Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Production of documents

Energy policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:06): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that the federal government released its Future Gas Strategy on 9 May 2024;

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution:

(a) any materials or submissions provided to the federal government by the Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources or by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) regarding the development of the Future Gas Strategy;

(b) any materials, including assessments and briefs, provided by DEECA to the Minister for Energy and Resources concerning the Future Gas Strategy; and

(c) any consultancies or work by contractors used to inform submissions to the federal Future Gas Strategy process.

President, I appreciate your guidance of course. This is a very narrow motion. It refers to the federal government’s gas strategy but seeks a set of documents that are related to that gas strategy. The first set of documents relates to the documents that the state government may or may not have submitted to the Commonwealth government or the Commonwealth minister perhaps or other Commonwealth agencies regarding this gas strategy. We would expect that the Victorian government would prosecute Victoria’s position, whatever that may be, in a thoughtful way and would thereby submit to the federal process. It is either the case that material was submitted by the minister or department or it was not. If it was not, I think that is telling. If it was, we want to see it. We think the community is entitled to see what the Commonwealth was presented with by the Victorian government or minister.

We are also looking for any materials, assessments and briefs provided by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to the minister. When the Commonwealth gas strategy came down, it seems likely that the department would have briefed the minister. It would be helpful for the chamber and indeed for the Victorian community – I think it is very much in the public interest – for us to understand what the Victorian government has done, what steps it has undertaken, beyond its public utterances on these matters. If the department has in a formal way and a detailed way provided a brief to the minister, which is what I would expect they would have done, I think it is relevant and important for the chamber and the community to see that as well as, finally, any consultancies or work by contractors used to inform submissions to the federal Future Gas Strategy process. Was work done behind the scenes here by a consultant, by a contractor, by other hired help, as it were, to inform the federal process via the state government? Was a decision made, for example, to commission a particular consultancy and thereby use that information to inform what might have been put in front of the federal government or indeed to inform commentary around the federal government’s gas strategy?

It is on the record, and I will say more later, that we think there is some merit in parts of the federal strategy. We think that the state strategy, the gas substitution plan, is a very different body of work with a very different focus, and it is this interplay that is important to understand what is going on here. Have the state government put fulsome submissions to the federal government, or have they gone quiet and just allowed the federal government to do its work? I think that is the purpose of this, and it is very much in the public interest. The chamber has clearly got the power to ask for these documents. They should be documents that are easily accessible for the minister – some of them being ministerial briefings – and the minister and her department ought to provide those matters to the chamber to inform the chamber and more broadly the Victorian community.

The PRESIDENT: Before I call Mr McIntosh – I am not too sure if he was in the chamber – we have the potential to breach the anticipation of debate rule, given Mr Davis has got a general and more far-reaching motion around the Future Gas Strategy, so can we contain our comments on this one around the documents themselves and the process of the documents.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (10:11): President, I will do that. It is groundhog day. We are basically here again. The opposition are using this time in Parliament, time that could probably be better spent, asking for documents. As we have seen in the past, sometimes these documents could be found if they simply search on the internet, which is –

A member interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: Yes, that is right; the black box over there is the internet. You could search and find some information. I know that quite often those opposite are struggling to be in this century, let alone in the past century.

Michael Galea: Is it goggle?

Tom McINTOSH: Yes, goggle. But I think there could be a little bit more focus on your own policies rather than trying to use these very odd, incorrect methods of trying to obtain information. It is very clear to the Victorian people what our policies are on energy. We have been very up-front and clear with that for decades – unlike yourselves. I have another contribution to make soon, and I think I will explore the policies of those opposite – I say those opposite because we have the Liberals and we have the Nationals. I follow the energy space pretty keenly, and I cannot keep up with what your policies are. Whether it is ripping up farmland for fracking or whether it is putting nuclear reactors in –

David Davis: On a point of order, President, this actually is quite a narrow motion. It is about documents, it is not about a broad spray on farmland and so forth.

The PRESIDENT: Yes. I will bring Mr McIntosh back to the documents.

Tom McINTOSH: Thank you, President. I actually was starting to stray a little bit. I think the key point is that we are wasting everybody’s time with documents that, as we have seen with previous short-form document motions, either are publicly accessible or the government does not have access to – and we are talking about federal documents. I think we can stop wasting everyone’s time and get on with telling the Victorian people what we stand for and what we will deliver, and in my next contribution I look forward to exploring that in some detail.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:14): I too will keep my comments on this brief because I will have more to say on this later today. The Greens will be supporting this documents motion; however, I want to qualify our support because we are doing so from a standpoint that I think could not be more starkly different to that of the coalition. We too would be interested in what information and advice Victorian Labor provided to their federal counterparts as they developed their Future Gas Strategy. Let me be absolutely clear: the Greens want to see an end to new gas projects and a rapid transition off gas for existing users to 100 per cent renewables. Unlike the opposition, we do not see merit in the Future Gas Strategy. It is a total capitulation to the gas lobby, and we can only hope that Victorian Labor put up a good fight against this strategy. Perhaps these documents, which we are supporting the release of in the interests of transparency, can shine some light on that. In any case, as always and as I think we have made absolutely clear, we will not give up our fight on the climate. That means no more coal and gas, and we are very hopeful that the Victorian Labor government share that sentiment and that, as I said, these documents will provide some information about whether they took that position to the federal government.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:15): I am very happy to join my colleagues and make a contribution to the short-form documents motion before us today, calling for the production of documents on the Future Gas Strategy. I note from the notice of motion submitted by Mr Davis in this place yesterday that we are in fact noting that the federal government did release the Future Growth Strategy on 9 May. I have taken the time since the release of that strategy by the federal minister Madeleine King to read through it in depth. I do have some pretty strong points that I want to make, and I hope that I will have an opportunity to make those later on today as we discuss the motion that Mr Davis has also put forward on the notice paper, but I will just say that I am very happy to say that our government has always been transparent with its process, its policies and its mechanisms.

The work of the Victorian government is in fact laid out fairly clearly in the Gas Substitution Roadmap, and you will hear more about that when I speak later on today. The truth is that that really lays out what is the work of Victoria and the unique circumstances of Victoria when it comes to our position on gas. The federal government’s Future Gas Strategy is just that – the federal government is looking at the whole of the nation and its response to gas supply issues. It really looks at creating and supplementing existing export of our gas to our neighbours – the international exports of gas – and such things. But the truth is that, right here, Victoria has been exporting net gas supply to other states in order to supplement their stockpiles for many, many, many years. Now that the net supply in Victoria is on a downward slide, which has been reported by national organisations as well as our minister for quite some time now, that position is really no longer sustainable. The federal gas strategy is just that – it is a federal approach – and it does not I think give due respect to the Victorian situation. I know that I will have more to say on the position that I hold when it comes to the federal gas strategy.

David Davis: We’re part of Australia.

Sheena WATT: But we are a little different – we do not send it off to other parts of the world here. We supply Victorians and Australians with gas for their home and for the businesses that need it. Whilst I can go on about that, I am conscious, President, that you did make a ruling earlier to stick to the documents that are being sought today. I will in fact perhaps leave my notes there and look forward to an opportunity to speak more about this as the day progresses and we move to the other notices of motion that are on the notice paper for us.

Motion agreed to.