Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Energy policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:34): I want to alert the house to the nonsense that we heard from the Minister for Energy and Resources at PAEC this week and at other times that there is no gas available for Victorians. She is so wrong on gas. There is plenty of gas offshore within the 3-mile zone which the state administers and onshore. Onshore conventional gas is available either in Gippsland or indeed in the west of the state. I think Jane Norman from Cooper Energy has belled the cat on this minister today. She said Victoria does not have a gas shortage; it has enough resources to meet current demand for at least 25 years, while Lily D’Ambrosio said to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee ‘we do not have sufficient supplies of gas in Victoria to meet our future needs’. There is a constriction in supply, but the reason for that constriction is Labor has blocked exploration. In the years between 2013 and now there have been no onshore conventional gas licences given – none. The last three licences were given out in 2013 by the Baillieu–Napthine governments. That is when those licences were released. So with no new exploration licences for onshore conventional gas, no wonder we have got a constriction in supply. But the gas is there; the state government has just got to allow it to be got out under proper processes, and it should get a move on.