The report into the consequences of opening up the Great Australian Bight for oil or gas production, released yesterday [1], revealed South Australian Labor senator Alex Gallacher had voted against his two Labor colleagues, and joined forces with Liberal senators Chris Back and Linda Reynolds, to support oil and gas exploration in the Bight and keep the approvals process out of the public eye.
“It’s astonishing that the only independent experts [2] involved in this inquiry have condemned oil company plans as falling short of global best practice and yet the response from some Senators is to rubber-stamp them,” said Greenpeace senior campaigner Nathaniel Pelle.
“These politicians are putting blind faith in an accident-prone oil industry and a regulatory body that has already failed to hold polluters to account.
“To make matters worse, they’re keeping the public blindfolded while extreme deepwater oil drilling gets approved.
The Greens and majority Labor Senators on the committee recommended a change to Australian legislation that would make it mandatory for environment plans and oil spill modelling be made available for public consultation. This would bring Australia into line with OECD oil exploration standards and Australian requirements for mine approvals on land.
“It’s ludicrous that a mine on public land has to go through a public approvals process while an ultra-risky deep hole drilling project on water does not,” Pelle said.
“We are the only OECD country that allows oil companies this lack of accountability and transparency.”
The committee noted that fisheries, aquaculture and tourism industries are the region’s biggest employers and that these industries rely on the Bight’s ‘globally significant’ biodiversity and relative pristineness.
In quantifying his decision Senator Gallacher said he was: “satisfied that the National Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA), as a world class regulator, is capable of both providing economic opportunity for South Australia and safeguards for the environment”.
This week NOPSEMA released a finding which stated Exxon’s failure to follow its own procedures following detection of an oil spill in Bass Strait may have resulted in “additional environmental impact and risk that could otherwise be avoided”[3].
It also found that personnel responding to the spill were “not familiar” with the company’s own procedures and protocols, in addition to lacking the equipment needed for satisfactory response.
“This resulted in an improvised sampling approach that was inconsistent with good practice,” the report reads.
“Despite their damning actions and repeated accidents [4] NOPSEMA have failed to even give Exxon a fine,” Pelle said.
“A member of the public would face a larger fine for not wearing their lifejacket while going fishing than ExxonMobil has received for failing to properly respond to an oil spill.”
Independent Senator for South Australia Nick Xenophon was also part of the report and recommended that the drilling not go ahead.
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
[1] http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Committees/ec_ctte/Oilorgasproduction45/report.pdf?la=en
[2] Dr Andrew Hopkins, Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University said BP's proposed mitigation strategies in relation to drilling relief wells in the Great Australian Bight were “'well short of industry best practice” and Dr Robert Bea, Emeritus Professor at the University of California Berkeley, said that the risk of an uncontrolled blowout occurring during BP's exploratory drilling was not As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP).
[3] https://www.nopsema.gov.au/assets/Published-notices/A549511.pdf
[4] In September of 2015 an electrical fire broke out in the battery room of the West Tuna rig and took nine hours to contain. And in 2013 Exxon was responsible for a spill from another rig in the Bass Strait.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4317908.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/exxon-confirms-oil-spill-in-bass-strait-20130909-2tfr0.html
DRONE VISION OF BIGHT AVAILABLE AT THIS LINK: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9GyuAefqYA5dnFxMFdsVGlaUDQ/view
For interviews contact:
Simon Black
Greenpeace Senior Media Campaigner
0418 219 086 / simon.black@greenpeace.org