By Helen Clark
ADELAIDE, May 21 (Reuters) – Australian populist party Pauline Hanson’s One Nation said it wanted to create a Norway-style sovereign wealth fund and for the government to take a share of offshore production licences in federal waters as it unveiled its energy policy at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide on Thursday.
One Nation has surged in popularity this year, winning its first House of Representatives seat, and has backing from Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, who recently donated a plane and hosted dinners for the party.
Rinehart, via Hancock Energy, owns coal seam gas assets in Queensland and onshore conventional gas assets in Western Australia. These are governed by state law and unaffected by Hanson’s national policy, though One Nation has previously campaigned against coal seam gas.
“We want more gas, more oil and more energy to drive our country forward,” Hanson told a packed auditorium.
Hanson said she opposed the Labor government’s new scheme requiring energy exporters to reserve 20% of their natural gas for east coast domestic users, which has been met with dismay by the energy industry since it was announced in early May.
She said the proposed Australian National Wealth Investment Corporation was “not a socialist takeover”, would be industry-led, and would only apply to Commonwealth waters.
Her plan would see the federal government take a 30% stake in offshore licences, share development and decommissioning costs, and retain part of production for domestic use, including fertiliser and fuels. Approval times would be cut to six months, she added.
Amplitude Energy CEO Jane Norman said a government joint-venture partner could better align interests.
She said her company would spend A$20 million ($14.25 million) on securing government approvals for its own offshore exploration drilling.
MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic said the proposal was “even more interventionist” than Labor’s policy and would cost taxpayers money.
($1 = 1.4035 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Helen Clark in Adelaide; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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