Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

The saying goes: never waste a crisis. Indeed this is a crisis in Minister Bowen's own words. During a crisis, it's reasonable for Australians to look to their government for leadership, for options and for a plan. Instead of the spin and rhetoric that we heard from the 'minister for climate change and a little bit of energy', which was well spoken about by the member for Groom, I'd like today to focus on what the government isn't doing. The government isn't proposing serious policy reform that will enable Australia to once again be an energy independent, sovereign and resilient nation.

How did we get here? We got here because net zero policies have prevented oil developments in Australia from being funded and financed. Our large banks have publicly and loudly declared since 2023 that they will no longer fund oil developments in Australia. Then we wonder why we are a nation that is dependent on imports from overseas for more than 90 per cent of our liquid fuels. Why are we not talking about banning those who hold banking and credit licences in Australia from defunding a legitimate and lawful exploitation of hydrocarbons in this country? That is action No. 1 the government could take today to set the conditions for Australia to resolve this crisis and emerge from it a stronger nation.

Industry super funds and their activist directors that are plonked on company boards are more focused on DEI than they are on drilling. That needs to change and it needs to change now. This also caused a finance problem. Ultimately, our banks and finance companies responded to activist pressure. So let's bring on a real debate about limiting shareholder activism in Australia where it distracts companies from doing what they ought to be doing.

Project approvals in this country for oil and gas developments are pushing towards a decade. Of course, that can blow out when they're subject to extensive lawfare. The use of AI and other technologies to get approvals down should be the goal of this government during this crisis. Why is it that we can't use AI to get projects approved in three months? Why is it that we see these endless and largely baseless, very vexatious appeals clogging up our courts and holding back our companies from developing energy infrastructure in Australia? Well, a big part of it is the Environmental Defenders Office that this government continues to feed money to. We saw most recently, in the case of the Barossa project, that the EDO and their cronies in the green movement had used a totally baseless so-called expert to hold up a billion-dollar project on the basis of an absolute fiction. That needs to stop, it needs to stop now and the government should be taking action in this respect.

When it comes to the importation of oil and, indeed, everything that comes to and leaves this country in a ship, the obvious imperative is that we have a capability as a sovereign nation with skilled seafarers. It takes 10 years to train a ship's captain but only 18 months to build a tanker. The importance of starting this process today, during the depths of an energy crisis, can't be overstated. Every day LNG, coal and iron ore ships leave Australia bound for markets throughout South-East Asia, and we have an opportunity to get seafarers on those ships. If we adopted UK-style income tax exemptions for seafarers outside the country for more than 180 days a year, that would narrow the gap between employing Australians and employing international seafarers, ensure the government shares just a trifling amount of the cost, and set us up for long-term success.

The answer isn't always more spending. That's where this government is going wrong, even in the depths of an energy crisis. Expedited approvals and creation of special economic zones, or even thinking about investment incentives in an industry focused way, rather than a geographically focused way, is the sort of big-picture thinking that you'd expect from a government who was prepared to lead this country out of a crisis with a view to leaving us stronger, more prosperous and more resilient as a country. Thinking differently about this means costing these sorts of initiatives differently as well. Ultimately, there's no taxation revenue to forgo where there is no industrial activity occurring in the first place. We need solutions from the government, and we're getting none.

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