Fossil fuel fight looms

OIL and gas projects off the Great Ocean Road are again building into a controversial election issue, with state and federal governments in the sights of surfers and concerned coast watchers.

The Morrison Government opened up a series of new oil and gas exploration fields off the Australian coast last year, including by the Twelve Apostles in the Otway Basin, and bidding on commercial applications to exploit these areas closed on March 3.

A spokesperson for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources declined to name the successful bidders, saying it expects to release them sometime this week via its Australian Petroleum News site, but opposition is already building.

“To think they would risk one of Australia’s most iconic coastlines is disgusting,” Surfers for Climate co-founder Belinda Baggs said.

The Aireys Inlet-based longboard pro is again gearing up for battle, two years after helping spearhead the campaign that helped vanquish Norwegian Oil giant Equinor’s plans to drill the Great Australian Bight.

“All these surfers and communities are not going to stand for this, we’re not going to allow it to happen,” Ms Baggs said.

It’s a thorny issue for the federal government. Several newly opened exploration areas fall in Coalition-held electorates including Wannon, home to the Twelve Apostles and held by Liberal MP Dan Tehan.

Former Corangamite MP – now Victorian Liberal Senator – Sarah Henderson deemed the issue so toxic she defied her party and attended the anti-Equinor Torquay paddle out protest during the 2019 federal election campaign.

Liberal candidate for Corangamite Stephanie Asher will similarly face questions about her party’s policies while she tries to dislodge Labor’s Libby Coker.

“We need to use this as an opportunity to see real action in protecting our coastline, there’s just way too much to risk if we don’t. Anything from global warming and climate impacts to risks of a spill, it’s just not worth it,” Ms Baggs said of the pending federal election.

But it’s also shaping up as problematic for the renewables-focused Andrews Labor Government, itself facing an election later this year, as it’s backing development of the Otway Basin areas and shares both licencing and regulatory approval for the sites with the federal government.

There are now two Greens bills seeking to stop the new oil and gas projects: one lodged in the Victorian parliament last week, and the other tabled in the federal Senate last year but expected to languish until after the election with only three more Senate sitting days before the nation goes to the polls.

The Victorian bill seeks to leapfrog off a recent NSW government decision that will reject pending or future applications for commercial offshore exploration and mining, a policy designed to protect the state’s coastline.

“I always like to start politely, having civil conversations with MPs,” Ms Baggs said.

“These conversations then might morph into paddle outs, protests, we’ll do what we have to protect these places that we love.”