month ago the Labor planning minister in Victoria gave approval for Esso to start another dodgy fossil fuel project, a new carbon capture and storage project off the Gippsland coast, without even assessing its onshore environmental impacts. That is right: Labor in Victoria has approved another fossil fuel project without needing a proper environmental assessment.

For anyone unfamiliar with carbon capture and storage, it is a failed, dangerous, multibillion-dollar Trojan Horse for the fossil fuel lobby to keep them in business. Instead of shutting down a coal plant or a gas mine and moving to solar and wind and clean energy, companies have said, ‘Don’t worry. Instead we can spend a ton more energy to capture a small fraction of our emissions, pump them offshore using leaky old gas pipelines and bury them in used wells under the ocean floor.’ I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Well, actually, a lot. Projects have tried to do this around the world and have failed miserably to store the carbon that they said they would. There is no guarantee that these emissions will not leak into the ocean and leak into the atmosphere. And yet this Labor government is exempting this project from environmental assessments. No wonder we are in a climate crisis with the Labor government here in Victoria making decisions like this.

Unfortunately, it is not the only dodgy thing that is happening with climate change in Victoria right now at the hands of this Labor government. Near Geelong the community is having to fight to stop a gas terminal in Corio Bay, a project that has been rejected once already and now has reared its ugly head again. This is a project that threatens to destroy Ramsar wetlands in order to import even more gas into Victoria. The project is completely baffling. There is no reason Australia should be needing to import gas. We already export more than we could ever use. More than 80 per cent of our gas is either sold overseas or burnt and used in the process of processing and then exporting that gas overseas.

The thing is, Viva’s terminal has already been rejected. Viva’s shoddy environment effects statement was comprehensively rejected by Geelong communities and environmental experts in 2022. Last year it was officially knocked back by the Minister for Planning, and communities thought this farce was over. But as Labor has now started rolling out the red carpet for gas companies, Viva is now giving it another crack. So again it falls on our coastal communities, climate experts and First Nations groups fighting for sea country to put their valuable time and energy into stopping these climate disasters again and again, one by one. The Viva gas import terminal is a disaster, but our movement is strong. The community have stopped it once before, and they will stop it again.

The context of this bill is very important. It comes at a time when scientists tell us that we should be getting off gas as soon as possible, that it is potentially even more polluting when it comes to climate change than coal. Yet Labor are enabling more offshore gas storage and approving onshore carbon capture and storage projects, and their actions are now also encouraging the possibility of another zombie gas terminal – and all this for billion-dollar fossil fuel companies who pay next to no tax in Australia, companies who continue to fight climate solutions tooth and nail and companies who ship 80 per cent of our gas offshore and force Australians to pay inflated international prices for our remaining 20 per cent.

It is true that here in Victoria we use more household gas than any other state. We also drill a lot of gas. We drill so much that we are still an exporter of gas to New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia. Everybody wants to make sure that households have enough energy to heat and cool their homes and their water and to do everything that they need in their homes. But the thing is, the government are now worried about medium-term gas shortages, which they say is the rationale for this bill – a problem which they could have seen coming. I am sure they did see it coming, but they avoided dealing with this problem, which they could have dealt with by reducing our reliance on gas over the last years and over the last decades, over which time we have known very much about climate change. We have known for a very long time the dangers of burning gas, and it is only in the last few years that the Victorian government has attempted to do anything to reduce our gas use. For decades the government has resisted calls to help households electrify. To their credit, the government in Victoria are now finally doing some of this electrification, and that is a very good thing. But it is late in the game, and it could have been happening years ago. It could have been happening decades ago, when we knew the dangers of gas, and right now it could be happening a lot faster to avoid the need to open new fossil fuel projects.

I am sure that Labor will say that this is unrealistic, but let us look at the receipts. Years ago I got up here in this place many times and called for the government to ban new homes from connecting to gas and to make them all electric. The Labor planning minister stood here in this place and laughed at me and belittled me, and a few years later what happened? Labor adopted the policy. Imagine the position we would be in now if thousands of homes had not been connected to gas in those intervening years. Years ago we called for incentives to switch homes to electricity and away from gas, particularly as more evidence came out –

Members interjecting.

Ellen SANDELL: I am sure those opposite would be very interested to hear this evidence about how bad gas is for kids in their homes, leading to huge increases in childhood asthma.

If you do not care about climate change, I hope you care about kids’ health and childhood asthma. While we really welcome all of Labor’s actions in their Gas Substitution Roadmap, unfortunately what has happened in the last little while is that Labor have been spooked by the Liberals and the gas companies running a scare campaign, and it has meant that Labor have backtracked on key pieces of their gas policies. They will continue to allow new gas cooktops to be installed in homes when old ones break down even though we know that induction electric cooktops are safer, healthier and should be now encouraged. For years we have been calling out the dangers of burning gas for the climate while Labor has continued to talk about the need to keep gas as a transition fuel but actually done very little to transition away from it – in fact it has had policies to encourage its uptake and use, such as connecting new suburbs to gas.

We should also lay blame squarely where it belongs, at the feet of greedy fossil fuel companies, who have captured governments and created this situation. We have an incredibly irresponsible and dangerous smear campaign from the Liberals against transitioning homes to electricity, and then we also have their gas lobby pals trying to scare people into using this deadly product.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Ellen SANDELL: It is deadly, member for Gippsland South. Just look at the Australian Gas Networks sponsoring MasterChef, when MasterChef around the world has moved to electric cooking and induction cooking because of the efficiencies, because of the incredible way that you can use induction for cooking and because of how fast and efficient it is. Instead, here in Australia we are so far behind the times that MasterChef is accepting sponsorship from Australian Gas Networks and then pulling out of moving to induction. Or look at the barrage of gas company ads that we saw during the AFL Grand Final broadcast. I was absolutely gobsmacked watching the AFL Grand Final and seeing gas ad after gas ad after gas ad. They know that they are on a losing wicket. They know that their product is dangerous, and they are holding on, tooth and nail, to try and keep their market share. But how absolutely dangerous and irresponsible.

Instead of helping with the urgent transition that we should all be working on together, gas companies are spending millions of dollars lying to people, trying to trick people into thinking somehow that gas is clean, when we know the science is incredibly clear on how much it contributes to climate change. We know that it is a deadly fossil fuel that is fuelling the climate crisis. This is akin to asbestos companies advertising during The Block or tobacco companies sponsoring Play School. It is deeply irresponsible, and history will not look back on them kindly. Gas companies know their product is on the way out, and they are desperately advertising to keep it alive, even if it kills people, even if it causes climate change, even if it causes childhood asthma in the meantime. It is disgusting, and I do not think that Labor should be giving in to these scare campaigns.

We could be here today passing a bill that requires all homes to be electrified faster so there is no gas shortage and then allocating resources to ensure that households have the resources they need to do that transition, because we are all in this together. It would take stronger leadership – that is true – it would mean taking on the gas companies, it would mean standing up to the Liberal scare campaign and it would mean facing down the Herald Sun, but it could be done. We could even make the gas companies, which pay very little in tax in Australia and which are responsible for this crisis, actually pay for it. We could even force them to electrify their liquefied natural gas plants, like some have done in Queensland, to free up supply. So much of our gas goes to just processing and exporting our gas. What a waste. If we say there is a crisis, why don’t we electrify those LNG plants, as can be done – because it has been done in Queensland – and then save that gas? But no, we do not have those options before us today. Before us today we have a bill that keeps the industry alive for longer and gives certainty to gas company boardrooms. And then Labor throw up their hands and say, ‘We’re sorry; we had no other choice.’

We get that this is complex. We get that there needs to be a transition, but we are simply not seeing the scale or the speed of transition that is needed in our existing homes, that is needed to avert the worst of the climate crisis and that is needed to keep our kids safe and healthy. So the Greens will not be supporting a bill that locks Victorians into a polluting, expensive fuel that we should have started to get off decades ago and that we could start getting off faster today. We have a principled position, and that is that we cannot support anything that adds fuel to the fire that is global climate heating. We cannot support even one more fossil fuel project, and I cannot believe that Labor and the Liberals are entertaining supporting even more than that.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (15:30): Sorry, I was nodding off over here. It is always a pleasure to follow a contribution by the Greens where they take credit for something that they had absolutely nothing to do with. What was the quote from Bob Hawke? I think it was something like, ‘Soon they’ll be taking credit for floating the dollar and creating the Prices and Incomes Accord.’ It was quite a journey. We started on track, then we moved to creating new fossil fuel projects, which of course this is not – it is a storage project – then we got down to a storage facility down in Geelong at Viva, which is also about storage. I mean, it was quite a journey. I would suggest perhaps to the Greens to stick to TikTok or perhaps even rock up to work a little bit more frequently so they can have more speaking slots, and then they can speak on things that are actually relevant. That would be a fantastic outcome as well. Sorry to digress and start on a bit of a negative note.

It is a real pleasure for me this afternoon to stand up and contribute on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. This bill is being presented as part of a broader initiative to ensure the security and sustainability of Victoria’s energy supply. To move off the Greens and on to the opposition, if you were to listen to some of those opposite and some of their contributions and indeed just some of their rhetoric and narrative more broadly in this place, you would think that there is a gas ban here in Victoria. Of course we all know that that is, to channel Matthew McConaughey, fugazi. It does not exist, and we have been up-front all the way through about our incredibly ambitious renewable energy targets, the most ambitious in the country. We do not shy away from that. But we have also been really up-front with the Victorian community and with this Parliament that gas will play a role in the future as part of that energy transition. Particularly at times of incredibly high demand, perhaps during those winter months, gas will play a role as part of that energy transition, and we have been up-front about that with the Victorian community and indeed with the opposition as well.

During my contribution on the SEC yesterday I said with respect to the member for Brighton’s contribution that the Victorian Liberal party room in respect of energy policy is an empty shell. It does not have one. It has not communicated an energy policy to the Victorian people, just that it would love to use more gas. I mean, it is really not much of an energy policy. I can understand why they are a little bit gun-shy in that respect, because they have got a federal party and a federal leader that want to create and build some nuclear power plants down in the Latrobe Valley, and, while the member for Polwarth is at the table, you can bet your bottom dollar if that were to come to fruition that they would also have to build one in Anglesea.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Dylan WIGHT: Yes, you would, because there is no way that you can get the amount of stable power from nuclear energy that you would need just by doing it in Gippsland, and the only other option in Victoria is in Anglesea. The member for Polwarth is more than welcome to sit at the table and scream at me; that is all good. But how about you just come clean with your community? Although I can imagine, member for Polwarth, that it is probably a part of your electorate that you do not spend a great deal of time in, because I cannot imagine that they are overly fond of you.

There has been this narrative that there is somehow a ban on gas, which is just absolute and utter nonsense. What we do know is that there have been opportunities for gas companies to create new projects for the last 10 years since we have been in government. The member for Brighton wants to say the reason they are not doing that is because they do not like the minister. I have never met a company CEO that is against making money for their company because they have got a problem with a government minister. I am not quite sure I have ever seen that before, and I am not quite sure any of us will ever see it in the future. The reality is that there are diminishing gas reserves in Victoria. That is a reality: there are diminishing gas reserves in Victoria. It has been said that in fact there is no onshore reserve that is actually worth creating a project for from a financial perspective.

Let us take the Otway Basin, for instance, which is close to the Polwarth electorate. It may be in the Polwarth electorate. The Otway Basin near Port Campbell has been a source of plentiful gas reserves for a significant period of time. Indeed it provides 30 per cent of southern Victoria’s gas during those higher demand times in winter. Recently there has been a project by Beach Energy, which is the gas company down in the Otway Basin. I refer to a Sydney Morning Herald article from earlier this year ‍– the headline reads ‘Shock downgrade hits new Victorian gas field, worsening risk of shortfalls’. Essentially what has happened is there has been a new project commissioned down there which has been significantly downgraded. To quote managing director Brett Woods of Beach Energy:

Disappointingly, over recent weeks we have observed pressure decline at Enterprise, which is consistent with a smaller reservoir.

To my point, there are diminishing gas reserves here in Victoria. It is a reason why there have been diminishing gas projects here in Victoria, because they are far less financially viable than they have been in the past. It is a reason why gas is now more expensive than renewable energy. Apart from the obvious environmental benefits from moving to a renewable energy future, we are also doing it because it is the cheapest option available.

In saying that, this is a fantastic piece of legislation because what it does do is give Victoria’s energy supply certainty during those peak periods as we move through a renewable energy transition. It allows us to move gas from onshore into offshore reserves, which can then be used during peak periods or during down periods of renewable energy production throughout that energy transition. It is a really important piece of legislation. Like I said, we have been up-front with the Victorian people and we have been up-front with this Parliament that we are going to have gas as part of that energy mix for years to come throughout our transition. Victoria is facing some energy complications, I guess you would say, which are driven by the forecast decline in gas production and the increasing demand for energy during peak periods with a growing population. AEMO has projected a significant shortfall in gas supply by 2026, with the shortfall likely to worsen by 2027. That is what makes this policy so important, so we can store that energy there for times that we need it most.

Just quickly, in the last minute that I have, there has also been a lot of nonsense chatter about us banning gas in people’s homes, which just could not be further from the truth. What the Victorian government is doing through the Victorian energy upgrades is allowing homeowners to transition from what is now becoming an incredibly expensive energy source to the cheapest energy source here in Victoria, which is electricity, more and more of which is being produced by renewable energy. That is a fantastic program, the Victorian energy upgrades, and I know that so many constituents in my electorate have taken advantage of it. This is commonsense policy. This is good policy. It is going to make sure that in those peak periods we have got energy, and I commend it to the house.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:40): I rise this afternoon to talk about the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. Like other speakers today, of course you cannot talk about this bill without discussing the implications for the gas industry and gas supply here in the state of Victoria. Anyone with any knowledge of history understands for much of modern Victoria – its manufacturing base, its wealth, its prosperity and its sheer quality of life for many people in the coldest mainland state – the benefits that gas has delivered and will continue to deliver for quite some time in the state, even as we undergo some form of poorly managed transition by this current state government.

When I talk about a poorly managed transition I talk about the endless mixed messages this government gives out not only to the gas industry but to business, and there are many manufacturers. In my own electorate 30-odd per cent of Australia’s construction timber, for example, comes from one plant that relies very heavily on gas drying. Currently in the world there are no alternatives for the drying process. They very much need gas. But they have to sit there and make long-term strategic economic decisions for their business. They employ thousands of people all around Australia. They are a significant supplier of the most critical and crucial product for a modern first-world country in construction timber, and they have to make ongoing decisions, and they are left completely confused about where this government stands with gas. Eighteen months ago we had the minister responsible standing in the Parliament talking of the evils of gas, talking about fossil gas. I note the phrase ‘fossil gas’ has not been used in recent months by this minister, which is interesting, because they were on a unity ticket with the Greens a little bit on an extreme anti-gas agenda. There is absolutely no doubt there has been a pivoting away from the completely anti-gas rhetoric that we heard so much of. We had announcements of banning gas there for a while. Many Victorians thought you were not even going to be able to have a barbecue in the backyard. The days of a decent steak were going to be a thing of the past. But we have now moved a little bit.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Richard RIORDAN: That is right, the former Premier relied on AI and the magic of social media to cook a steak on a barbecue that had not been turned on. More importantly, this bill presented today of course is just another one of the Hekyll and Jyde – give me a hand here –

Members interjecting.

Richard RIORDAN: whichever – the mixed personality of this government. Laurel and Hardy, whatever – the mixed messages that this government sends. And the mixed message is, for so long it was all –

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Richard RIORDAN: Jekyll and Hyde. That is it, thank you very much, former parliamentary Lions member. I am getting helped out by the government.

This policy is another sign of where we are getting mixed messages, because this is actually a useful process in ensuring Victoria has an ample supply of gas when and where we need it. The technology involved in underground storage and reusing gas to come out of expelled wells is a well-known technology. It is a safe technology; it has been used extensively. In my own electorate in Polwarth down in the Port Campbell region storage of gas in off-peak times to be used in peak times has been well used for a long, long time. In fact it is a major reason why we have not run out of gas in recent years here in Victoria. It makes sense to have that same extra storage capacity on the east side of the state as well, which is what this bill seeks to facilitate. While the storage in the west of the state is actually onshore, in expelled gas caverns, this one is to access the same geological formats but offshore, so it makes sense that they do that.

But more importantly, this package needs to come together with a more coherent view on the role that gas can play. We have at the extreme end the Greens, and we heard the Greens talking today. Quite seriously, I think they are almost blaming the massive, skyrocketing youth crime rate here in Victoria and the incredibly dangerous roads on the use of gas. I think they blame the use of gas for just about every woe in society, but the reality is gas is the most useful transition fuel that we can use.

One of the things this government has to be clear about is that there is a narrative out there that we are running out of gas in Victoria – well, we will run out of gas in Victoria if we do not keep allowing and encouraging companies to explore for it, and that has clearly been a major problem here in the state of Victoria for quite some time. We had a nearly 10-year hiatus, where companies were just not given permission to continue to explore and develop existing, known supplies of gas. That has been lifted, but it is now complicated with environmental, cultural heritage and other provisions; this government is making it even more difficult. One of the points a government speaker made was that companies are not wanting to invest in this sort of process here in Victoria. The member was quite right, and the reason is that Victoria has the worst reputation in the country for resource development and harnessing. Victoria was founded on the gold rush. It was founded on a good supply of natural resources, and to this day we still have some of the world’s best supplies of all sorts of natural resources, from gold to gas to rare earths and minerals and other things, and yet this government has a regulatory and management regime that simply does not allow for the proper and safe development and exploitation of them.

We can even talk about things in the timber industry. This year we had one of the great natural assets and resources of this state locked up, and the irony is it is a bit like this gas thing. Banning gas and phasing out gas does not mean Victorians will not still need and want and demand energy, just as when we close down our forests it does not mean people are going to stop buying timber or stop having wooden floors and benches. No, it just means we get it from somewhere else, and that is the dilemma we have here in Victoria. It is because we are shutting down our local supply, and then we will have the Greens and other extremists in the Labor Party saying, ‘Oh, well, we’re sending all this gas overseas. We’ve got plenty of gas.’ The only problem is you have got to get it to Victoria. To get it to Victoria you need import terminals, and this government has not been facilitating them. You need mechanisms to bring gas from far north Western Australia and mechanisms to get gas in decent supply from the basins in Queensland, and these opportunities are not being facilitated by this government.

So on one hand we are seeing a policy position here in the bill today that is actually rather sensible, which is unusual for this government, but it is a sensible bill, and it is a bill that we will be supporting, but it flies in the face of the rest of the components for a sensible energy transition. One wonders whether the genesis of this bill was that the government realised it was going to be in a mess. The member for Gippsland South here is regularly updating the house on the parlous state of the way we are managing our existing coal-fired generators, and it is becoming ever so apparent that Victoria is not in position if they shut down tomorrow. If they finish, break down or stop providing energy, we will rely more than ever on gas.

It would seem to me that this government is sort of trying to hedge its bets. It is trying on one hand to make sure we are going to have capacity for gas, but on the other hand it is sort of misleading the people of Victoria into believing that we can have this gas-free future. Ultimately we may be able to, but there is just not the generating and energy provision available in this state to keep our world-class manufacturing and processing industries alive. There is certainly not enough to keep many, many communities warm and functional throughout what is the coldest mainland state. Certainly in south-west Victoria, where I am, there are at least three to six months of the year when most households still rely very heavily on the instant heat and warmth that a product like natural gas provides to households. There are simply not the electrical connections available.

I think it was the member for Bentleigh who was very proud of his solar panels and all his new induction heating and all sorts of electrical appliances. I can tell the member that for many people in regional Victoria there is not the power supply going down many of our country town streets that would enable everyone in those streets to transition. Transition is not happening in a hurry. It is going to happen over time, and this government needs to be much clearer and have a much more strategic approach to the transition away from natural gas and fossil fuels to a new future. That new future is not there yet – it certainly will not be there within the next 10 to 15 years – and this government needs to be honest with Victorians and it needs to continue to allow and facilitate a structured, sensible, logical transition away from the energy base that has delivered so much wealth and prosperity to Victoria over the last hundred years.

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:50): It is a pleasure to rise to speak on this bill following the member for Polwarth’s contribution and his diverting digression into the works of Robert Louis Stevenson. I do agree with him that this is a sensible bill, and I am certainly rising to support it. The fundamental purpose of the bill of course is to amend the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2010, the offshore act, and in doing so to clarify that the holder of a petroleum production licence is authorised to carry out underground petroleum storage operations whereby the existing gas is transferred from onshore to an offshore reservoir to be stored for later access.

I am not a petrochemical engineer or a geologist, self-evidently, but I find this actually remarkable, the capacity of industry to effect the transition, as it were, and the movement of gas supplies from an onshore situation into an offshore reservoir so that we can manage the transition that Victoria is on and we can manage seasonal spikes in demand, noting, as the member for Polwarth said, that Victoria is Australia’s coldest mainland state and gas remains a core source of household heating as well as of course of industrial energy. There is a need to manage that transition. We are at the vanguard of renewable energy technology in Australia, but gas retains its role as a firming source of energy generation and of course of industrial usage. This government is taking a strategic approach to managing the transition to ensure that there is an adequate supply of gas through things like offshore storage. Of course we already have the offshore storage facility of Iona in the south-west of Victoria, but pipeline constraints exist there, which means that we still need that extra storage capacity to help meet seasonal demand.

I presume that Longford is in the member for Gippsland South’s electorate, but the example of September, October or thereabouts of 1998 when the fire and explosion at Esso’s plant at Longford significantly and immediately interrupted gas supplies into metropolitan Melbourne and across Victoria I think gives an insight into what can happen if that transition is not managed effectively, if we are in a situation where there are not those adequate supplies of gas to provide gas both to households and to industry. That is why it is so important that this bill has come to the house to effect the regulatory and legislative changes that are needed and which do not currently exist to provide explicit provision for underground petroleum storage operations to be undertaken as a standalone activity.

One of the significant consequences of these amendments is to enable the Golden Beach energy storage project being developed by GB Energy to proceed with establishing essential storage infrastructure whereby, again, onshore gas can be transferred out into a reservoir in an offshore gas field and then made available later during peak demand periods. We do have peak seasonal demand in Victoria through the winter, which is contingent in many respects on how cold the winter is. But of course there is also a continuing need for gas within Victorian industry.

The member for Polwarth talked about the extractive history of Victoria, and he is quite right – the genius of General Sir John Monash in unlocking the Gippsland coalfields in the 1920s and establishing the SEC, which again was enshrined in Victoria’s constitution this week in a rather new form. But that provided the basis for Victoria’s industrialisation and manufacturing capabilities through the mid part of the 20th century, and subsequently the gas fields of Bass Strait were a significant driver of industrial prowess through the postwar period. But those gas fields are declining. Exploration work is underway and has been underway in those areas, but they are not yielding significant new finds to compensate for the declining fields of Bass Strait. Those opposite may wish to engage in conspiracy theories that it is an issue of sovereign risk in that respect, but the simple reality is that those who are engaging in that exploration work are not finding the compensatory gas fields which would offset the decline of those existing fields that have supported Victoria for so long.

There is a need to have offshore storage to enable the gas that is being sourced, whether it is in Gladstone or in the north-west shelf of WA, to be brought into Victoria for those seasonal peaks. AEMO has flagged that those peak-day and seasonal gas shortfalls are going to become more acute if we do not do this. It is imperative that we support that transition with the firming capacity that gas provides. There is no confusion on this side of the house.

As I said, gas retains its important role within Australian industry, supplying, I believe, at least within the manufacturing sector, about 26 per cent of the manufacturing sector’s energy requirements. Seventy-four per cent of that industrial gas consumption is for heat, and industrial heat is an incredibly important part of so many dimensions of the things we take for granted every day, whether it is steel production or other forms of industrial activity. So there is a need to ensure that we have a legislative basis for gas storage to occur. As I said, I find it incredible that this is geologically possible, but it has been a well-established part of Victoria’s energy mix for some time with that Iona basin, and this legislative change will ensure that there is the capacity for GB Energy and other potential market operators to do similar things.

But of course Victoria does not exist in isolation. We exist in the context of a national regulatory picture and an east coast gas market that was subject to nine years of Liberal government in Canberra through those Abbott–Turnbull–Morrison years. We are in a scenario as a consequence where we are without an east coast gas reservation. Western Australia has a domestic gas reservation, so it is insulated from the vagaries of global supply and demand to a very considerable extent and the price increases occasioned by the war in Ukraine – effectively the turning off of Russian gas into Europe, which has created a massive distortion in the global spot market. But without that domestic reservation and without the security of east coast supplies we are in a position where Victoria and Australians on the east coast more generally are buying back gas at global spot prices, which has been, significantly, a driver of inflation, a driver of industrial processes becoming more expensive and a driver of construction prices becoming more expensive.

So for those opposite to talk about failures of government I think is a bit rich when, as I said, those opposite were in power in Canberra for those nine years when effectively nothing was done to counteract those distortions in the gas market to ensure that, despite having a burgeoning gas export industry, which is very important for Australia’s competitive international position and our export revenues, it was also complemented by, in effect, domestic security. To be in a position where we are only using on the east coast 26 per cent – around a third, roughly – of the gas that is produced on the east coast domestically and yet be in a position where we need to buy that back on the international market is I think a failure of regulation in many respects.

That is a slight diversion, though, from the work of this bill, which enables us to smooth those seasonal and even peak-day fluctuations in demand on those really cold days when households are still using gas, and it is one of the reasons why there are incentives for households to move away from gas. I think if an event like Longford in 1998 was to happen again, there would be fewer people who would be as acutely exposed to it because of the work this government has done to incentivise the take-up of other forms of household heating, water storage and so forth. The fact remains that gas remains a significant part of our energy mix. It supports that really bold and aspirational transition to a cleaner, more environmentally sustainable form of energy generation and usage across the economy. But to do that we need the security of gas as a firming dimension within that market, and that cannot be done without adequate storage capacity. As I said, Iona has done that to a very considerable extent in the south-west of Victoria, but there are those pipeline constraints that mean there is a need for additional storage capacity.

The work of the minister and her team in consulting extensively with industry to understand what their needs are and where the limitations are in the existing regulatory framework, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2010, for example, which does not explicitly allow for that offshore storage, is really important. It is future-focused. It is part of a considered strategic approach to energy transition that ensures that Victorians are able to have confidence in their energy supplies without compromising the really important commitments that we have in relation to the Paris agreement, for example, as a nation, but also just the need to ensure that –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the grievance debate.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.