Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the amendment. I want to start by thanking the member for Warringah for these amendments, for continuing to fight to hold this government to account for what it is and isn't doing and, ultimately, for doing everything she can to ensure that we are focused on increasing integrity across our society whilst advocating we do all we can to address the very real and current impacts of climate change on our environment, our society and our economy.

You see, in the first instance, this legislation seeks to ensure that the abuse of confidential information shared by the Commonwealth with those outside is made as difficult as possible and that those who abuse that privilege face appropriate consequences. These reforms are to be welcomed, and, indeed, my community of North Sydney is happy to see them come in. But this good legislation reform is then used as a fake pass, for want of a better analogy, which then sees this government introduce reform to the petroleum rent resources tax. This is where I'd like to focus the rest of my time.

The petroleum rent resources tax—or, as Australians know it, the PRRT—is broken. It's a system of taxing resources that was built for a different time and a different asset class, and yet here is this government trying to, as my grandmother would have said, put lipstick on a pig, offering this reform up to Australians as both appropriate and enough. Well, it's not enough. Not only does this proposed legislative change not come anywhere close to inspiring confidence in this government's approach; it should actually be offensive to all Australians, not the least future generations.

Others have worked out how they can transition their own economy whilst supporting other nations on their road to change through the reliable supply of the resources they need. We need look no further than the Scandinavian countries for examples on how to do this well. In particular, in Norway, they have figured out how to extract revenue from their natural resources whilst also building an extraordinary sovereign wealth fund, which will ensure that not only those who are reaping the immediate profits benefit but that future generations will have the capital they are likely to need to navigate the pressing social issues of their time.

With that precedent right in front of us, then, why would we not choose to emulate it? Foreign multinational companies are currently reaping the profits from the sales of our limited natural resources. It is not unreasonable for Australians to expect that they pay a premium for access to these limited, rapidly depleting and extremely valuable products. These companies are not doing us a favour by extracting our resources, so why is it that successive governments have continued to behave like apologists when it comes to placing real value on what is rightly ours? I am all for being a reliable trading partner, but in this instance I would rather be the David Jones food hall than Aldi.

Inflating deductions too quickly, which is the end result of this legislation, sees Australians receive little in return for their natural resources. It's not just now; it has been little in return for our natural resources for decades upon decades. In fact, the government's latest budget papers show that this government will make more money off smokers, with a tobacco tax of $3.3 billion over four years, than it will make from extracting our limited gas resources, which will only return, through the PRRT, $2.4 billion. I'll just repeat that: the government will make $3.3 billion on tobacco and only $2.4 billion on extracted gas resources. I'm not an economist but I have run plenty of businesses, and that doesn't sound like a great business dynamic to me.

While I have spent most of my time speaking on the PRRT reforms proposed in this legislation, the truth is that, as I've said before, these reforms are tacked onto the end of a bill that actually leads with reforming tax laws to crack down on tax practitioner misconduct. This is of itself an important discussion for us to have as both a society and a parliament. But, as a consequence, what we have in this piece of legislation is two very important topics rolled into one. The question must be asked: in what world does it make sense to lump these two things together in one piece of legislation? I'll tell you where it makes sense: in a world where tricky politicking and wedge politics has taken precedence over good policy. No wonder public trust in both our government and individual politicians has eroded so significantly in the last decade.

What's next? Will this government's delayed fuel efficiency legislation be bundled in with housing reform? Must we scan the education bills for traces of changes to the Migration Act? Let's be really clear about what this legislation is. This government knows that it has passed up the opportunity for fundamental reform of our resource taxation system, selling Australians short and caving in to the gas industry. To cover it up, it has bundled that missed opportunity into a bill to crack down on tax advisor misconduct, catalysed by the PwC scandal. It is a sweet treat with a rotten centre. Australians deserve better. They deserve a fair share of their resources and they deserve good policy practice, but this bill provides neither of those things.

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