Interview with Ashleigh Gillon, Sky News Afternoon Agenda

ASHLEIGH GILLON, HOST: Well, let’s turn now to the Environment Minister, Murray Watt, who joins us live. Minister, good to see you. Thanks so much for your time.

We’ve reported on the breaking news this hour that the US President, Donald Trump, has just issued a new statement. He says the US will be helping with the traffic build-up in the Strait of Hormuz. He says, there’ll be lots of positive action, big money will be made, Iran can start their reconstruction process.

He says that the US will be hanging around in the region to make sure all goes well. How confident is the Australian Government that things will now start to flow smoothly through the Strait of Hormuz? And how will that take for things to flow through to us here in Australia?

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well Ash, we certainly welcome the ceasefire that’s been announced for the next two weeks, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. I think all Australians have felt the negative impacts of the Strait of Hormuz being closed for the last few weeks – petrol prices, petrol distribution around the country - so, this can only be a good thing.

You know, it’s difficult for me to sit here predicting exactly how long it will take before we start feeling the benefit of that, but we would like to see some benefit flowing through to Australians in the near future. We have said, though, that regardless of when this dispute ends, there is going to be a long tail. It’s not as if oil supply around the world is going to rebound overnight to exactly where it was.

You’d be aware that there’s a number of different oil and gas facilities that have been destroyed as a part of this war, even over the last few weeks, and that’s going to have long term impacts as well. But nevertheless, this is a really positive development. We’ve been calling for de-escalation for some time, and it’s good to see that’s starting to happen.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: I know you’re keen to respond to the Nationals Leader, Matt Canavan’s, National Press Club address today. He picked up on this call today from the Queensland Premier calling on the Government to streamline the approvals process around the Taroom Trough oil field. The point here, the aim of the Queensland Government is to safeguard liquid fuel stocks for the long term, considering the fuel prices we’re in.

What is your position on that? Is the Federal Government keen to fast-track the approvals process around that oil field? Would you like to see it recognised as a project of national interest, as the Queensland Government is requesting?

MURRAY WATT: Well, we’re open to any good idea that’s being put forward to build our sovereign capability, as long as they stack up economically and environmentally. We have not received any proposal whatsoever from the Queensland Government around this development. It does seem that Premier Crisafulli was more interested in communicating with us through the media today.

We’re yet to receive anything concrete from them. We know from the experts that even if an oil field like this was approved, you’re probably talking up to 10 years before it would start producing oil at any kind of commercial level. But again, we’re open to those ideas.

We just need the Queensland Government to put something forward. I’ve just seen in the last hour that the Queensland Deputy Premier has Tweeted that he’s now asked his coordinator general to start developing a plan to develop these oil resources. You know, it seems that the Premier was out there calling for us to fast-track approvals of a project that they don’t even have a plan for.

So look, I’d encourage them to do the work, put it forward to us and, of course, we’ll give it consideration once we receive something. ASHLEIGH GILLON: Senator Canavan spoke a lot in his address about needing to capitalise on Australia’s energy abundance. He accused your Government of “locking most of it up,” was the way he put it.

The Nationals Leader also seized on the reporting we’ve seen today around Labor deciding to drop references to that 82 per cent renewables target from a draft of the national policy platform that it will take to the next election. Why was that reference dropped? And what does it tell us about your Government’s intentions on that front?

MURRAY WATT: Starting with Senator Canavan, I mean, we know that Senator Canavan has had an ideological position against net zero for many years. And he successfully has dragged the Liberal Party to the right on this as they attempt to chase One Nation, and he’s convinced the Liberal Party to drop their commitment to net zero as well. I don’t really know what Senator Canavan is getting at when it comes to us locking up resources.

It’s not the Government that have stopped people from building new coal fired power stations, it’s the market that has decided that it’s not viable to do so because renewables have become much cheaper, and much more widespread in their use. So, Senator Canavan seems to only have a plan to jack up the power prices of Australians, rather than choose the cheapest technology that’s available.

In terms of our policy platform, that’s an ongoing process. I don’t think anyone is under any doubt about our Government’s commitment to move the electricity system towards more renewable energy. And that’s not because of an ideological issues, it’s because it’s the cheapest way we can deliver the power that Australian’s need going forward.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Will this fuel crisis, though, spark a rethink on the approach your Government takes to that approvals process? As you know, plenty of your critics suggest that process is far too slow, with the balance between the environment and commercial interests and national security interests when it comes to securing fuel supplies, for example, being out of whack?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well, Ash, you'd be, I'm sure, aware that at the end of last year we managed to pass the first major reforms to our national environmental law for 25 years. These were laws that were known to be not working the entire period of the last Coalition Government, including when Matt Canavan was a minister. And they failed to make any reforms to that process, which is why we saw backlogs of projects.

We've been doing a lot of work since we've been in power, working under the existing laws to speed up approval processes for things like housing and other critical economic projects. But those reforms are the pathway to making sure that we do streamline approvals going forward. It's a bit hard to understand why the Coalition voted against those reforms last year, given one of the key aims of them was to speed up approvals of the projects that we need.

But, you know, we're getting on with it. We're not going to worry too much about what they have to say. We're committed to making sure that we deliver the housing, the renewables, the energy projects, the critical minerals that Australians need as quickly as we can.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Minister Murray Watt, appreciate you making the time. Thank you. MURRAY WATT: Thanks, Ash.

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