Wednesday, 21 September 2022

 Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (17:37): I am pleased to speak today on our final day of this Parliament in support of a petition calling on the Victorian government to reject Viva Energy’s application for a gas import terminal in beautiful Corio Bay near Geelong. I want to acknowledge every single one of the 2072 people who have signed this petition, and I would also like to thank my colleague Mr Meddick for bringing this petition to Parliament.

For anyone unfamiliar with this issue, Viva Energy currently runs an oil refinery in Geelong. Now Viva Energy is proposing to expand their fossil fuel operations in the area by building a gas import terminal in Corio Bay. This would essentially be a giant floating ship bringing gas into Victoria. The gas would be fracked gas from elsewhere in Australia or it could be Australian gas exported overseas and then reimported. So to be clear on just how ludicrous the situation is, Victoria produces gas, mostly in the Bass Strait. We send it north to Queensland, where it is largely exported. Now we are looking at closing this ridiculous loop by reimporting it back, all the while producing massive greenhouse gas emissions that are fuelling catastrophic climate change.

We only need to look around the world to see the worsening climate crisis. My heart is with the flooded people of Pakistan right now, and I am also thinking of everyone in Europe facing deadly heatwaves and drought and the US where fires are burning at a scale never seen before. Climate change is here now, and the world cannot afford any new fossil fuel projects; the International Energy Agency has made this clear and so have the world’s climate scientists.

I want to thank the crew of the Geelong Renewables Not Gas campaign for taking a stand against Viva Energy’s proposed gas terminal. It is not easy to go up against big fossil fuel companies. Viva’s project has real safety and environmental risks for the local community. It would be pouring more fuel on the climate crisis. I call on everybody in this place to support this petition. The Labor government should have ruled this project out from the get-go. The Victorian Greens and I will continue to do everything we can inside and outside of Parliament to stop it in its tracks, and I really hope that MPs from all parties will do the same.