Matters of Urgency — Fossil Fuel Industry

Deborah O'Neill

Senator McDonald has submitted a proposal under standing order 75 today. It's shown at item 16 on today's order of business:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Albanese Government must take immediate action to reject Scope 3 emissions forming any part of approvals processes and restore Australia's standing as a pro-mining, pro-industry country, before our prosperity suffers any more.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I see that it is supported. With the concurrence of the Senate, the Clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Susan McDonald

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Albanese Government must take immediate action to reject Scope 3 emissions forming any part of approvals processes and restore Australia's standing as a pro-mining, pro-industry country, before our prosperity suffers any more.

I brought forward this urgency motion today because the risk to our resources sector from scope 3 emissions uncertainty is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to our nation's prosperity, to our standing and to future investment success, and it sets a dangerous precedent when we start bringing in this kind of scrutiny. We cannot keep making it harder to produce the very commodities that bring Australia its prosperity. Australia is a resource superpower. We have been for some time. We all benefit from mining, whether it be in the wonderful, well-paid jobs right across this country, whether it be through the corporate taxes or whether it be through the royalties that we receive that pay in large part for the schools, hospitals, roads and other programs that Australia is so fortunate to be able to provide.

But we are becoming one of the hardest places on the planet to invest. We are becoming uncertain. We now have sovereign risk greater than other countries that previously we would have scoffed at. We have endless approvals, regulatory uncertainty, activist litigation and now, it seems, an ideological opposition to mining. And the latest threat is the use of scope 3 emissions to obstruct Australian projects. We are effectively allowing emissions produced in other countries to determine approvals for our own projects. Now, this sets a dangerous precedent. For years, mining ministers—resource ministers—in this country had rejected any attempt to include scope 3 emissions. Ministers Canavan and Pitt had held the ground on this. Unfortunately, Minister King has folded to pressure to include scope 3 emissions in the statement of expectations for NOPSEMA, the offshore regulator for gas. Most recently, the recent High Court decision concerning the Mount Pleasant expansion included the idea that we should be considering scope 3 emissions on that approval. This highlights the legal uncertainty facing Australian miners. And, of course, activists started sharpening their pencils for a wave of legal action. We should not be held responsible for project approvals—decisions—made by sovereign countries about their own energy consumption, not to mention the complexity of calculating emissions generated in other countries that may well be offset by their own carbon emissions reduction programs like CCUS and others. Yet we seek to do that here.

Mining's contribution to the Australian public purse is between $65 billion and $75 billion every year. There are 300,000 well-paid jobs. Investors have choices. Capital has choices. Indeed, capital goes to where it is wanted and stays where it is appreciated. We are not sending that message to those investors. Labor's ideological attacks mean that we are delaying projects. That means fewer jobs, fewer investments and less revenue for hospitals, schools, roads, defence and essential services.

We have to stop appeasing international activists. We must start looking after Australians first. Limiting Australian coal is crazy. Our higher calorific, high-quality coal, mined to world's best standards—whether that be workplace health and safety or environmental—means that coal demand will not reduce. It means, simply, that it will be extracted from other jurisdictions with lower standards. The coalition's alternative is the belief that Australia should be proudly mining. It should be proudly pro-mining, pro-industry and pro-development. We will stop these scope 3 emissions being used to block or restrict Australian resources projects. We will ensure that we maintain national prosperity and sovereignty, because we believe that we should be a nation that can feed itself, fuel itself, defend itself and make choices for itself.

Varun Ghosh

One of the problems with the intense fervour that is attracted by this debate around climate change and our resources industry is that it leads people to extreme positions. It leads to extreme positions from the Greens political party, and it leads to alarmist positions from the coalition. Senator McDonald is normally very thoughtful about this. But I have to disagree with the motion that she's put forward today and the consequence or the ill that she says it's designed to address. I think it fundamentally overstates what is happening or what has happened. I think the consideration of scope 3 emissions is not particularly radical and that the High Court decision, which turned on an interpretation of New South Wales law and an interpretation of a New South Wales planning regime, should not cause a rush to implement federal laws to either override or address it in some sort of universal way that can have unintended consequences. The High Court decision is the High Court decision. In fact, the entire court said that scope 3 may fall within relevant considerations. It was determined on the basis of whether that relevant or mandatory consideration had, in fact, been taken into account in the appropriate way.

As a Western Australian, I know the importance of the resources industry. It's vitally important not only to our state but to the national economy. It's the bedrock upon which much of Australia's national prosperity is built. We support the resources industry. I also agree that, in terms of the way the structure of our efforts to address climate change have currently been legislated, we don't really consider scope 3 emissions. Our primary focus is on scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Those are what that our targets are based on. We signed up to an agreement, with Paris, that focuses on the scope 1 and 2 emissions that nations deal with themselves. It's not a scope 3 focused issue.

So I can't agree with the premise of this motion. I don't think that what has been stated as the basis for it justifies federal legislative intervention or some draconian attempt to go over the top. Nor is it obvious from the motion of Senator McDonald what the reason for the federal government overriding a decision that's been made on New South Wales law might be. On some level it's surprising given that Senator McDonald, among others in this place, espouses principles of federalism except in instances where they disagree with a particular state's course of action. There are no outstanding applications before the federal government in relation to that Mount Pleasant mine. Decisions that will be made by the federal government will be made in accordance with the EPBC Act, and the obligations to mitigate or reduce emissions are governed by the relevant mechanisms, including the safeguard mechanism that will ensure our compliance with the Paris Agreement.

This is not a moment to try and universally outlaw any consideration of scope 3 emissions, but it's also not a moment to overstate the role of those types of emissions in the decision-making of Australian lawmakers or regulators at the moment. It is important that Australia act to mitigate climate change and reduce our carbon emissions, it's important that we address this threat in a holistic way, and it's vital that Australia do this as part of global efforts.

Australian greenhouse gas emissions are something like 1.2 or 1.3 per cent of global emissions, so it's not something we can do alone, and that's why we've signed up to the Paris Agreement as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and then the Conference of Parties that set up a structure by which we address this issue globally. That structure essentially indicates that countries are responsible for the emissions they create in their country. The coal or gas that is burned in Australia to power homes and businesses counts towards Australia's emissions, and we need to reduce and mitigate that. Coal and gas that is extracted in Australia but sold and burned overseas to power homes and businesses in other countries will count towards those countries' emission. For instance, most of our major energy export destinations are countries that have also signed up to the Paris Agreement, so they're required to mitigate and reduce their emissions as well. That method allows for a clear understanding of the role that each nation is playing in terms of reducing emissions.

Fundamentally, it doesn't involve the use of scope 3 emissions in terms of determining how we mitigate this problem in a global and cooperative way, but that doesn't mean scope 3 emissions should be irrelevant to everything or that, if a state parliament decides that it's one consideration that a decision-maker should take into account, that's somehow invalid or requires federal intervention.

Again, we come back to a debate where we've got to address a really difficult problem, which is climate change. We've got to do it in a way that doesn't destroy national prosperity and doesn't put the burden of that transition on people who are on the downside of advantage or on working people in this country. That requires a balanced approach. That's the approach the Albanese government. The extremes on the left and right on this are not helpful in solving the core problem.

Sean Bell

What Australia is currently dealing with here is essentially a 'uniparty' special because what we're dealing with is decisions made by Liberal governments and Labor governments in New South Wales and now a complete failure to take responsibility for these decisions or any action at a federal level. That is now severely impacting not just the state of New South Wales but the entire country.

A lot of the legislation that has resulted in this originated under the Liberal Party. There's a gentleman named Matt Kean who has his hands in this. It is so vitally important that the Australian people understand that what we are now having to deal with is the end result of what you will always get when you have governments obsessed with the net zero ideology. It creeps into everything. It creeps into all parts of our legislative agenda. The next thing you know, you have a High Court forced to rule that, because of emissions from an overseas country and a box that hasn't been checked properly, a very important coalmine in the state of New South Wales cannot be expanded now.

The consequences of this will rattle through the entire economy. There are many things the federal government could do that aren't necessarily legislation but. if they wanted to legislate, they could. They have all the power in the world to do so. The constitution allows them to do so. They could take steps, but they want to wash their hands of this, because they care more about their net zero obsession than they do about jobs—about important jobs in places like the Hunter Valley. Families are going to suffer because of these continued decisions. It is upon all of us to ensure that we turn it around. That is why I'm very proud that One Nation in New South Wales has said they will destroy all of these net zero laws.

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