Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:15): I will rise and make a short contribution on the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. It has been very illuminating listening to various contributions today, and I thank Mrs Broad for her very wise contribution. The purpose of the bill is to enable expansion of the gas declared transmission system, so the actual pipes, and the capacity to expedite this by ministerial order and indeed deliver more capacity and expand on the capacity in the south-west pipeline, enabling greater carriage of gas at times of high demand. Also, I note Mr David Davis’s very wise amendments that of course the Nationals will be supporting. It seems to me that there has been a lot of gas, actually, flying around this hall this afternoon, and some of it is from the government benches. It feels like the speaking notes were on spin and fabrication. We have had all things from fracking, to nuclear, to horse and cart and to animal faeces delivered, so I figure I could just about get on any horse I want to at the end of this debate and I should be allowed to have a roam because, my goodness, that was a wide range of debate there.
I want to talk about the role that gas has played in Gippsland, in my electorate. For over 50 years it has been an exemplar industry. It has not only created wealth, jobs, communities and community benefits, but certainly it has been the force that has kept many homes, in fact almost 80 per cent of Victorian homes, burning. That is in their lounge rooms with their heaters on and at their kitchen stoves with their woks going and pots boiling – a very important fuel source for our homes. It has been an industry that has been stable and has provided an enormous amount of stability in our electric system as well over the course of those 50 years. Indeed some of the Bass Strait gas deposits were some of the sweetest and most productive of our nation. When I came in 10 years ago the Liberals and Nationals had just provided for a refining plant, we will say, within Longford to actually extract some of the hydrogen sulphide and some of those impurities that we were starting to get in our gas extraction off Bass coast. We do have newer fields, such as Kipper and Tuna and Turrum, and they still have gas for the foreseeable future, but it is true that Victoria is certainly in the transition phase. Like others, I am on the Environment and Planning Committee inquiry into the decommissioning of our gas and oil rigs, and it is a very important one at that. It is a very important one also for creating jobs through that transition in my region of Gippsland.
The other thing that we know is the very important role that gas plays in industry. It is a feedstock. We have certainly heard about its importance as a plastics industry feedstock for the medical industry and our hospital system. We used to create a lot of our own plastics and medical-grade plastics. That is certainly going by the wayside. We know the importance it plays in fertiliser – in ammonia and urea. I have come off a dairy farm, and I know the importance of keeping that fertilising going in the cycle of grass to cow to milk production. In hydrogen production it also can be used, and in various other chemicals that are indispensable in the agricultural sector. These are important not only domestically but in the global industry supply chains.
We have also heard about heavy industries, and we have one in Gippsland, in Latrobe Valley, in Morwell. It is called Australian Paper, and it has been an industry exemplar for the past 80-something years. Because of the closure of the timber industry, it now does not produce white paper but it produces packaging. Now everybody seems to be getting Uber, and it comes in a package. We do not go into stores anymore – call me old fashioned – but we all get it delivered. It is wrapped in brown packaging, and that is made, overwhelmingly, by Opal Australian Paper. It is a very important industry that uses gas. But in a changing environment it is also trying to move to energy from waste – energy from your red-bin waste that can no longer be recycled. They are trying to get that off the ground. They have been doing it for, I think, about 10 years. And we hear again the demonising of energy from waste. When there is no other use for that substance, that red-bin waste, then put it through the system in a highly evolved energy-from-waste facility and let that turn. What would that do? That would actually cut the gas for some of those plants – indeed Opal paper manufacturing – and provide more gas into the system. It would be all systems go for Opal if the Nationals certainly had their way.
The other very important thing that gas does is provide peaking energy. In a fluctuating energy environment, that means that when there is not sufficient wind turning those wind turbines, when there is not sufficient sunshine, when there is a cloudy day and a quiet day – and we do get them, even in Gippsland, in Eastern Victoria Region – and you have got high demand, because either it is peak summer or, potentially more likely, it is peak winter and it is cold and dark and overcast, you need peaking. You need instant energy, which gas provides. This is so incredibly important in order to support our coal-fired power stations that are in a transitional state. Hazelwood has closed. Yallourn will close by 2028. The government has got some sort of arrangement with Yallourn power station, but we are not sure exactly what it is. But that is ageing equipment, and it is getting to the point where it cannot turn back. These are some of the key things that have been uppermost in the minds of people in my electorate.
The other thing about natural gas is it has about half the CO2 emissions in terms of coal and about 70 per cent in terms of oil. I heard before those on the government benches talk about carbon emissions, and we all want to reduce carbon emissions. One of the major, major producers of carbon emissions is out-of-control bushfires. I am going to say this just once: 1.8 million hectares of forest was burnt. Think about how many carbon dioxide molecules went up into the atmosphere then. This government has been appalling in its focus on reducing those bushfires. If climate change is something that is there, what is the lever that the government can pull? The government can reduce fuel, and it has done it appallingly.
Back on track with respect to this, we heard from the government, and they talked about the Liberals and Nationals. Let me put some things on the record. When the government first came in in about 2015–16, it put out its own investigation into conventional gas. It gave terms of reference to the scientists that were so narrow that they actually reduced the capacity of that investigation to provide a thorough analysis of onshore conventional gas deposits and indeed the quantum of petajoules that sit under our gas reserves either in the Gippsland Basin or in the Otways onshore. I think the government has been obtuse from that time.
Then some things that the government has failed in are technology-driven areas. The Premier came out a few years ago, in 2017 or 2018, and said, ‘SEA Electric – we will be the electric car manufacturers of the nation.’ Well, it got 14 headlines, and no cars ever rolled out of Latrobe Valley. That is a fail. We had the Commonwealth Games, and we have spoken about that ad nauseam. These were con games from the start. We have also got the hydrogen supply chain – very, very important. We had the Japanese government and consortia willing to put $3 billion in. They already did a supply chain project, which was a success, and they came to the government and said, ‘We will be supportive. We will supply $1.5 billion of jobs and infrastructure.’ And what has this government done? It is called ringbarking. If you just do not give it any attention, it ends up going away, and I am very concerned that the Japanese government has seen the signs from this Labor government. Then we have also seen carbon capture and storage. It was federally funded. It was state funded. This is about reducing carbon emissions from the atmosphere. That is something we all agree on. But this government now has withdrawn all funding, and the only funding carbon capture and storage gets in my patch is from the feds. That is another fail in the technology sphere.
Finally, we did hear from Mr Mulholland and my other colleagues who spoke very eloquently about choices about homes. This government has had a war on gas, there is no doubt about it. It has equivocated. It has moved from one side to the other. It has read the polls. It has tried to outgreen the Greens on many, many occasions. It went too far and must have read the polling in terms of stopping people from having choices in their homes. They know it is going to be stopped come March 2027. There will be a gas ban on your homes.
The Nationals certainly support energy choice. We back affordability and we back common sense, and we certainly want to see no blackouts and no higher bills. I support the amendments moved by Mr Davis, and we do not oppose this bill as it stands.