Article by Rita Panahi, courtesy of Herald Sun.
13.03.2025
Victoria’s constitution was changed back in 2021 and we’re all the poorer for it.
Victoria is sitting on abundant reserves of gas that should be enriching the state and its citizens. We should be the beneficiaries of cheap, reliable energy plus significant royalties to pay down the state’s enormous debt, the highest in the nation by some margin.
Victoria’s debt will hit a crippling $188bn by 2027-28, making our humble state among the worst performers anywhere in the advanced world, according to ratings agency Standard and Poor’s.
Instead of bleeding long suffering taxpayers through skyrocketing land tax and payroll taxes, the state government could be reaping enormous sums through further gas exploration. That money could be used to pay down debt and provide essential services.
But alas in their infinite wisdom, suicidally stupid state politicians from the Dan Andrews government together with certain feckless, easily spooked members of the opposition, combined to change the Victorian constitution making fracking illegal.
The Fracking Ban Bill 2020 passed in March 2021, with Victoria’s Constitution amended to not only ban fracking but to ensure that no future state government could reverse this idiotic ban, not without changing the constitution first which requires a super or special majority.
To reverse this self-harming policy a future government would need to secure a three-fifths majority of both houses. Good luck to any future Coalition government that believes it can secure those numbers in either house, let alone both.
It was an abuse of the parliament to enshrine a policy decision, a daft one at that, into the state’s Constitution thereby preventing future duly elected governments from making a policy change in line with their mandate. A point lost on then Minister for Resources Jaclyn Symes, now the state’s clueless treasurer, who boasted of the world first folly of the Andrews government. “No other government in the world has gone as far as enshrining a coal seam gas and fracking ban in their constitution,” she said.
One of the MPs who stood against the constitutional amendment, Liberal MP Bev McArthur, argues the entrenchment were misused. “Our constitution is not a political plaything, to be altered whenever the government of the day seeks to score political points,” she said.
Renowned geologist and author Professor Ian Plimer has lambasted the Victorian government for its anti-fracking stance pointing out that there are deep shales in the Otway and Gippsland basins that are ideal for fracking and well away from any population centres.
“There is naturally fracked gas in the Wombat gas field of Gippsland, five wells flow gas and it is not connected to the pipelines,” Prof Plimer told the Herald Sun.
“It is very clean gas with no carbon dioxide and no mercury. If connected to a pipeline, much of the pressure would lift from Victoria’s undersupply.” Prof Plimer also points out that old oil and gas fields, including Bass Strait, have additional reserves which can be released by fracking.
Victoria is potentially sitting on hundreds of years of gas reserves.
Any prohibition of gas exploration is economically reckless at the best of times, but particularly disastrous during a period where the state is grappling with record debt, soaring energy costs and looming supply issues.