Last week in Canberra, our ocean persona stepped into the Mural Gallery at the Australian Parliament, carrying a cheque for $25,000. This is the fee oil and gas companies are paying right now to claim their slice of the ocean to blast and drill for new fossil fuels.
It was theatrical, yes. And definitely a bit absurd.
But it is absurd that year on year, fossil fuel companies are asked to nominate the next ocean frontier, and then they bid for it. Quietly and secretly, bids are accepted by our government, and new legal rights are handed out for the next frontier of fossil fuel expansion.
In December 2025, the Albanese Labor Government opened 25,000 square kilometers of ocean near Victoria and Lutruwita / Tasmania for bidding. This region is a global biodiversity hotspot for whales, seals, dolphins, seabirds, seaweeds, sponges, crustaceans and many other globally unique species. It encompasses geologically unstable deep-water submarine canyon systems, where gas drilling is high risk and a spill would have catastrophic consequences for Tasmania’s World Heritage coastline.
The offshore petroleum acreage release process is abstract by design. It reduces living marine systems to blocks on a map. It translates ecosystems into “prospective basins”. It turns migration routes, breeding grounds, and coastal livelihoods into “available areas.”
Ending offshore acreage release would not solve the climate crisis on its own. But it would do something more immediate and essential: it would stop the future pipeline of fossil fuel expansion at the point of origin.