‘You could knock me over with a feather’: Premier blasts One Nation’s fracking position
With a contentious bill repealing a ban on fracking in the state’s South East set to be introduced to Parliament later today, the Premier has come out swinging against One Nation’s opposition in an address to leaders of the nation’s oil and gas industry.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas slammed opposition to his government’s contentious attempt to repeal a ban on fracking in the state’s South East in a speech to the leaders of the nation’s powerful oil and gas industry this morning.
Speaking at the Australian Energy Producers conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre, the Premier singled out One Nation member for MacKillop Jason Virgo, saying the party’s position on the changes was at odds with the policy platform it brought to the March state election.
“Think about the fact that this wave of populism that gets elected on a mantra of ‘drill baby drill’, within weeks of getting elected, is saying ‘drill baby drill, if everyone in the community, 100 per cent of people support it’. Only then can we drill baby drill,” the Premier said in an onstage interview.
“This is the same policy madness that has got the country to the position that we are in now.
“The only question should be whether or not we are willing to put our confidence in the regulators around the science and allow properly trained hydrologists to assess whether or not this work can be done safely and in compliance with the other regulatory requirements… not the first sign of resistance politically from a local community.
“Yet One Nation and the state Liberal party are going to line up in our Parliament and oppose it. You could knock me over with a feather.”
One Nation was approached for comment on the Premier’s statements but had not provided a response by deadline.
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Energy and Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis will today introduce the bill seeking to repeal the ban on fracking in the state’s South East.
The bill was expected to fail in the upper house, with both One Nation and the Liberal Party expressing their opposition to the proposal over the past week.
The Malinauskas government hoped the removal of the ban, first established by the former Marshall Liberal government in 2018, could unlock new gas resources for the state.
Fracking processes have been controversial over fears that it could affect underground water sources, but it is currently permitted everywhere in South Australia except for the South East where its dominant industries are farming and winemaking.
The ban on fracking – a process for extracting gas from the ground that involves pumping chemicals and water into the ground to fracture rock – was won after intense lobbying by the South East community.
Industry leaders from the livestock, forestry and wine sectors have been vocal in their opposition to the removal of the fracking ban, fearing that chemicals used in the gas extraction process could affect the Limestone Coast aquifer.
At a press conference yesterday, Liberal Leader Ashton Hurn said: “At this point in time, we can’t see a situation where we would support the lifting of the moratorium. Full stop”.
While One Nation MP Jason Virgo told InDaily last week that the “farming community in the South East fought hard and long against fracking on their land and One Nation is going to back them all the way”.
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‘Energy is not a zero-sum game’
The Premier also used his opportunity in front of the oil and gas industry – including the bosses of both Santos and Woodside – to lambast both sides of the “long, wasteful climate wars”.
He said this had “slowed economic progress in this country, deprived business and industry of essential investment certainty and robbed our nation of any first-mover advantage associated with the decarbonisation and energy transition opportunities that other countries are now embracing”.
“On one side, we have the no-net-zero crowd filling column inches and internet bandwidth with assertions that climate science is a hoax, somehow authored by the woke mind virus,” he said.
“On the other side stand the green warriors, demanding that all fossil fuel use should have ended yesterday, and that crashing the economy is a small price to pay for moral superiority.
“This indulgent absolutism has done nothing for the majority of Australians who acknowledge the necessity of decarbonisation and economic growth occurring concurrently. If there was ever a time to call time on this zero-sum game, it is now.”
He reiterated his government’s position on unlocking new gas resources, emphasising its importance to projects like decarbonising the troubled Whyalla Steelworks, which he said was responsible for 14 per cent of the state’s total emissions.
“If we remain in the zero-sum framework of the Australian climate wars, we are left with a binary choice: burn baby burn or shut it all down,” the Premier said.
“Thankfully, in my state, we do not approach this challenge as a binary choice. It is not a zero-sum game.
“My government knows that we do not have a moment to waste in pursuing this opportunity. It is once-in-a-lifetime. This goal can only be achieved through partnership with industries such as yours, working in the service of a shared ambition. Energy is not a zero-sum game.”
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