[Peakoil-announce] Senate oil inquiry hearing

[Alex P]

Hi everyone,

Leigh and I appeared before the senate hearing on Friday. The committee was
composed of Christine Milne, Fiona Nash, Grant Chapman, Bill Heffernan &
Rachel Siewart. Senator Kerry O'Brien was absent.

We sat in on most of the hearing and heard representatives from ABARE, 
Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, the International Association of Public 
Transport, Engineers Australia, Livestock Feed Grain Users Group, 
Australian Trucking Association and the Bicycle Federation of Australia. 
The hearing was pleasant except for Senator Heffernan hopping into the 
Livestock Feed rep. Senator Milne did not hide her distate. Heffernan is a 
grain producer and can't see why he can't sell his grain for a higher price 
to make ethanol. They both seemed to agree that the market should prevail 
and that it was not good for one grain user to be subsidised (eg the 
ethanol industry)

The committee was somewhat receptive to the points we put forward, our
emphasis being quite different to most others. We talked about the abstract 
principles of limits to growth, why economics and market forces don't have 
all the answers, and the scientific investigation that needs to be 
performed before any decisions are made.

I placed particular emphasis on the need for elected representatives to be 
open with the public about the fact we have a physical supply issue. I was 
sure to point out that there is a difference between higher oil prices 
being caused by physical supply problems vs terrorism and war. In the 
former case the response will be constructive, in the latter it will give 
rise to needless tensions. Politicians need to help lead public down the 
right track.

The committee didn't engage with us on much of this but we hope they took 
it on board. Senator Chapman thought we were being Malthusian. Nash wanted 
to know if we'd researched how in particular regional areas would be 
impacted. Milne was interested in why ABARE's numbers were wrong.

The transcript will be available soonish.

Christine Milne came over later to thank us for our efforts, and
described how she'd arranged the hearing. She is taking the lead on the 
Peak Oil issue and said it the inquiry seemed to be one of the only ways to 
get the issue into the public realm.

Mr Dawson, who works for the committee, was interested if we had any 
material on EROEI of various fuels, which indicates the Senators "get" this 
very important principle.

Notably a journalist from Four Corners sat in on the early part of the 
hearing, so I suspect ABARE's dodgy numbers will be under the spotlight 
soon.

I've also received an email inviting us to put in a submission on a Senate 
inquiry into fuel tax changes.

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil
http://act-peakoil.org