Terry Mills opinion: ‘Fracking is a false hope’

WHEN it comes to fracking there remain serious questions in terms of the environment, the community is opposed to it and with the shift to renewable energy and the state of the world gas market, the economics don’t stack up, writes TERRY MILLS.

The majority of Territorians are against fracking, Terry Mills says. Picture: Getty Images

• Fracking an ‘economically unviable’ pipe dream for the NT: Mills

SO much has been said about my shift in view on fracking.

What seems to be conveniently missed by those angered by my shift is that the NT is in recession and the government is effectively broke.

The Territory taxpayer cannot afford more pipe dreams.

The facts about unconventional fracturing are clear: there remain serious questions in terms of the environment, the community is opposed to it and with the shift to renewable energy and the state of the world gas market, the economics don’t stack up.

Access Economics have identified nearly $100 million of NT taxpayer money already spent on this with no return.

Fracking is a false hope.

I am acutely aware of the desperately bad financial position of the Territory Government and unlike Labor and the CLP, I will not be throwing taxpayer money down a fractured hole.

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Rather than looking to a practice that should be confined to the past, we need to embrace the abundant opportunities of the future in renewable energy.

The world is changing.

We must avoid the habit of becoming fixated on the horizon while we lose sight of the opportunities closer to hand.

Labor pumped up the biggest project of all, Inpex, but that has gone and today we are facing the biggest debt in our history. How did Gunner get it so wrong?

Territorians’ house prices have crashed, the imported workforce has headed back south and local businesses have been left reeling.

So, when it comes to hydraulic fracturing, to borrow from economist John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind.”

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Some choose to see this issue through a political lens and reach for irrelevant references to left and right or to ideological battles to prop up an unconvincing argument.

The inconvenient truth is the energy caravan has moved on and the facts speak for themselves.

In coming weeks, I will be announcing how a Territory Alliance government will be investing in major infrastructure projects and how we will be supporting the development of mining and conventional gas and renewable projects.

Terry Mills is the leader of the Territory Alliance Party