Extract from Hansard Tuesday 5 June 2007

Ms FOX (Bright): I rise today to speak on a matter which concerns me deeply and I did not know anything about it until very recently when I had a street corner meeting. A constitu­ent came to see me and he said, with great faith in his eyes, `I'm sure you know all about peak oil theory.' I beamed happily and said, `No, I have never heard of it.'

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What's that?

Ms FOX: Peak oil theory, and before anybody says, `Oh, this is not really important' or accuses me in a way that Mr Howard has accused Mr Garrett of being a fanatic, I point out that in February the Senate, via the Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, published a 218-page report on Australia's future oil supply and alterna­tive transport fuels. [PDF] That is because they are worried that we will run out of oil, and they should be worried because we are going to run out of oil.

Hubbert's peak oil theory is a bell-shaped curve and the theory is that, for any given geographic area, the rate of oil production will follow a bell-shaped curve. That is to say, at the very beginning, it goes up, it reaches a peak, and once it reaches the peak, it goes down very quickly. It is based on the premise that oil is a finite commodity, which it is—one day we will run out of oil. Peak oil is the time when you produce as much as you can and you sell as much as you can, then it is over, and it starts descending. We produce less, we sell less, and you arrive at the time when there is no oil and there is no alternative fuel that can be used to offset that decline.

Many members in this house may think that it will never happen in their lifetime. I think it will and I think it will certainly happen in your children's lifetime and, if your grandchildren are still able to get on planes, that would really surprise me. Let me tell the house why. Air travel uses 7 per cent of world oil consumption, and it would be dramatically affected if there were no oil left; 55 per cent of all oil is used for transportation; shipping costs are going to increase because, at the moment, the recent doubling in oil prices has raised average freight rates by 40 per cent; pesticides and fertilisers are made from and with oil; modern medicine, defence and water distribution are all powered by oil and petroleum-derived chemicals.

If demand does not decline, many products and services produced with oil will become scarcer, leading to lower standards of living. There is a lot of debate as to whether peak oil has already happened or not. Let us say that it has. It is predicted that oil production will decline by 3 per cent per year. War, terrorism, the weather and other factors will likely push that figure up to nearly 10 per cent, meaning 50 per cent less production within seven years, and so it goes on and on.

Members may wonder why it is that today a backbencher, who lives in Brighton and represents the really genuinely quite comfortable seat of Bright, should choose to come into this place and talk about a matter that is of global signifi­cance. That is because global issues are local issues. I wonder very much about what will happen in the Brighton and Hallett Cove area in 20 years' time when nobody has a car. Members in this place, I ask you to imagine, let us say in 30 years' time, how you are going to get to work if you do not have a car or you cannot take a plane? What are you going to do?

The Hon. I.F. Evans: Get on a tram.

Ms FOX: You are going to get on a tram. Finally, they are grateful for the trams. I knew it was only a matter of time. I thank you, member for Davenport, for finally admitting that we did the right thing with the tram. That is very kind of you. I think that people need to think about car pooling and car sharing. As the member for Davenport has advised, they need to think about using public transport more. They need to think about cycling, buying smaller cars or hybrid vehicles, reducing the frequency of trips to the shops, and using local shops. In the time that I have left to me, I cannot explain everything there is to be said about peak oil theory, but I urge people to please go on the internet, go to Google, type in the words `peak oil theory', and if you read what I have read, you will not be able to sleep at night.