Maritime Union of Australia. (2023). Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation: Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023 [Submission]
The Sea Dumping Act is broken for regulating decom, and this needs to be fixed before opening the door to new technologies.
The submission says: lock in accountability, transparency and long‑term responsibility, and only then consider new technologies.
Here, the MUA responds to a Bill that was about bringing Australia into line with international rules under the London Protocol. The Government’s intent was to change the Sea Dumping Act to allow exporting carbon dioxide offshore for storage under the seabed (CCS) and regulating marine geoengineering research.
Although the Bill was framed as aligning Australia with international rules, in practice it helped Santos by removing legal barriers to the Bayu‑Undan CCS project, which is central to managing the high emissions of the Barossa gas project under the Safeguard Mechanism.
The submission called for changes to make sure oil and gas companies properly clean up after themselves and don’t walk away from their responsibilities. In particular, it pushed for:
- Decommissioning waste to be properly managed before allowing CO₂ export permits
- Keeping Sea Dumping decisions separate from NOPSEMA to avoid conflicts of interest
- Fair fees that reflect the real cost of dumping waste, in line with other waste laws
- Full transparency, including publishing reasons for decisions and allowing public input
- Mandatory long‑term monitoring and maintenance where infrastructure is left in place, funded by industry
- Only allowing tightly controlled scientific ocean fertilisation research