Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2015

Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — What Victoria so desperately needs now is a government with a plan for our future energy needs. Instead what we have is this mob bringing in the Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and a number of other bills that are making their way through the Parliament with some of the most minor-level tinkering we could ever imagine.

Members of this government have had four years in opposition as well as 10 months in government to come up with a plan, and they are no closer to making one. However, during their time in government we have seen a 20 per cent cut to the solar incentives, the extension of coal exploration and development licences, tinkering with a consumer website in relation to electricity bills and no information forthcoming on the secret coal grants given by the past government that are being continued by this government under a cloak of secrecy, including this morning the tabling of some documents in the Parliament in which all relevant information has been blacked out from the documents supplied.

In opposition members of the government voted with the Liberals and The Nationals for a 100-year extension to the life of the Alcoa coalmine, which itself has only lasted four years before shutting down under a severe case of market forces. On the issue of unconventional gas, members of the Labor Party will loudly and proudly tell you that they have no policy whatsoever, except to have an inquiry, which is now underway.

When we look at the donations from energy companies that are flowing into the pockets of the Labor, Liberal and Nationals parties, it is absolutely no surprise that 'business as usual' are the watchwords of the day when it comes to the Andrews government and the energy sector.

The previous speaker from The Nationals talked a lot about risks, and that this bill was all about managing risks. Is it not staggering that there are some risks that the Labor, Liberal and Nationals parties can get their heads around — small identifiable ones associated with particular facilities in particular areas? In this case an entire royal commission pointed out the failings of the system, but there are other sorts of risks, such as the risk of continuing to burn coal. The latest information is that if we were to burn every piece of fossil fuel on earth, we would melt the entirety of Antarctica, leading to an 80-metre sea level rise, but members of the government and opposition members cannot grasp it. They cannot get their heads around it. There are only certain types of risks that they can protect us from. The massive planet-wide, global and long-term risk of continuing business as usual is something that causes their tiny minds to simply shut down.

In relation to the fire at the Hazelwood mine and power plant, Mr Drum seemed somewhat put out that members of his government were criticised at that time for what they did not do rather than complimented on what they did do. He even suggested that people who made those comments at the time, when an entire community was choking under smoke, were behaving in a manner that was opportunistic.

On the subject of what did not happen during the crisis, Acting President, let me remind you of some of the things that did not happen. GDF Suez, the owner of the mine, did not rehabilitate the old worked-out coalfaces but left them bare to the sky, leading to the conflagration that Mr Drum so aptly described. It did not do that because it did not have enough dirt and did not want to go to the expense of putting dirt on those coalfaces, because its plan in any case is to keep mining for decades to come and then eventually let the pit fill up with water.

What did not happen was the information being collected on the day about extraordinary levels of carbon monoxide in Morwell south itself — levels 
that in an industrial setting would lead to an evacuation — —

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — It may not have its own postcode, Ms Shing, but south Morwell, on the day that I visited, was the part of Morwell that was experiencing a waterfall in reverse as smoke from the pit came flowing up the side, across the Princes Highway and straight through the windows of those houses. Despite the fact that fire services were collecting information about extraordinary levels of carbon monoxide at that exact site, a warning to the community that was prepared and logged into the warning system was not issued — it was countermanded at a higher level.

What did not happen over the next few days was the provision of better information about the levels of pollution so that people could have even made a decision by themselves as to whether to leave. It was obvious that the levels of particulates were extreme, but we found out a few hours after Environment Protection Authority Victoria rolled one of its mobile units in there on the Thursday, to be filmed by Channel 7, that the levels of pollution in the area were well above any acceptable benchmark — even for a once-annual exposure, much less the continuing sets of exposures that were going on and on for many days.

What did not happen was a call for an evacuation of the vulnerable or any offer of assistance to evacuate. This is a community that has many young, older and ill people and many representatives in high numbers from those other groups who are the exact people who should be evacuated in a situation like this. Yes, they got their Airbnb notice later, but anybody who had the resources to get themselves out had already done so and those who had not were the ones most desperately in need of help. So it went on and on, each day, with people's physical condition and sense of distress getting worse and worse, and the government was never able to front up to its responsibilities.

What did not happen was the Minister for Health coming in here to take responsibility for the crisis. He constantly moved to position the chief health officer in front of himself; she of course has since retired. I understand that the then Minister for Energy and Resources, Mr Northe, was getting a range of inquiries to his office, but events were moving so much faster than that government could have contemplated.

I am glad Mr Drum thanked the firefighters for the enormously exhausting amount of work they did. There were people being taken off site due to their level of carbon monoxide exposure within the first few days; there were people being taken directly to hospital as a result of their carbon monoxide exposure. This was in a fire season that had already gone on for a considerable amount of time, when many firefighters, career and volunteer, had already been all over the state and then had to spend weeks more fighting this fire.

It is a blinding glimpse of the obvious that something went terribly wrong, because this was an unacceptable situation to put some thousands of people into. Yet as we stand here not a huge amount has actually changed that would prevent this mine from catching fire again in the same way. Yes, there have been more structures put in place and more accountabilities — this bill tends to do that — but overall the situation has stayed the same. In the meantime we have seen a suggestion in a local paper, the Latrobe Valley Express, taken from a report apparently prepared by GHD, that maybe the solution is to move Morwell — its citizens, industrial and commercial sites, schools, churches, sporting ovals and essential services — away from the mine to create a buffer of some 100 metres. When is someone going to finally stand up and make the same point that the Greens have been making all along?

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — I should say, 'When will one of the local representatives for this area make the same point?'. The Labor Party still has a couple of members between the Dandenongs and New Zealand, but so far none of them has been willing to point to the obvious. We are in the middle of an unplanned closure of the coal electricity sector here in Australia. When are we going to get a planned closure of the Hazelwood mine and others of the more polluting variety, particularly those — —

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — I can hear in stereo other members here who are apparently busting to have a chance to put forward their alternative plan for Australia's energy future. We read before that Mr Turnbull has just signed his away to the coalition in an agreement; there will be no emissions trading scheme under any government he leads. However, what we should have been debating here today was the Labor government's response to climate change, because in the Climate Change Act 2010, as my erstwhile colleague Mr Jennings knows, is a schedule for the Climate Change Act. The intention is that in that schedule will be inserted those pieces of legislation and ministerial decision-making where ministers, exercising their power, will have to consider the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions according to a target that this government — maybe one day — is going to tell us about.

There cannot be any kind of greenhouse gas reduction goal that allows coal-fired power to continue in perpetuity, but in one of my ears — my left ear, Acting President — I am hearing that if I speak on the subject of closing down a coalmine I am against economic growth.

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — Maybe we are about to find out. But the government is moving at the speed of lichen when it comes to putting forward any sort of action on climate change. As I said, we have had a 20 per cent cut to the solar payment, we have had an extension of coal exploration licences and several more unconventional gas licenses whose expiry dates are becoming imminent — I cannot wait to hear from the government on that one — and no word on the climate change target anytime soon. Four years in opposition, 10 months in government and they are still thinking about it.

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — I thank Mr Ramsay for that invitation. I will come back to the bill. The Greens have circulated their amendments to the other parties but I am happy to see them circulated in the chamber now.

Greens amendments circulated by Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) pursuant to standing orders.

Mr BARBER — As Mr Drum pointed out, when this mine caught fire nobody really knew what was going on. The locals did not know what was happening; the local member did not appear to know what was happening. Information in the days and weeks following was pretty slow to come out until, finally, a body set up with the powers of a royal commission managed to get on the table for the first time the rehabilitation plan for this mine, which was a subset of the mining operations plan itself.

Prior to that there had been a long-forgotten-in-time but apparently still operating community reference group consisting of certain people — Latrobe City Council and people with various other responsibilities — who had been going to meetings with GDF Suez but who were in fact sworn to secrecy. So it was not surprising that even as the smoke was still filling the town, people's houses and people's lungs, they were asking how was it that an unrehabilitated section of the mine was left exposed to the air to catch fire in such a dramatic and apparently intractable way.

[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]

Mr BARBER — In fact, Mr Drum, there has been much made of the deliberately lit nature of the fire. But the point was that once that fire was underway, and once, both on nearby road verges and in nearby plantations, a rain of material was falling onto the mine, there were a number of spot fires getting started in that mine, and an employee of GDF Suez was monitoring the situation. However, insufficient resources were available to put those fires out. GDF Suez's evidence to the royal commission — the board of inquiry, to use its proper term — was, 'Hey, we were just doing exactly what the government told us to do. The rehabilitation plan didn't call for the covering up of those bare coalfaces, and therefore we didn't do it'.

Sure, the government has now moved on the recommendation of the board to change some of the aspects of how that rehabilitation is occurring. But the point is that nobody in the community knew this was the situation. To this day, in relation to other mines, in relation to other quarries, in relation to other extractive industries and even, heaven forbid, if we were to ever get a CSG industry here in Victoria, the community is none the wiser. Until they are prepared to start using the Freedom of Information Act 1982, lawyering up and facing all sorts of barriers, the community is not going to know about either the operational plan of or the rehabilitation plan for the mine that operates down the road from them, next door to them or in the adjoining area.

That is why the Greens have drafted a further amendment to some of the amendments in this bill, which requires that:

If a work plan or variation to an approved work plan is statutorily endorsed, the Minister must ensure that the work plan or variation is published on the Department's Internet site within a reasonable period after the endorsement.

It is a simple matter to make mining operations and mining rehabilitation for all of the many extractive industry sites covered under this act more transparent. It is kind of hard to understand why anybody would really oppose that. The amendments were circulated to the parties during the last sitting week, when we thought we were going to be debating this bill. There has been considerable time for the parties to consider their position on this. I have not yet had any feedback on how any of the seven other parties in this place will be voting, so I look forward to having more conversation about that when we move to the committee stage of the bill.

As I said, there appears to be a focus here on certain types of risks — immediate risks of disasters occurring in and around these operations. We have seen quite a bit of it over the years. These coalmines have caught fire before. Coalmines have flooded before, despite us constantly being told, 'The regulator's on top of it; they're doing their job'. But this is just a small slice of the problem when members turn their minds to the threat that fossil fuel burning continues to pose to the entire planet.

I think members are now more educated about the possible risks associated with unconventional gas drilling here in Victoria. We are hoping that a permanent ban on unconventional gas drilling will occur shortly. On the weekend I was at Cape Bridgewater for the local community's symbolic declaration of being a gas field free community. This Sunday many of those communities who have declared themselves gas field free will be rallying here in Melbourne. Those members of the community seem to have come to understand the risks associated with new types of fossil fuel development as well as the old types that we are now so familiar with, and it simply remains for the members in this place to start acting in the way they ought to to protect the community from all these risks.