(Acknowledgements omitted)
 
Thank you. 
 
I want to acknowledge your work over many decades in creating the oil and gas exploration and production industry which employs many thousands of Australians and which has made Australia a leading supplier of gas around the world and made LNG among our top three export industries.
 
I want to thank APPEA itself as an organisation for the work you all do representing your members in this place and around the country in various states.
 
Your advocacy, and approachability, is invaluable. 
 
Being able to talk to people from APPEA about issues that arise in the industry is really important.
 
Tonight I want to acknowledge APPEA’s thought leadership in policy, and in particular your publication earlier this year of the third edition of the APPEA climate change policy principles.
I thought it was a thoughtful and expansive contribution to the very challenging issue of climate change. It is admittedly very challenging for extractive industries that are high emitters.
 
APPEA supports national climate change policies that should achieve net zero emissions by 2050. 
 
That is an important step that APPEA and its members have taken to strongly back in the global, and what should be national ambition to have net zero emissions in this country by 2050.
 
So I want to recognise the members that have committed to net zero emissions by 2050. 
I know Santos has even committed to net zero emissions by 2040. 
 
But it is also important to recognise that all members of APPEA are developing short-term emissions reduction commitments. 
 
Not everyone can be on this track at the same time.
 
These commitments are being made by your industry in the absence of a national policy, and I think your leadership on this issue is critical to our nation.
 
The gas industry depends on exports. It’s built on exports. So it is only natural and makes good business sense for you as an industry to recognise your purchasers around the world, and the climate policies they are setting for themselves.
 
I think of Japan and South Korea with net zero emissions by 2050, and China which has net zero emissions by 2060. 
 
You cannot wait necessarily for your nation to catch up. You have to just reflect on your export needs and those customers, and we thank you for that leadership.
 
I want to point out that we recognise that part of this industry’s pathway to net zero is carbon capture and storage. 
 
We have to admit there have been some false starts in achieving success with that technology, and some of that is perhaps due to the admirable ambition to make it work quickly. 
 
So I have spoken to many of you here tonight about your ambitions to reduce emissions, and the intensity of the work you are undertaking and the investment you are making toward the development of successful CCS projects. 
 
I want to be clear – we support CCS technology.
 
And I want to add, the successful operations when you get to it of storing vast amounts of carbon, it will be interesting to see how Australia lets you make use of Australian Carbon Credit Units. 
 
Carbon credit units can play an important part in developing a trade in carbon that will be stored by your industry well into the future.
 
But that is a matter for my other portfolio of trade, and perhaps an interesting conversation for another time.
 
So thank you all for the opportunity to address you tonight. I have visited many of your facilities, and I thank you for assistance in my visits. I look forward to meeting more of you and visiting more of your sites.
 
Thank you again for the work you do for the nation, the jobs you create and best of luck for your very long board meeting tomorrow.