Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

This motion commends the government's plan to secure Australia's energy sovereignty. From 1 July 2027, LNG exporters will be required to supply 20 per cent of their export volumes to domestic customers. Western Australia has had a domestic reservation for decades. It's only time that we have the same on the east coast.

The member for Leichhardt has moved that Australia's gas reservation scheme 'will put strong downward pressure on domestic gas prices'. But the fact is that this gas reservation scheme won't come into effect for over 13 months and all export contracts signed before December 2025 are grandfathered, meaning that the reservation will only target spot and uncontracted volumes, which will limit how much gas can reasonably and realistically be captured under it. It's not clear that 20 per cent of a shrinking uncontracted pool will greatly move the needle on prices. The member also commended the government on its efforts to grow our fuel reserves. These are the same fuel reserves that, even after the additional measures taken by the government this year, will continue to fall well below the IEA's 90-day mandate.

While the government looks to pat itself on the back on its energy security measures, just weeks ago it handed down a budget that once again let the gas industry off the hook. In the most recent budget, revenue from the petroleum resource rent tax is forecast to fall—not rise but fall. Since MYEFO, receipts from the PRRT have been revised up $1.6 billion over five years. But, overall, the trajectory for the PRRT is down. In 2029-30, even with inflation, Australia will collect less PRRT than we do now. At a time when global energy markets are in turmoil, when Australian families are being squeezed by rising energy bills and another RBA rate rise, the tax take from our natural resources is declining. In 2029-30, students and graduates will pay more in HECS indexation than multinational corporations will pay in PRRT on oil and gas. On a total HECS decade, by the end of this decade, it will be $60 billion. This is a national scandal.

In the middle of a global energy crisis, Australian gas companies are pocketing extraordinary windfall profits, generated not by their ingenuity or their investment but because of geopolitical instability and war elsewhere. I support measures that protect Australian households from gas price volatility. The idea of a domestic reservation scheme has genuine merit. But I speak for most Australians when I say that we remain disappointed with the government that has done nothing to claw back windfall profits currently flowing to foreign multinationals and to overseas investors. We're not satisfied with a government that refuses to fix the fundamental architecture of how we tax our oil and gas exports. We're not satisfied with a government that has let tens of billions of dollars go to multinationals for our finite resources while failing to adequately support the students, the renters, the young couples, the unhoused, the unemployed and older Australians.

The ATO itself has labelled the oil and gas sector systemic non-payers of tax. Back in 2016, Treasury warned that companies could defer their PRRT liability indefinitely. But here we are a decade later with a budget that shows the PRRT revenue declining and a government that refuses to act. We could generate tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue if we took a fair share of our natural resources. A fair share levy could generate up to $13 billion a year; a 25 per cent tax on gas, $17 billion a year. Eighty-seven per cent of Australians believe that they deserve a better return from the sale of our gas exports. Only three per cent disagree.

A government which is serious about energy sovereignty would have used this budget to reform the tax settings on our national resources. It did not do that. Australians deserve better. They deserve a parliament with the courage to actually make our collective wealth work for all Australians, not just for Santos, for Shell and for INPEX.

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