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Gaslighting Gippsland

2/7/2020

13 Comments

 
PictureLauren Burns signs up for a public workshop on the
Victorian Gas Program and learns that Gippsland
is in the firing line.
By Lauren Burns

IN THE midst of the coronavirus pandemic you’d be forgiven if you missed the Victorian government’s announcement that it was lifting the three-year moratorium on onshore gas production, which expired on June 30. This paves the way for conventional gas wells in Victoria.
 
Spooked by this summer’s bushfires and smoke haze – unwelcome signs of a new way of life as we continue to burn fossil fuels like gas – I signed up for an online public consultation workshop on the Victorian Gas Program (VGP). Living in Inverloch, I was interested to find out what the government was planning for the Gippsland Basin gas field, a vast area stretching from Phillip Island to Lakes Entrance.

Beforehand, I sat down to familiarise myself with the VGP’s latest progress report. Although produced by Victoria’s Geological Survey, it read more like a marketing document than an independent attempt to balance the pros and cons of conventional onshore gas production.
Picture
Digging deeper, I was perplexed to discover the total amount of onshore gas in Victoria is miniscule. The report estimates the Gippsland Basin contains a maximum of 115 petajoules (P 42). This is just enough to supply Victoria’s annual gas consumption of 220 petajoules (P 47) for about six months. Extracting it is forecast to create between 21 and 68 full time jobs in Gippsland in any given year over the project’s 10-year lifespan (P 57). That’s about the same as a supermarket or two.
 
Sure, jobs are necessary, especially in coronavirus times, but we could choose a better path. Bass Coast’s draft Climate Action Plan recommends assistance for households, farms and businesses to switch away from gas to electric appliances such as heat pumps for heating, cooling and hot water systems. This would create jobs, cut our energy bills and avoid 80,000 tonnes of CO2 that would otherwise be fuelling more intense droughts and bushfires.
 
Ditching gas also means we could escape the soaring gas price which has sent our manufacturing and food production industries to the wall, killing jobs. Locally, Gippsland households and businesses such as dairies that use gas to heat and pasteurise milk are feeling the pain.
 
Why has the price of gas tripled? It isn’t true, as the gas industry claims, that onshore gas moratoriums in NSW and Victoria are the “key culprits”. Instead, the answer goes back to 2015 when the Federal government allowed gas companies such as Santos to lock up Queensland’s plentiful gas in massive export contracts that siphon it off overseas.
 
According to Rod Sims, head of Australia’s consumer watchdog the ACCC, "The gas companies assured governments that the local market would be fine, that prices wouldn't go up. And that turned out not to be the case. So I think the gas industry as a whole certainly has to carry a lot of blame for the mess.” He also remarked, "Often self-interest dominates what companies tell governments."
 
In opposition to community concerns, AGL has plans to build a gas import terminal in Western Port Bay on a protected wetland because it’s cheaper to reimport the gas we already exported overseas! Under the powers of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, the Federal government could fix this absurdity by pulling the lever to reserve gas for local use. In one fell swoop this would cut gas prices by three quarters, bringing much needed relief for households and businesses struggling with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Instead, government is campaigning in lockstep with the industry for a gas-led economic recovery that rewards the same bad actors – notorious for hiding profits offshore and paying zero tax back to the communities they source gas from – with subsidies to build yet more gas wells with free public money.  
 
The Federal government cornered Victoria and New South Wales with threats to withhold billions of federal dollars for energy infrastructure until the states agreed to quit their gas moratoriums. It’s a national scandal that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The Victorian government has sunk $42.5 million of our money into the Victorian Gas Program to undertaken research and feasibility studies on behalf of the industry. Probably not the best stewardship of the public interest or purse.
 
At the community consultation workshop we were shown a map tool featuring Gippsland’s coastline, parks, farms, infrastructure, communities and cultural heritage sites. The map was overlaid with a land sensitivity ranking of between one and five. “At what rating would gas projects be excluded?” asked a member of the public. The reply was evasive so the woman again pressed her question. “Nothing is being excluded at this stage,” answered the consultant. In other words, there’s no guarantee any parts of our Distinctive Area Landscape would be protected from the gas industries tentacles.
 
“Gas is a polluting fossil fuel that puts Victorian’s health and safety at risk,” said Doctors for the Environment and GP Katherine Barraclough. It’s also a pool that runs dry, in contrast to renewable energy that supplies a stream of clean, cheap energy that doesn’t run out.
 
Inspired by the Northern Rivers Lock the Gate alliance, Gippsland should reject the dishonest gas industry and the Victorian Gas Program that backs it.

13 Comments
Meryl Tobin link
3/7/2020 03:32:14 pm

Lauren, your excellent article exposes numerous reasons all of us should share your concern about on-shore gas exploration. I too attended a Gippsland Resource and Land Use Planning online community workshop about on-shore gas. When I asked the proponents if gas exploration in the Lang Lang to Grantville area was being considered, one said it was unlikely because it was on the edge of the study area and there were a lot of constraints. But I still gave feedback indicating all our Distinctive Areas and emphasizing the environmental-sensitivity of this area. However, I’m concerned not just for this area but for anywhere in Gippsland, indeed Victoria. Why prop up a dying and unsustainable energy source when public monies could be better spent on funding renewable energies such as solar?

Reply
Annie Rivera
3/7/2020 03:43:59 pm

I too attended the so called "public consultation workshop". The inverted commas are on purpose as the session was anything but - it was a marketing activity trying to sell us onshore gas exploration despite everything that's wrong with it. Your article explains it so well - there is almost no upside to onshore gas but a lot of downside. We should all reject any proposals from the gas industry.

Reply
Tony Hughes
3/7/2020 04:51:33 pm

I commend Lauren for reminding us, that our politicians, both Federal and State, are captured by forces that prevent what we all desperately need to avoid a climate change catastrophe, one that will make our present Covid-19 fears and restrictions almost irrelevant.
Unless natural gas leakage (methane) from on-shore gas wells is kept below around 3%, there is no climate advantage changing from coal to gas powered power stations.
The use of natural gas to create, so called, "clean energy hydrogen" being advocated by the same, "powers to be" that provided the lump of coal for Scott Morrison's Federal Parliament theatre is definitely not the answer, far from it.
Australia has an abundance of renewable energy sources (solar PV and solar thermal, wind, tidal and geothermal) which, without present, fossil fuel vested interest political influence, could soon move Australia to a thriving zero emissions economy powering itself and other southern hemisphere countries with clean, lifesaving energy.

Reply
Marg Lynn
3/7/2020 05:19:24 pm

What a great article Lauren, so full of wise critique about this appalling situation. It should be essential reading for all politicians. Could you submit it to The Age perhaps?

Reply
Lauren
3/7/2020 06:44:18 pm

Thanks Marg. I just emailed it to the Age to see if they're interested!

Reply
Bernie Mccomb
4/7/2020 09:52:02 am

Does everybody know about story, with strong recommendations to not connect to gas when building new house, in ATA Renew magazine, by no less than AGL? How much more ridiculous can energy politics get?

Reply
Benedict Clark
4/7/2020 11:09:53 am

Lovely article, Lauren.You demonstrate the casual way important decisions, which are more important than the participants, occur.A mild criticism:- in 2015 when the gas industry got a huge export deal which short changed Australians and tripled domestic gas pricess the companies are not to blame .They were doing their job for profits as expected. The blame is entirely with PM Gillard and her naive ministry.

Reply
Ian TEESE
4/7/2020 04:41:04 pm

But Benedict, the current LNP government is totally ignoring the issue of over-commitment of resources and LNG trains in Queensland.

They have reneged on a deal with Senator Patrick to bring in gas reservation as used in WA.

Reply
Lauren Burns
5/7/2020 09:31:06 am

Gillard’s government ended in 2013, I’m afraid this was an Abbott job 😀

Reply
Brian James
4/7/2020 08:09:44 pm

How can any government support the planned disruption and damage just to get six months supply of gas?

Reply
Ian Southall link
5/7/2020 04:54:10 pm

The Gippsland Climate Change Network totally opposes the search for on shore gas exploration in Gippsland We have enough renewables that will come on line in Gippsland over the next 10 to 20 years that will more than compensate for such small amount of gas produced on shore in Gippsland and given the modification for water use in the Macalister Irrigation District Plan just announced and what dairying and agriculture means to Gippsland We can not see the VGP getting up or other

Reply
Joan Woods link
10/7/2020 04:14:35 pm

Water and Gas don't mix. In the early 1980 a book was written detailing rings of trees research. It said that briegly = that it was as likely that we would experience an ice age rather than a hot age. Which ever way it goes, climate change is here and we should acknowledge it at every level of government.

Reply
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