5 years ago
TIME TO GET NARRABRI GAS PROJECT UP AND RUNNING
JOEL FITZGIBBON MP
They say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Australia is blessed with an abundance of gas but we've lost our will to unlock a relatively cheap source of energy.
Yet still, rising household energy bills and manufacturing plant closures have not been enough to shake NSW and Victoria from their irrational reluctance.
Many have argued for a gas reservation policy for the eastern market.
I have no problem with a prospective model if it's deemed necessary.
But what use is a reservation policy if governments won't permit gas development anyway? It should not have come to this.
If we'd moved earlier on new projects, there would be no need to venture down the reservation path and more manufacturers would still be in business.
The east coast market has access to more than 117,000 petajoules of identified resources of gas. That's enough gas to supply both the entire east coast domestic market and Gladstone exports to Asia for more than 60 years. But not if the gas stays in the ground.
People are right to be concerned about any impacts of resource development might have on our natural environment.
As Labor's agriculture spokesman, I'm acutely aware of the need to protect our water and soil resources.
There will be some projects unable to pass our stringent environmental tests, but many can. Hopefully Santos's Narrabri project is about to join the ranks of successful projects.
The Narrabri project enjoys strong support in the local community. It will create around 1200 local jobs in the construction phase and more than 200 ongoing jobs.
It will bolster economic activity in a region which is struggling. It will deliver enough gas to meet 50 per cent of the needs of NSW households and businesses.
A new pipeline will transport the product to market, creating more construction jobs and enabling new and exciting business opportunities including new gas-fired peaking electricity generators. That will help to put downward pressure on our electricity bills.
The successful commissioning of the Narrabri project may also help build community confidence in the technologies which allow us to extract gas in an economic, safe and environmentally sustainable way.
That in turn will encourage further investment in new projects and, hopefully, reduce approval timelines.
Narrabri has been over eight years in the making. The community rightly expects governments to run robust environmental assessment processes, but they should not take forever.
In Queensland we have a successful model to look to. In the Sunshine State, there is a large and mature gas industry which is still investing billions of dollars each and every year in regional towns. That investment is supporting good jobs and business opportunities in regional Queensland, where towns are thriving because of gas.
Between 2011 and 2018, gas companies paid farmers more than $500 million, under more than 4000 agreements, for the opportunity to access their land.
For our farmers, the industry has provided water and payments that have been a boon through a terrible drought. This is what farmers and local economies in other states are missing out on.
You might say that in Queensland gas companies and farmers have formed a successful compact - a win-win for them and a big win for the state economy. Off-farm income from gas infrastructure is now a selling point for many properties, attracting premium prices.
NSW and Victoria could learn much from Queensland's success.
Yet still, rising household energy bills and manufacturing plant closures have not been enough to shake NSW and Victoria from their irrational reluctance.
Many have argued for a gas reservation policy for the eastern market.
I have no problem with a prospective model if it's deemed necessary.
But what use is a reservation policy if governments won't permit gas development anyway? It should not have come to this.
If we'd moved earlier on new projects, there would be no need to venture down the reservation path and more manufacturers would still be in business.
The east coast market has access to more than 117,000 petajoules of identified resources of gas. That's enough gas to supply both the entire east coast domestic market and Gladstone exports to Asia for more than 60 years. But not if the gas stays in the ground.
People are right to be concerned about any impacts of resource development might have on our natural environment.
As Labor's agriculture spokesman, I'm acutely aware of the need to protect our water and soil resources.
There will be some projects unable to pass our stringent environmental tests, but many can. Hopefully Santos's Narrabri project is about to join the ranks of successful projects.
The Narrabri project enjoys strong support in the local community. It will create around 1200 local jobs in the construction phase and more than 200 ongoing jobs.
It will bolster economic activity in a region which is struggling. It will deliver enough gas to meet 50 per cent of the needs of NSW households and businesses.
A new pipeline will transport the product to market, creating more construction jobs and enabling new and exciting business opportunities including new gas-fired peaking electricity generators. That will help to put downward pressure on our electricity bills.
The successful commissioning of the Narrabri project may also help build community confidence in the technologies which allow us to extract gas in an economic, safe and environmentally sustainable way.
That in turn will encourage further investment in new projects and, hopefully, reduce approval timelines.
Narrabri has been over eight years in the making. The community rightly expects governments to run robust environmental assessment processes, but they should not take forever.
In Queensland we have a successful model to look to. In the Sunshine State, there is a large and mature gas industry which is still investing billions of dollars each and every year in regional towns. That investment is supporting good jobs and business opportunities in regional Queensland, where towns are thriving because of gas.
Between 2011 and 2018, gas companies paid farmers more than $500 million, under more than 4000 agreements, for the opportunity to access their land.
For our farmers, the industry has provided water and payments that have been a boon through a terrible drought. This is what farmers and local economies in other states are missing out on.
You might say that in Queensland gas companies and farmers have formed a successful compact - a win-win for them and a big win for the state economy. Off-farm income from gas infrastructure is now a selling point for many properties, attracting premium prices.
NSW and Victoria could learn much from Queensland's success.