It’s a pleasure to be hosted by the Energy Club of Western Australia, and always a privilege to address our energy sector.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

I would also like to pay my respects to First Nations people in the audience today.

Australians stand at an important moment in history. 

In times of great disruption and geostrategic challenges there is one important objective that the world agrees on: the need to significantly reduce carbon emissions to arrest dangerous climate change. 

The global effort to transition to net zero emissions is an immense undertaking, but it must be pursued.

While immense and not without challenges, this transition is a massive economic opportunity for Australia.

If we get this right it will underwrite our prosperity for generations.

Energy is at the heart of this great global effort. And members of the Energy Club of Western Australia here today have been, and will continue to be, at the forefront of how WA remains a pivotal part of the nation’s efforts. 

It is just over 58 years since the Energy Club of WA held its first dinner at the truly iconic OBH on Cottesloe Beach. 

Then you were known as the Petroleum Club of WA, reflecting the reality of the time of the pre-eminence of crude oil and refined petroleum in the economy, and the need for further exploration. 

Recognising that heritage, and at the same time, reflecting on the fact that the energy industry is moving with purpose to a sustainable and low-carbon future, in 2021, you became the Energy Club of WA. 

As your website says, this: “reflects the continued promise of connecting people with energy for a sustainable future.”

Petroleum, oil, and gas, are not dirty words. 

Without the crude oil that was refined into petroleum at the BP Kwinana refinery, we would not have had the fuel needed to build the WA economy – in mining and in agriculture. Indeed, without the byproducts from refining oil, we would not have had the tarmac for the roads that built Western Australia. And without the initial foreign investment in BP, we wouldn’t have the shipping channel that opened up Cockburn Sound to the industry that now forms the world-leading Kwinana Industrial Area.

And for me personally, without the oil refinery and the good, stable work it provided, my Dad might not have stayed in WA and met my mum, and all that other history that ultimately brings me here today.

Times change. The Energy Club of WA knows that, the community knows that, and the Federal Government knows that as well, and has been taking action to reduce emissions from the moment we were elected, setting important decarbonisation targets for the nation.

The drive to net zero will be powered by renewables.

But reality dictates, that, in the absence of alternatives, this drive will be underpinned by gas.

I’ve said before that the road to net zero runs through our resources sector.

But it also runs through Australia’s gas fields, which are an important part of our domestic decarbonisation and transition pathways, and for our key energy trading partners.

I don’t need to tell anyone in the audience about the merits of gas as a fuel, particularly in the manufacturing industries where it is most difficult to reduce emissions.

Instead, I’m here to outline the steps the Albanese government is taking to ensure gas remains available in Australia’s energy mix where we need it, when we need it and for as long as we need it. 

And how, through that work, it is supporting the energy security for Australia and its economic partners, while also helping us meet our net zero targets.

Last year I released the Albanese Government’s Future Gas Strategy. 

The strategy was clear that natural gas will play a long-term role on the east and west coasts to support the renewable energy transition to meet our net zero goal as well as in many industrial processes such as the processing of critical minerals. 

One of the principles of the strategy is that we would need new sources of gas supply to meet demand during the economy-wide transition.

Furthermore, it would be critical to maintain supplies of gas to ensure homes and businesses have the reliable and affordable energy supplies they need now as they progress through the energy transition. 

On these fronts, the Albanese Government is delivering. 

Supply is being maintained through the government having negotiated with gas companies to supply an extra 600 extra petajoules to the East Coast market.

That is enough new gas to power the state of Queensland for two years.

I negotiated a new Heads of Agreement with east coast LNG producers that sees them committing to offer uncontracted gas to domestic customers first.

And I reformed the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism to make that mechanism of last resort more flexible and more useful. 

And crucially, my reforms to the gas trigger put new protections in place for the long-term gas contracts that underpinned investments in Australia’s Curtis Island LNG export industry. 

Natural gas will continue to flow to Australian households and businesses because of the actions of the Albanese Government. 

In relation to new supply, last September, the government, working with the Victorian government, granted two production licences in the Otway Basin to help ensure stability of supply to the Victorian market. 

To build on that momentum, the government has also finalised five new offshore exploration permits, three of which are located offshore Western Australia.

More natural gas will flow to Australian households and businesses because of the actions of the Albanese Government.[i]

For example, Senex Energy has committed over 150PJ over the next five years to Australian manufacturers and energy retailers from its Atlas and Roma North Expansion project in the Surat Basin in Queensland. This will underpin jobs and reliably power supply.

As part of the Future Gas Strategy, the Albanese Government has begun consultation on so called “use it or lose it” guidelines to bring on more gas for Australian homes and businesses.

As part of those reforms, I am acting to clarify expectations around what is considered to be ‘a commercial gas discovery’ or ‘likely to be commercial’ and we are setting firmer expectations of the work program required to resolve commercial barriers to development.

As the CEO of the Australian Energy Producers, Sam McCulloch, wrote in a recent opinion piece:

“Australia has more than enough undeveloped gas to avoid the worst of the near-term shortfalls, meet our long-term energy needs and continue to supply LNG to our key trading partners in the region. But only if governments act now to correct Australia’s energy policy to fast-track new gas supply and encourage investment.”

Well, this policy does just that.

Our stronger position on retention leases will work to fast-track projects by discouraging repeated project delays for technical or commercial reasons. This reform underlines our government’s push to prioritise timely development of gas discoveries.

I look forward to working with the industry as we put this guidance into practice.

As I said at the outset, the government views gas as both a vital fuel for our most important industries and as a necessary bridge to net zero. 

But gas remains a fossil fuel, and we should be clear-eyed on that unarguable fact. 

That is why the Albanese Government is backing carbon abatement measures, including carbon capture and storage, to reduce the emissions intensity of natural gas at the point of production. 

The great state of Western Australia is leading the way when it comes to progressing onshore CO2 storage.

That includes Chevron’s Gorgon Project, which has safely stored more than 10.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions since August 2019.

My department is now leading a review of our Commonwealth carbon capture and storage regulatory settings to better streamline and harmonise those regulations. 

Australia’s Future Gas Strategy also includes a focus on collaborating with regional partners on transboundary capture and storage.

The Albanese Government has now ratified the necessary amendments to the London Protocol to enable the transboundary movement and sequestration of carbon, backed in by a $30 million investment to build out our regulatory architecture. 

And that unswerving support comes despite appalling behaviour in the Senate from the Coalition and the Greens Political Party, where they teamed up and the Opposition sat back and openly enabled six full sitting days of parliamentary speeches that opposed carbon capture and storage and filled Hansard and social media with misinformation about the sector. 

The energy and gas sector should be appalled at this behaviour of the Liberals and Nationals in the Parliament.

Because of our country’s vast geological storage capacity, we can play a leading role in supporting decarbonisation efforts in the Indo-Pacific.

And the technological challenge of storing even larger volumes of CO2 can help spur innovation and further develop our domestic decarbonisation industry.

As we get closer to a Federal Election, it is important to have a look at alternative policies. Because the gas industry is too important to Australia and too important to our regional neighbours to not take these matters seriously.

This government will make policies based on facts, on evidence and on analysis. 

Like Scott Morrison before them, Peter Dutton and Susan McDonald offer only slogans on gas. The so called ‘gas led recovery’ left the market in a complete mess and put a target on the back of the gas industry.

In truth, the Coalition don’t actually understand how gas supply works and as the alternative party of government this lack of basic knowledge should concern every Australian family that has to pay an energy bill and every person in this room that plays a part in the energy industry of Western Australia.

At this time, it looks like the Coalition has not bothered to put pen to paper and write an actual gas policy, but it has made a back-of-cocktail-napkin pledge for faster approval timeframes in Victoria in exchange for domestic supply commitments. 

But the Opposition doesn’t seem to understand that all gas produced in Victoria already supplies the domestic market.  

Nor has Mr Dutton provided any detail about how they would work with the Government of Victoria to bring on new onshore supply.

The Liberal Party also opposes gas import terminals, and yet cannot explain how they would address infrastructure bottlenecks that restrict the movement of gas across a vast continent.  

And their partners in the Nationals oppose gas exploration and pipelines in regional areas at every turn, and the most consistent aspect of their views on carbon capture and storage are the staggering contradictions. 

The Coalition says more frontier exploration is the answer to immediate forecast shortfalls – an activity that takes years, even decades – but is silent on the Government’s ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ policies that will help develop the gas we already know about.  

You won’t hear this reported, but the fact is that the Albanese Government has slashed EPBC Act decision-making timeframes in half since being elected three years ago, in part because we hired more people into the government departments that Scott Morrison gutted. 

The Coalition say they will cut approval timeframes further and yet they plan to slash the federal bureaucracy.

How is that supposed to work?  

Astonishingly – Peter Dutton and Susan McDonald now say they support the Government’s mandatory code of conduct, which up until now they have consistently voted against.  

I remind you, this policy secured enough new gas for the domestic market to power Queensland for two years and capped the gas price. 

What Peter Dutton says simply makes no sense.

And just yesterday, Peter Dutton’s remarks on North-West Shelf decision demonstrated very clearly his casual disregard for proper processes of governmental decision making. 

I have personally, as resources minister, had to defend legal challenges to Coalition ministers’ decision on the grounds of apprehended bias. As everyone here knows, decision making in government must be taken seriously. If it is not, decisions become less reliable, and less likely to withstand challenge. It is in everyone’s interest that this decision is made properly. 

Grandstanding on this matter and making stupid pledges is simply meaningless. And this latest prioritisation of a political splash over due process has shown again that the Coalition is unfit to be in government.

And I think the hot mess that is the position of the Liberals and Nationals persists because they simply do not understand your industry, and they don’t bother to take the time to find out. 

Gas is a vital part of the road to net zero. 

We need it for homes. We need it for manufacturing.

We need to keep our economy strong.  

Our partner nations need gas to keep the lights on and for their energy security and that of the whole region. 

As we hasten towards net zero, we can and will provide the energy we need at affordable prices for homes and businesses here in Australia while also providing energy security to our regional trading partners.

Thank you.