Parliamentary Committees

Natural Resources Committee: Unconventional Gas (Fracking) Final Report

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. S.W. Key:

That the 119^th report of the committee, entitled Inquiry into Unconventional Gas (Fracking) in the South-East of South Australia Final Report, be noted.

(Continued from 30 November 2016.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:04): I am still waiting to speak on the interim report, and I think I am now speaking on the final report.

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: I doubt whether I will ever get to it. It matters not whether I speak on the interim report or the final report. I welcome the final report. As I have often said in this place, I think some of the best work that the parliament does is done by our committees, and this one has done an excellent job. It was an onerous task to go about and take evidence from a large number of people with a wide variety of views and considerable passion.

The report I think is thoughtful in its findings and recommendations. It did not go quite as far as I thought it might, but that does not surprise me given the nature of the make-up of the committee. I thought the committee may have recommended a moratorium be set in the South-East for a period to allow more public discussion and a greater understanding of what is still, certainly for the people of the South-East, relatively new technology.

I do not mind saying, and I have said this publicly in the South-East, that I have no fears about the fracking technology. Personally, I have no fears. I do not think that particularly the water resources of the South-East or any other parts of the environment in the South-East would be impacted adversely if fracking were undertaken in the region. Notwithstanding that, my community, I believe, feels quite differently. The community that I represent, I think quite strongly has serious reservations. Over a number of years now, I have been going around to meetings and opportunities I have had to meet people in my local electorate. I have expressed my views that I do not think fracking poses any threat or danger to the region; notwithstanding that, the community has come to a different view.

I came to the conclusion, after doing that for a number of years, that it was not my job as the local member to change the mind of my community. That, I believe, is the job of those who would propose to undertake fracking in the South-East; that is, the proponents, if there are any, intending to utilise that technology sometime in the future. It is their job, in my opinion, to prove the case that the technology would provide no risk particularly to the watertable, which is a very valuable resource of the South-East and of the state as a whole.

The company Beach Petroleum came to the South-East and put down two exploratory wells. I thought it was very provocative of them to put down one of those wells during the election campaign in the run-up to the 2014 election. It was a provocative move. It gave those who would oppose fracking a wonderful opportunity and a great deal of media to sell their case. Beach Petroleum, on the other hand, failed absolutely to make any inroads into selling their case.

I met with Beach Petroleum. They gave me a briefing on what their intent was and what they were wanting to do. Over a period of time, I believe I had several meetings with them and made a few contacts. I had given them some advice about the nature of what I thought they needed to do in the South-East and then, lo and behold, a drilling rig turned up in December or January, only a few months before the last election. Obviously, in the heat of an election campaign, there is opportunity for all sorts of people to get out and make all sorts of statements, and that indeed occurred.

Beach Petroleum I think made several fatal errors in that process. One was, as I said, the provocative—and that is a word I use quite deliberately—drilling campaign at that particular time. The other error is that they failed totally to get around to the community and explain the technology they were thinking about using. Certainly, at that time they were not proposing to undertake fracking: they were investigating to see whether the fracking technology would be beneficial.

Indeed, my understanding is that they learned several things from the work they did, and one was that, yes, at some stage fracking may be beneficial to the extraction of natural gas in the South-East, and the other thing they learned from that process, and it is my understanding, was that there is a significant amount of gas to be harvested in the region utilising conventional gas extraction methods. They found a lot more gas in the sands overlaying the bedrock—the source material, the shales at great depth—which has not been tapped at this stage.

They believe they can tap that gas, and I believe the next investment in gas production in the South-East will be in conventional gas production with no intent to undertake fracking. That would foresee the investment window for many years to come. In supporting the committee's report and its recommendations, I also put on the record that I personally do not have any fears about the technology but that I certainly support my community. They deserve the opportunity to have the people who propose the use of such technology do the work on the ground to convince the community.

I note that the Minister for Energy regularly has a go at the Liberal Party for coming out with the policy that we would impose a 10-year moratorium on fracking in the South-East if we came into government following the election just over 12 months away. I note that the Premier was recently in my electorate and quoted in The South Eastern Times as saying that fracking would not be undertaken in the South-East unless the community supported it—and that was in quotation marks. So, even the Premier of this government told that to the people of the South-East.

I do not know whether the Premier is telling the people of the South-East one thing when he is down there and his minister is saying something else to the people in Adelaide. I will leave the community to work that out for themselves. I can tell you that The South Eastern Times quoted the Premier as saying, 'Our policy is that there will be no fracking in the South-East unless the community are on side.' I am on the same page as the Premier on this.

The person who is on the wrong page, obviously, is the Minister for Mineral Resources. I can understand why he is on the wrong page—because he is locked into a position where this government for so many years has had an energy policy that has pushed renewables and tried to get rid of the historic methods of generating electricity here in South Australia—principally coal, but also gas.

As I interjected in question time yesterday when we were sitting in here and it was 30-something degrees outside, our consumption of electrical energy in South Australia was just under 1,960 or 1,970 megawatts, 600 of which was coming across the border through the Heywood Interconnector and at one stage another 140 was coming through the Murraylink Interconnector. So, between 700 and 800, which is getting towards half (over 40 per cent) was coming from Victoria, and what were the wind farms doing? What were they doing?

At one stage, when I was looking at the app on my iPad, they were producing a grand total of nine megawatts. The wind must have puffed a couple of windmills at one stage and I saw it get up to 13 megawatts out of almost 2,000. Anybody who seriously thinks that the problem with energy reliability in South Australia has anything to do with anything other than the fact that we have driven out coal-fired generation and we are in the process of driving out gas-fired generation has not really looked at the issue. We are in dire straits. Until this minister gets out of his delusional position, we are not going to move forward. Unfortunately, I have run out of time and I have to conclude my remarks there.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:14): After two years of work, the Natural Resources Committee concluded its inquiry. I note that we issued a media release on 29 November talking about the inquiry. One of the reasons for putting out the interim report, members will remember, was the huge number of people who made submissions to the inquiry. I think that at that stage of the interim report we had 178 written submissions.

We thought that, because we knew this was going to be a long inquiry, particularly with our committee's commitment to making sure that we visited the South-East, as well as receiving submissions here in Parliament House, it was important to acknowledge the great work done by so many people for our inquiry. I agree with the member for MacKillop that it would have been nice to deal with the interim report and now the final report, which we are talking about, but that is the way it is.

I want to remind members of the recommendations of the report. We said—and I think this is what the Premier was probably referring to, member for MacKillop—that without social licence unconventional gas exploration development should not proceed in the South-East of South Australia. The committee found that the social licence to explore/develop unconventional gas does not exist in the South-East of South Australia. At no time did I even imagine that we would suggest a moratorium. I hope that I made that very clear during the case that I did not think that was the answer.

Having had the opportunity to go to England just after we started the case, the member for Florey and I had the honour of speaking to the members of the Environmental Audit Committee of Westminster, where we were given a briefing on the difficulties the members of those committees, particularly the Environmental Audit Committee, had with the concept of fracking in the south of England. The decision they made at that stage was to hold a moratorium, which I think is now up, so it will be interesting to see what the next stage of that particular development is.

Also, I was aware, as was the committee, of suggestions for a moratorium in different parts of Australia. It was the committee's view (and particularly mine, I might add) that that was not the solution we were looking for, that we really did need to make up our minds about whether or not there was support for fracking in the South-East—and I emphasise the South-East. That does not mean that fracking is not something that we acknowledge elsewhere in South Australia and also Australia.

The other point we made, which I think is important to re-emphasise, is that, while the specific process of hydraulic fracturing or fracking in deep shale, properly managed and regulated, is unlikely to pose significant risk to groundwater, other processes associated with unconventional gas extraction, including mid- to long-term well integrity and surface spills, present risks that may need to be properly considered and managed. Furthermore, groundwater use in any unconventional gas extraction process in the South-East should be considered in relation to the existing Limestone Coast Prescribed Wells Area Water Allocation Plan (WAP) and other relevant regional WAPs.

I commend the other recommendations to the house. In closing, I want to thank all the people who spent time not only making submissions to the committee but also appearing as witnesses. We had at least 66 witnesses to our inquiry. We had a lot of support from members in both this house and the Legislative Council. I would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Mount Gambier, Mr Troy Bell MP; the member for Hammond, Mr Adrian Pederick MP; the member for MacKillop, Mr Mitch Williams MP; and the Hon. Mark Parnell MLC. We also had the Hon. Terry Stephens MLC, who attended some of our hearings, supporting us at different stages. The committee does need to be commended. We worked very strongly together, and I commend the report to the house.

Motion carried.