Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (11:39): I am very pleased to rise to support the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2024. As is often the case when it comes to energy legislation in this place, it directly affects my electorate. In fact whilst this is a generic piece of legislation for the Victorian offshore area, the 3-mile zone between the beach and offshore in the Commonwealth waters could effectively support any gas projects anywhere in that area. As I understand it, the only one currently proposed is the Golden Beach energy project in my electorate, so certainly I am pleased to support it.
But in rising to speak on this I do want to respond to the member for Albert Park, who wanted to throw a whole lot of bombs at us about gas onshore. She asked, if I am not mistaken, ‘Where is this mythical gas that we talk about being available onshore, and why don’t we listen to scientists?’ It does not take too much to do a quick search online, and I found a letter to then Minister for Resources Jaclyn Symes. The author of this letter says:
• Victoria is prospective for onshore conventional gas, with amounts estimated to be in the range 128–830 petajoules.
• Development of onshore conventional gas would create jobs and benefit regional communities and economies. Up to 242 jobs, $312 million in gross regional product …
Whom would this letter have been from, member for Albert Park? You told us that we should listen to scientists. That letter was written by Dr Amanda Caples, Victoria’s lead scientist in March 2020 and addressed to then minister Jaclyn Symes, as I said. Indeed you could go to the Premier’s website and look at a media release dated 16 June 2020 from the then Minister for Resources Jaclyn Symes, headline ‘Onshore conventional gas restart a green light for jobs’. It states:
Production of the estimated resources could generate as much as $310 million annually for regional economies and create up to 6,400 jobs over the lifespan of these projects.
We keep hearing this from the current minister, and we have now heard it from the member for Albert Park: there is no gas. I can only assume –
James Newbury interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: I am not a geologist, member for Brighton, or a scientist in any way, but I can only assume what has happened is the gas that was there four years ago must have evaporated. Is that what happens? No, gas does not evaporate, so perhaps the gas is still there and there has just been a political change of view on this. Four years ago the government was spruiking the gas that was available. The lead scientist was spruiking the gas that was available. I would not reflect on the Chair, but Acting Speaker Marchant was on the panel at the time. The government knows full well that there is in fact gas onshore. I think the lead scientist’s comments in the letter to the minister make the point that this is not a panacea to our gas woes, but it certainly will contribute, which will bring me back to the bill at hand.
As I said, this project is Golden Beach energy in my electorate of Gippsland South, specifically off the shoreline at Golden Beach. There is an existing basin with gas in it that GB Energy intends to develop. They will pull the gas that is in there out. I think it is about 14 months of supply that they will be able to produce, that gas, and they will be left with what is I understand an exceptional reservoir that will be perfect for storing gas. This is not new. It is not new technology. It has been done around the world for in fact a long, long time. We already do it at Iona in the Otways where there is a gas storage area – an existing storage onshore I believe Iona is. It has a capacity of about 24.4 petajoules, or 570 terajoules, a day. GB Energy would expect to have about 18.8 petajoules, or 375 terajoules, a day, so it will be an important addition to the capacity of gas storage and therefore supply in our region.
GB Energy has been around for a number of years now. I must commend them in terms of engagement certainly with me as the local member, and I know with Golden Beach and the community around there as well they have done a lot of work. They have certainly been involved in talking to me. I think it is at least five years that I have been hearing from GB Energy, possibly longer, and it is a shame that it does take that long to get these projects up. I think they have done the bulk of their environmental approvals.
They have got an offtake agreement, if you like, with Origin Energy. Origin Energy is contracted to buy the gas from them and store it. This legislation was necessary because, as I said, we have got legislation regulating onshore and we have obviously got Commonwealth regulating offshore waters. It is that narrow stretch of state waters in the 3-mile zone there, and as it happens the Golden Beach reservoir is in that zone. In terms of the local impact there will be very little physical impact because there will be a pipeline underground at the crossing of Ninety Mile Beach, as there is already for I think at least seven oil and gas pipelines coming in from Bass Strait to Longford, where the gas and oil is processed and sent on. This will be one additional one, underground and to a subsea wellhead on the seabed floor, so in this case, unlike the existing oil and gas production by Esso, there will not be rigs or platforms that you will see from above the water.
Basically, once the gas that is in that reservoir is expended there will be the opportunity for GB Energy to purchase gas at different times of the year, put it back down the well and then use it at the times it is needed. Obviously, that will be at times in the middle of summer when there is excess gas and the price is perhaps a bit cheaper. They will be able to put it into the reservoir and then bring it out again when it is required in the depths of winter, when it is cold and Victorians need that gas for heat. Again, this is not new technology. In fact Esso has done it in Bass Strait in the past. I cannot recall which field it was, but at one of their fields I know they previously have done that. They would produce gas and put it back down at various times until they needed it.
That actually brings me to another point. I think the member for Brighton made the point that it must have hurt the minister to actually introduce this piece of legislation. It must have really hurt. But I also find it ironic that the minister is introducing this legislation and is quite happy to support us taking gas, putting it back in a natural undersea reservoir in Bass Strait and then taking it out again when we need it, because it will be safely stored. What is the difference, in principle at least, of doing that with carbon – of doing carbon capture and storage? Yes, it is technically a bit different and there are differences in the composition, whether it is gas, methane or CO2, but what is the difference in principle of doing that? The minister seems to be strongly opposed to the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project in the Latrobe Valley, which would take brown coal and produce hydrogen. As part of that hydrogen process the CO2 is actually taken off, and the CO2 would then go to CarbonNet or to Esso’s proposed CCS project. I say: why is there a problem with doing that?
I know Labor’s friends up the back here in the Greens are vehemently opposed to this. They call it a coal project. I just do not understand the logic. If the problem with coal is the emissions, then if you are taking the emissions from out of the ground and then putting them back in the ground through CCS, what is the issue? The issue is just, as the member for Brighton has said, ideological. I know there are people on the other side in the government who do support the HESC process and the HESC project. That would be a great project for the Latrobe Valley and for Gippsland because – and this might be pie in the sky – potentially in future at a time when we have offshore wind farms there is the prospect that during the day, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, we actually could turn some of that excess power from the offshore wind farms into hydrogen via electrolysis. If we get the HESC project up and going, it gives us the skills, the technology and the infrastructure for a green hydrogen economy in future.
This GB Energy project is very important for our gas future. It will be good for Gippsland in the main. There are some issues my colleague the member for Gippsland East will talk about with the fishing industry that we do need to be cognisant of and that need to be addressed, but I am very happy to support this legislation.