E&OE…
Topics: AFL, natural gas, need for energy security, Trans Pacific Partnership, President-elect Trump, Turnbull Government delivering roads for Victoria, nuclear power
TOM ELLIOTT:
What do you make of the AFL's decision today?
GREG HUNT:
Well look, I have to say I'm a Richmond supporter and my little seven-year-old boy James is a West Coast supporter and he's already backed Sam Mitchell so, I feel very pleased for both of those players.
I do feel desperately sorry, desperately sorry, for Jobe Watson who, to me, seems like an incredibly decent person.
TOM ELLIOTT:
I actually don't feel that sorry for him because, I don't want to go back into the whole Essendon saga again because it's over four years old now but, you know, being taken off into a separate room, getting secret injections, which they had to sign a stat dec saying do not mention this to anybody.
You know, surely the alarm bells would have started ringing in their heads?
GREG HUNT:
Yeah, look, you know, I know what you would know in the sense of having read the public reports. I feel sorry for the guy and that's my position.
But I do feel pleased for Trent Cotchin and my little guy will be very pleased for Sammy Mitchell. They're both great players.
TOM ELLIOTT:
No doubt. Sam Mitchell, who the Hawthorn Football Club, in its infinite wisdom, let go at the end of the season. Okay now, there's a few things I want to ask you today.
Firstly, gas. Now at the moment it seems that here in Victoria we actually have a bit of a shortage of gas.
GREG HUNT:
Correct.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Gas prices in this part of the world are going up. Internationally they're quite weak. I've come across this bizarre situation today where we've got no fewer than three export terminals which have opened up.
This is gas export terminals up in Queensland at the Port of Gladstone. So you've got three companies, Origin, Santos and British Gas all exporting, you know, billions of litres of gas overseas. And yet, it looks like we are going to have a shortage of gas here in Victoria.
And so AGL another utility company, is now considering opening up an import terminal down here to import gas from places like Qatar in the Middle East.
So we're exporting it from Queensland, and then we have a shortage down here so we're going to have to import it from other countries. This seems to be quite a dumb use of our resources, does it not?
GREG HUNT:
Well it's frankly utterly irresponsible and the reason why is because Victoria and New South Wales have huge reserves of natural gas. There's a virtual moratorium in New South Wales and an absolute moratorium in Victoria. Queensland has created huge numbers of jobs…
TOM ELLIOTT:
So when you say a moratorium, a moratorium on what?
GREG HUNT:
On exploring for and taking out new resources of natural gas in Victoria.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah. Okay.
GREG HUNT:
And that's contrary to history, it's not what's happening in the United States. It's not what's happening in Queensland. Queensland has been able to create, you know, thousands of jobs either in construction or in operation.
They're bringing very good revenues into the state.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay. But should we have a policy, though, as I believe they do in Western Australia. When you're given the right to exploit a natural resource like gas, that you reserve a certain proportion of it for local use?
Because it just, I cannot understand how we got to the situation where we are exporting so much Australian gas, to the point where we have a shortage of Australian gas in another part of the country, and so we have to import that from other countries.
Should we say to the Queensland companies, you must reserve some of this for domestic use?
GREG HUNT:
No, what happened here is of course, there was a strong consensus towards using natural gas, a very clean fuel, more than half a decade ago.
Contracts were made and struck with overseas countries which allowed for these projects. And everybody assumed that that would then allow for new developments in New South Wales and Victoria.
And Victoria in particular with, you know, great natural gas reserves, and with a history of having, you know, powered the state in significant measure and our state growth from Bass Strait, suddenly turned off that pipe.
So my message to Daniel Andrews is, if you want manufacturing in Victoria, if you want cheaper energy prices for households, lift the moratorium on natural gas exploration in this state.
It's a clean fuel. It's fundamental to our manufacturing and indeed the global head of Dow Chemicals raised this with me only a couple of weeks ago.
He said why aren't we able to try to extract gas from Victoria because we would build more manufacturing in Victoria.
He's an Australian, Andrew Liveris, and we were in Michigan, you know, the famous state which has had such an impact on the US election and he said, we would build more manufacturing and create more jobs for Australians if there wasn't this ban in Victoria on new gas exploration and new natural gas use.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, 9690 0693. Come and join us. We'll go to calls in a moment. Speaking of local supplies of energy, as the Federal Industry Minister, are you worried about the fact that one of our biggest power stations, Hazelwood, will probably close in the next four or five months?
I mean, is that concerning you particularly with the impact it's going to have on the Victorian economy?
GREG HUNT:
Well, I'm concerned very much about two things. One is the jobs of the workers and the impact on the Latrobe Valley.
And, secondly, the impact on electricity prices for households and for businesses. Now, the Victorian Government went out of their way to close them.
They tripled the royalties of the resources that were being used and at the time it was obvious, this was going to help drive this company out of business, to close the jobs.
I think yesterday we saw Bill Shorten down there after having called for the closure of similar power plants and, in particular, Hazelwood where they put in a policy at the last election to close this and other power plants.
Five weeks ago, his own party passed a motion to close this and other similar power plants through the Senate and then he turns up yesterday and says, well, I did want you to close but now I'm really sorry.
So, he's an absolute threat to jobs. Put him with Daniel Andrews and Victoria will lose more jobs.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Very quickly, we understand that a deal was done late last night between the Federal and Victorian State Government over roads funding, however the Premier Daniel Andrews woke up this morning and said he hadn't been properly consulted about it. Is the deal done?
GREG HUNT:
Yes, you know, essentially …
TOM ELLIOTT:
It is done?
GREG HUNT:
What has happened this afternoon, the Victorians have been much more accommodating.
I think they wanted to get to announce it themselves. What does it mean for your listeners?
It means if you're sitting in the car on the Monash, there is a way to make this better. There's a billion dollars going into widening the Monash, to improving traffic flows.
That's been a personal passion for myself and for Jason Wood and people like Alan Tudge.
We said over a year ago, we would not stop until the Monash was funded, similarly the Ring Road upgrade and the Murray Basin freight rail and then a big urban road package and a big rural roads package.
So, it will make a real difference to getting your goods to market and getting home to the family.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, calls for Greg Hunt, the Federal Industry Minister. 9690 0693.
I mean, there's this gas issue whereby we have to import gas from overseas here in Victoria because we're exporting so much of it from Queensland. There's the moratorium on new gas exploration in this state. There's I think what's going to be a looming shortage of electricity in Victoria but no one wants to talk about that.
The roads deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the election of Donald Trump, it's all open for discussion. Right now, it's eighteen after five.
[Commercial break]
TOM ELLIOTT:
It is 5:22pm, with me in the studio is the Federal Industry Minister Greg Hunt. Don't forget, of course, this program is brought to you for Supreme Caravans. Live your life, live your dream, live Supreme. David, hello.
CALLER DAVID:
How are you going, Tom?
TOM ELLIOTT:
Good.
CALLER DAVID:
Isn't one of the biggest problems with accessing the gas reserves in Victoria the fact that it's all shale gas and they're going to have to basically utilise fracking to get the gas out which then, in turn, could easily contaminate the water table?
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well, that's partly true David. I mean, fracking is a controversial technology but there are plenty of conventional gas reserves both onshore and offshore in Victoria that we're also banned from accessing.
This is where you just drill a hole into the ground and hope to encounter a big a big column of gas. Greg Hunt, do you believe fracking to be the answer?
GREG HUNT:
No, no it's not necessarily required at all.
As you say, firstly there is conventional gas and it's very weird that that's been banned, but really we're talking about natural gas and different ways of getting there.
One of the real drivers of development in the southern half of the United States in the last five years has been the fact that they're able to access natural gas, they've driven their industry off it, they're manufacturing, that's been critical to them.
Queensland, what you see is that they've had tremendous success and so it's simply about making sure that we have access to natural gas and, in turn, that creates the manufacturing jobs and for householders it's simply about the lower cost of heating their homes, of cooking their meals, and if that gas is used for generating electricity, for all of the things which come with electricity.
So, jobs and household living costs.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Peter, go ahead.
CALLER PETER:
Look, I was just going to say that I think in this country still we don't have the nuclear possibility for power on the agenda.
And I think it's immature that we don't and we should because, put aside climate science and climate change, if people have problems with that, and just say exactly what China's trying to do is clean up their air because so many kids have asthma and I think the nuclear option if you are serious about reducing pollution over a long period of time should be on the agenda…
TOM ELLIOTT:
I agree with you, Peter. Greg Hunt, I mean, we have between 30 and 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves, we export a lot of uranium despite it being subject to quite a lot of restrictions at the government level, so we're part of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Would we would you ever look at nuclear power for this country?
GREG HUNT:
You're absolutely right, we are part of the nuclear fuel cycle and, indeed, I was in Beijing only a week and a half ago and the air there was the worst I'd ever seen anywhere in the world and so they desperately need to clean up their air.
For Australia, you have to have a state which is going to support it. South Australia has been looking at this question in relation to a nuclear waste repository and potentially that might flow onto nuclear energy.
TOM ELLIOTT:
I would've thought South Australia was the perfect place to dump nuclear waste.
GREG HUNT:
And the world is very interested, by the way. Other countries have said to me they could see a multi-billion dollar industry …
TOM ELLIOTT:
Just chuck it in the middle of Adelaide.
GREG HUNT:
No, not Adelaide, where Australia would contribute. So we've actually been very supportive of South Australia looking at this.
We know they need to get community support; it looks as if it's taken a bit of a step backwards, but…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, but you're expecting that, you can't rely on the South Australian Government to do the heavy lifting there. I mean, is it …
GREG HUNT:
No, you do have to have a state government that's supportive, because there's no way a federal government could ride roughshod over them.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well it's not going to happen in Victoria at the moment then is it?
GREG HUNT:
No, I think the lead places for this would be South Australia or Western Australia. The SA Government, to their credit, has been pursuing being part of the nuclear fuel cycle beyond just mining and shipping off uranium.
But we sell uranium, and it's not used for lava lamps, it's used for nuclear energy and we need to be honest about that.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Does anybody think that uranium is used for lava lamps?
GREG HUNT:
Well you would imagine, the way some people carry on, that we're not part of the global nuclear fuel cycle. We absolutely are, and this is helping to reduce emissions in many places around the world.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Julian, go ahead. Hello Julian?
CALLER JULIAN:
Natural gas has the benefit of being lower cost than alternative energy sources, but much less carbon intensive than coal, and I think it's the perfect solution if you're trying to look at lowering emissions and lowering the cost of energy.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah, I agree with you Julian. I mean, my understanding is that you can convert a coal fired power plant relatively cheaply.
I mean, it's not cheap, but it is relatively cheap because it's the same principle to natural gas. And yes, it's still a fossil fuel, but natural gas is far less polluting per unit of electricity generated than brown coal. So Minister Hunt, why don't we do that?
GREG HUNT:
Well the problem is simply the Victorian Government has put a moratorium on getting new gas resources in this state, and whether it's conventional or whether it's other forms of natural gas they have banned that. And that's just an extraordinary situation of self-harm.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well I mean, ABS statistics yesterday showing that Melbourne by 2051 will have 8 million people, Victoria will have 10 million people.
I mean, that's almost twice as many as what we have now and they're all going to be turning lights on and off and playing with the future versions of computers and the rest of it. I mean, we're going to need this power.
GREG HUNT:
Look, I want to begin the campaign, and I hope I can bring Tom on board with this, to bring you on board with this.
Victoria needs access to natural gas. We have been able to draw on Bass Strait for decades and decades, which has helped both with our state production internally, and with our sales more broadly.
Now, to turn the natural gas tap off is an act of self-harm, it's environmental vandalism to the extent that it means we use higher emission fuels, and it's simply in the face of what the rest of the world is doing.
The rest of the world wants our natural gas, it's only Victoria which is standing in the way of actually powering our manufacturing.
When the global head of Dow Chemicals, Andrew Liveris, looks you in the eye and says I really want to expand our production in Victoria but I need access to state-based natural gas to do it, that ought to count.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay. Just another quick point, we all know that Donald Trump will be the next President of America in January.
GREG HUNT:
Yes
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now, he has said that he wants to get rid of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is a sort of a regional free trade deal signed several months ago. If indeed he carries through on that threat, will that be bad for Australia?
GREG HUNT:
Look, it's an agreement that we support and we'd like to see progressed. Honestly, it's going to be incredibly hard from here.
I'd much rather be upfront, but we're already looking at agreements building on China and Japan and Korea, all of which are creating jobs and investment for Australian firms and for, in particular, for Australian farmers, and doing the same with Indonesia and India, the UK and the EU, amongst others.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So the Trans Pacific Partnership is, you think, pretty much off the agenda?
GREG HUNT:
I think it's going to be incredibly hard from here, and that's no surprise to anybody.
I'd rather present the world as it is than to pretend. But there are many other things. If there's good growth in America, if that comes about from their policies that will be good for Australia.
So there are always swings and roundabouts, and if you have a US economy which is driven by infrastructure and driven by new manufacturing, then there are huge opportunities for Australian firms.
TOM ELLIOTT:
We'll leave it there. Greg Hunt, thank you for your time.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks very much, Tom.
(ENDS)