Labor’s keen support for the pro-gas Middle Arm development in the NT runs counter to its sustainability claims
The Albanese government has today announced the advisory board for its new Net Zero Agency, with former climate minister and trade unionist Greg Combet leaving his role as chair of Industry Super to chair this one. The body, which will be charged with helping communities transition away from fossil-fuel industries, will be led by a who’s who of industry leaders, including economist Ross Garnaut, Australian Energy Regulator chief executive Anthea Harris, ClimateWorks Australia’s Anna Skarbek, Rio Tinto chief executive Kellie Parker, and union bosses Michele O’Neil and Tony Maher. There’s good news in the solar space, with the supply of panels soaring; Climate Energy Finance boss Tim Buckley says Australia must seize the occasion, calling on Labor to introduce a solar module production tax credit to secure our position in the global supply chain. The ACT is banking its cheapest wind power yet, as it moves to the next stage of the transition, while Queensland has budgeted $19 billion for the shift to renewables, using its pumped-up coal royalties. Why, then, is the federal government subsidising the dodgy Middle Arm development in Darwin, “a key enabler” for the export of gas, as an FOI recently revealed? And why is there so much secrecy around the project, with Labor last night voting with the Coalition to block an inquiry into it – one that was recommended in an earlier Senate inquiry and which Labor had agreed to? Why is the government openly gaslighting us, insisting this is a “sustainable” development, when it’s quite clear it is the exact opposite?
Questions are mounting about the Middle Arm precinct on Darwin Harbour, which is subsidised by $1.5 billion in federal funding. After Guardian Australia last month revealed that the federal government sees it as “a key enabler” for the export of gas – alarming crossbenchers – we last week learnt that gas company Tamboran Resources was one of five companies the Northern Territory had provided with land at the development, with the company announcing plans for an LNG plant to export fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin. As anti-fracking group Frack Free NT told the ABC, taxpayer funds should not be used to subsidise gas. “Tamboran is a multinational company, with a billionaire backer,” said spokesperson Phil Scott. “There’s no way Australian taxpayer dollars should be used to support its polluting fracking plans.” Independent MP Monique Ryan questioned Labor’s claims that the $1.5 billion was not a fossil-fuel subsidy, while Zali Steggall said it “makes a mockery of any climate policy”. In recent days, the Australian Medical Association has spoken out about its fracking concerns, as paediatricians pleaded with the NT government to withdraw support for a full-scale fracking industry, citing direct and indirect health risks.
Now the government has voted with the Coalition to block a Senate inquiry into the Middle Arm development, going against the recommendations of an earlier inquiry. As Guardian Australia reports, Labor had previously indicated it would support the Beetaloo inquiry recommendations. But it voted down the Greens’ motion, arguing it was opposing a review because the project was at an early stage, with other assessments still ongoing (although why then, many are asking, are they “throwing billions at it no strings attached”?). Greens leader Adam Bandt is furious, tweeting that “Labor is using public money to fund more gas, while hiding it from scrutiny after previously backing an inquiry”. So too is GetUp chief executive and Widjabul Wia-bal woman Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, who says that the Albanese government “continue to let down traditional owners”. “It seems Labor has forgotten the mandate on which they were elected just over a year ago,” Baldwin-Roberts said. “They supported the Beetaloo inquiry and the recommendation that the Middle Arm gas hub undergo additional scrutiny just two months ago.”
What changed here? What does the Albanese government have to hide? Could it have anything to do with last week’s further FOIs, revealing it knew most of the wharves at the development would be used for gas export, and that briefing docs suggested that the gas industry stands to benefit? There are serious questions to be answered here, especially about that $1.5 billion subsidy. As ecologist Yung En Chee tweeted, there seems to be some confusion over whether the subsidy is to support hydrogen, which at-risk Macnamara MP Josh Burns claimed it was at a recent community forum. “Reckon #Macnamara voters’d welcome the scrutiny of a Senate Inquiry,” Chee added.
Labor has become extremely keen on gas since getting into government, carrying on the mantle of the Coalition’s “gas-led recovery” with gusto. The Albanese government can claim all it likes that Middle Arm is a “
sustainable” development, and that its $1.5 billion stake is “not a subsidy for fossil fuels” – the sort of subsidy it promised ahead of the election it would not provide. But the FOIs make it clear the project has been
greenwashed, while Labor’s refusal to have an inquiry confirms, in case it were not obvious, that we are being gaslit. So much for helping communities transition
away from fossil-fuel industries.
GOOD OPINION
Daniel comes to judgement
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“The media has great power to be a force for good when it reports with good faith and in the public interest. It also has the power to destroy people, and trust in institutions, when it fails to balance that with a duty of care.”
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Independent MP and former journalist Zoe Daniel calls for urgent media reform, including a review of the voluntary Journalist Code of Ethics. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has introduced a bill for a Murdoch media royal commission, labelling its influence “unaccountable and dangerous”.
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BAD OPINION
Leying it on thick
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“I don’t want to be talking about this. The opposition doesn’t want to be talking about this. The fact that we are lies fairly at the feet of the PM … Were they aware of these allegations before they went to air? And did they use them to profit politically? In which case, that’s morally bankrupt.”
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Liberal deputy Sussan Ley says the Coalition will continue to pepper Labor with questions about the leaked Brittany Higgins texts all week. It comes as two Libs break ranks to call for an inquiry into the leaks, while support services condemn those using the Higgins allegations as a “political football”.
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7am Podcast
Who leaked Brittany Higgins’ texts?
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Personal text messages between Brittany Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, have been splashed over the news for days – reopening questions about the lead-up to the interview when Higgins first went public with the allegation she was raped in a ministerial office. But as the political scandal spirals, the source of the texts, the motives for the leak and the consequences of them being published have remained mostly unexamined. Today, Rachel Withers on the leak of Brittany Higgins’ texts, and what it really proves about our media.
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The average base pay rise received by chief executives of ASX-listed companies over the past year. As ACTU president Michele O’Neil noted, these are “the very same big business bosses who say workers don’t deserve a pay rise that keeps up with inflation”.
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The Policy
Offences for sharing extremist material online
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The Albanese government has introduced its Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023, which includes the creation of new offences for accessing and sharing violent extremist material online.
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