Thursday, 30 July 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:43): (2663) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is a refusal of Vopak Victoria’s terminal environment effects statement. Dutch multinational company Royal Vopak has proposed the Victoria floating liquefied LNG import terminal, a liquefied gas or LNG import terminal situated in Port Phillip Bay or Naarm, approximately 19 kilometres offshore from Avalon. Frankly, it is alarming that this project is even under consideration at all given the state of the climate crisis. A climate catastrophe is unfolding in the northern hemisphere, with many parts of Europe experiencing unprecedented fires. The fact that we are having to have this fight is yet another example, if we needed one, that Labor does not actually know what climate action is. Their relentless approval of new fossil fuel projects so fossil fuel giants can profit at the expense of our livelihoods and our futures shows just how captured they are. This is the second gas terminal proposal in five years that communities in Geelong and surrounds, First Nations and environmental groups and climate and marine experts are standing up and fighting against. Expert reviews of Vopak’s EES have identified many alarming gaps, including documenting the wrong species, flawed fieldwork, unaccounted-for shipping emissions, no assessment of the impacts on bird migration and no risk management plan, just to name a few. Vopak has avoided assessing some of the most ecologically and culturally significant and heavily used waters in the entire region. They have also failed to assess the cumulative impacts on a bay that is already in decline and in an impoverished state.

Vopak is proposing to run a pipeline through 443 hectares of internationally recognised and protected Ramsar wetlands. This site provides vital habitat for migratory shorebirds, the vulnerable growling grass frog, threatened fish species and the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot, with historic annual counts exceeding 200,000 individual birds. Any works that could affect the ecological character of a Ramsar site trigger obligations under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, one of Australia’s most significant environmental laws. These obligations have not been adequately addressed, and the consequences of getting this wrong are permanent.

The proposed Vopak floating gas terminal presents an unacceptable risk to marine life, ecosystems, climate and public health and safety. Our communities and our bay deserve more than what this EES provides and so much better than a government which would allow multinational corporations to destroy our natural environment and our climate to make a profit. The minister must reject this application.