Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Gas sector job losses

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (02:08): (747) My matter for the adjournment tonight is for the attention of the Minister for Energy and Resources in the other place, and it is a very sad story that relates to Seeley International, which is a major manufacturer of air conditioning, gas heating, gas appliances and others. They have a number of manufacturing plants around Australia, but sadly, the news today is very bad indeed. They are intending to close their Albury–Wodonga operation, and 125 jobs will be lost, so it is quite a serious outcome. And they have been quite explicit in their formal public statements in their news releases. The gas substitution plan that the minister for energy has implemented –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: That is right; it is a jobs killer – in this case 125 jobs in Albury–Wodonga, so it is a major manufacturing plant. Bill Tilley, our member for Benambra, has been very active in standing up for these Seeley jobs, but it seems that Lily D’Ambrosio, the minister for energy, is not listening to the community. She is not listening to the sector and has not understood that this is going to lead to a loss of jobs. What I want her to do is to step back from the approach to the gas substitution plan – the gas ban, as has been outlined by Ms Bath – to re-examine this and to reverse direction. Victoria has a very large distributed gas system. We saw in the electricity outages just a few weeks ago, with 530,000 households out, that people did still have gas – they still had gas – so it is an alternate delivery mechanism. The government has already banned gas this year on new estates, so you cannot open a new estate and connect gas to your house for hot water purposes, for purposes of cooking or for purposes of gas heating.

We also know that long term the gas distribution system has an important role in potentially carrying hydrogen. That can be a green fuel, a fuel that can be created through green mechanisms and a fuel that in that way can be put down. We know that already you can put a shandy of natural gas and about 10 to 15 per cent hydrogen down the existing pipes. Longer term, with very modest changes to the piping system you can actually put down a fully hydrogen mix. But the key thing here is that gas has got an important future. It is an important part of our manufacturing sector, and the minister needs to step back. This deindustrialisation that is occurring because of her gas ban is actually outrageous, and the minister needs to rethink this mistaken policy.