Bernardi bites back at Premier in fracking bill biff
The leader of One Nation South Australia has hit back at the Premier, saying he is “completely out of his depth on energy policy”, amid a war of words over a contentious move to repeal a ban on fracking in the state’s South East.
One Nation South Australia leader and upper house member Cory Bernardi has shrugged off suggestions his party’s position on repealing a fracking ban in the state’s South East was inconsistent with pre-election policy ahead of Pauline Hanson’s public appearance this afternoon at a major oil and gas conference.
Speaking exclusively with InDaily, Bernardi labelled Premier Peter Malinauskas a “showman”, and said he was “completely out of his depth on energy policy”.
He was not ideologically opposed to fracking, Bernardi said, but his party wanted to “protect prime agricultural land, the important water sources that are there, and reflect the wishes of the community”.
Bernardi’s comments follow the Premier singling out One Nation member for MacKilop Jason Virgo at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide yesterday, where he claimed 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 in front of the nation’s powerful oil and gas industry leaders.
One Nation national leader Pauline Hanson is in Adelaide today to speak at the AEP conference, where she is expected to talk about offshore gas drilling and energy policy.
Bernardi told InDaily that the push to repeal the fracking ban – a bill for which was introduced to Parliament yesterday by Energy and Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis – was a “nice little wedge issue, because [the Premier] has no influence in the South East of the state”.
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The bill is expected to fail in the upper house, with One Nation, the SA Liberals and the SA Greens all expected to vote against it.
Like the forestry, wine and livestock industries, Bernardi feared for the underground aquifer on the Limestone Coast: “There are risks to the aquifer, and however remote they are, one mistake in that fracking process can jeopardise the entire productivity of that region”.
“There is plenty of conventional gas exploration and drilling going on down there already, and I’ll also make the point that AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) says there is no chronic gas shortage in South Australia and we’ve got many years in which to prepare for it,” Bernardi said.
“If you really want energy security, let’s build a coal-fired power station, let’s do more exploration where there’s plenty in conventional gas exploration, and let’s drill for petroleum.
“But you’ve got to get the balance right.”
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 it could affect underground water sources, but it is currently permitted everywhere in South Australia except for the South East, where the 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.
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Bernardi said he offered to take the Premier down to the South East to “talk to people before the legislation expires in two years’ time”.
Premier Peter Malinauskas and the entire state Cabinet were in Mount Gambier last week to speak with primary producers and local residents, one day after announcing the push to remove the moratorium two years early.
Newly elected One Nation MP Virgo gatecrashed the public meeting and told the Premier that his party would reject legislation that overturned a hard-fought moratorium that’s set to expire in two years.
Speaking to reporters this morning, Koutsantonis said One Nation was “hypocritical”, saying the party “ran on a platform of unlocking Australia’s energy resources”.
“When they’re presented with an opportunity to actually vote on the things that they’ve called for, they reject it,” Koutsantonis said.
“Pauline Hanson needs to come down to Parliament House… how about she tell them to do what she says, do what she tells everyone else to do, and let’s vote for Australia’s energy independence.
“Let the scientists decide whether it is safe, not Pauline Hanson, not Angus Taylor, and … not Ashton Hurn.”
Koutsantonis also said consultation with the community was prohibited under the Energy Resources Act.
“We cannot go down there, we cannot talk about fracture stimulation,” he said.
“The department is prohibited by law in entering this area and talking about fracture stimulation.
“That’s how stupid this law is.”
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