Morgan motion takes Bass Coast into national fossil fuel levy push

Greens candidate for Eastern Victoria and Bass Coast councillor Mat Morgan's successful push to make fossil fuel companies pay for climate damage has put the shire into a growing national campaign calling on the federal government to act.

Cr Morgan's motion, which passed five votes to four, called for a federal levy on large fossil fuel companies and a parliamentary inquiry into the adequacy of the 2025 National Adaptation Plan.

The motion specifically targeted the lack of additional funding for local governments dealing with the costs of extreme weather events and coastal inundation.

"We've been losing up to 10 metres of beach every year, and council has had to truck 'sacrificial sand' up and down the beach after every storm," Cr Morgan said.

Cr Morgan also drew on a pocket money analogy in his speech to councillors.

"When I was a kid I was always told if I broke something, I'd have to pay for it from my pocket money. Well Exxon, Santos, Woodside - how about it?" he said.

Bass Coast is now one of a growing number of Australian councils to formally back the Communities for Climate Compensation campaign, which is pushing for a National Climate Compensation Fund financed through a levy on coal, oil and gas corporations.

Retired Wonthaggi geography teacher Aileen Vening, who has spent 15 years documenting Inverloch's coastal erosion, said the recent acceleration had been confronting.

"Since 2013, the beach at Inverloch has moved 80 metres inland and 80 per cent of the vegetated dunes have been lost in the last 10 years," Ms Vening said.

She said the imminent dredging of 100,000 cubic metres of sand from Anderson Inlet to the surf beach was only a medium-term fix if another major storm could be avoided.

"While some works are funded by federal and state governments, the weight of implementing ongoing and emergency works falls to our local government," Ms Vening said.

"Local governments and communities must also deal with the economic and mental health stresses that come with the uncertainty of not knowing what the next major storm will bring.

"The corporations whose pollution is driving sea level rise and intensifying the storms that are eating our coast need to contribute to fixing it. That is not radical, it is basic fairness."

The campaign points to figures showing 434 of Australia's 537 councils were impacted by climate-fuelled disasters between 2019 and 2023.

Fires, floods and cyclones currently cost Australia $38 billion a year, equivalent to $3,800 per household, with that figure projected to rise to $73 billion by 2060.

The Australia Institute reported in 2025 that federal and state governments provide about $14.9 billion annually in fossil fuel subsidies, more than 14 times the nation's $4.75 billion disaster response fund.