Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Corio Bay gas import terminal

Ms SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:15): (6312) My adjournment tonight is to the Minister for Planning. The action I seek from the minister is to commission an independent assessment of the emissions that would result from Viva Energy’s plan to build a gas import terminal in Corio Bay. As the minister would be aware, Viva Energy wants to build a new gas import terminal in the bay near Geelong and the environmental assessment for this project is currently underway. Over the past year many members of the local community have contacted my office to raise concerns about this project. They are worried about the impacts of a new fossil fuel project for the climate and for the local environment and also the safety risk it poses to the community. Now that the environment effects statement process is underway locals have contacted us with concerning analysis that Viva may be deliberately misleading the EES process by undercounting the climate emissions from their project by up to 12 times. Viva is doing this by failing to count the emissions that would be created by the gas being transported to the terminal. This is why today I am seeking that as part of that environment assessment process for the project the government gets an independent assessment of all the emissions from Viva’s planned project to make sure that they are accurate. The accounting trick that Viva seems to be trying to pull is an example of how much work the community groups and environment organisations have to do just to ensure that projects do not get a green light based on incomplete and inaccurate information.

Another key concern from the community is the risk that this terminal would pose to community safety. It would be located just 250 metres from homes and close to critical port infrastructure. Analysis shows that over 30 000 Geelong people live within the range of harm should an accident occur, yet Viva have downplayed these impacts. They have presented only the impact of a very minor leak that might occur, but elsewhere in the world we have seen quite destructive accidents have happened at similar gas terminals.

If we do take a step back, it is pretty disastrous to be even considering new fossil fuel projects at all in 2022, as evidence of the escalating climate crisis is all around us. In fact just this week the UN Secretary-General said that investing in any new fossil fuel infrastructure would be ‘moral and economic madness’. It is just over a year since the Minister for Planning made the welcome decision to reject AGL’s energy plan to build a gas import terminal in Western Port Bay on Boon Wurrung country. That was the right decision, and the community was very pleased by it. Any more investment in fossil fuels or any more support or approval of fossil fuel projects would be a backwards step that our climate cannot afford, and communities should not have to fight off project by project one after one. So I implore the government to please reject this project and to focus the government’s efforts on getting our state off fossil fuels and off gas. I know they have already, hopefully, started.