Australia is one of the world's greatest exporters of natural gas. We have the resources. We have the skills. We have the workers to build, operate and maintain the projects that supply customers around the world. Yet Australian manufacturers and families can find themselves competing with overseas buyers for gas produced in their own country. We dig it up here, we process it here, we export it from here and then Australians are told to pay prices shaped by international markets to use their own gas. Something has gone badly wrong with that arrangement. Australians should not be at the back of the queue for Australian gas, and that is the principle behind these bills. We can remain a trusted exporter while making sure our homes and industries have access to the gas they need.

Australia's gas is a national asset. It is not simply an asset on a company's balance sheet. And let's remember: the private sector didn't build this industry on its own. Australian taxpayers helped lay the foundations. Government scientists mapped our offshore resources, and publicly funded research helped reduce the risks for companies looking to develop them. We know this because the cabinet papers have been released. In 1988 Treasury was questioning why taxpayers were carrying so much cost when private companies stood to benefit and the government expected to recover less than five per cent of the research costs. The Australian public helped carry the risk. It is only reasonable that the Australian public shares in the reward. We value the investment, jobs and exports the industry has delivered, but let's not rewrite history and pretend government and taxpayers have had nothing to do with building it. That is why a successful export industry must also serve the country whose resources it uses. That is not radical; that is common sense.

The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 creates a national system of export licences and domestic supply obligations. The related bills update our gas market rules and make exporters pay the cost of regulating the scheme. The standard obligation is gas equivalent to 20 per cent of covered LNG exports, subject to adjustments and calibration to actual Australian needs. And here is an important distinction: the obligation is about domestic supply, not just a press release about gas available. Gas must actually reach the domestic buyer. The scheme contains measures to prevent exporters meeting the obligation merely by shifting around gas Australians could already buy. We want genuine additional supply, not creative accounting.

The difference between offering gas and supplying it is not some technical argument reserved for lawyers. If a factory needs energy to run its machinery, an unaccepted offer does not keep the machinery moving. The scheme is built around actual domestic sales, with limited flexibility when demand and timing do not line up. Those deferred quantities must be made up later. That is how a supply obligation becomes something meaningful rather than another voluntary promise.

Nor does the legislation impose an overall cap on LNG exports. A company can keep exporting provided it meets its domestic obligations. This is about linking an export opportunity to a public responsibility, and it replaces a system built around responding to predicted shortages with a standing framework designed to prevent them in the first place.

From January 2028, domestic supply obligations are intended to apply under the new framework. Businesses planning investment need rules they can understand, not another scramble when the market tightens. There is a reason this bill does not simply demand as much gas as possible at the lowest imaginable price. The Australian Energy Regulator will calibrate supply obligations against forecast domestic demand. The policy aims for a modest buffer of supply, rather than a glut that drives prices so low that producers stop investing or renewable projects become harder to finance, and that is what balance looks like in legislation.

We should also recognise why long-term contracts count. Companies and trading partners make investments on agreements signed years in advance. Pulling those agreements apart without warning would damage confidence in Australian projects. But treating every renewable as permanently protected would leave us with a reservation policy that never really begins. So the bill draws a line. Commitments entered into on or before 22 December 2025 are recognised, but subsequent renewals and extensions are not automatically sheltered. This is the difference between respecting an agreement and writing an indefinite exemption. Because the scheme is national, the regulator must consider the demand and supply conditions of the relevant market, not assume that every corner of the country faces the same pressures.

The framework also recognises contracts in place before 22 December 2025, existing state reservation systems and genuine infrastructure constraints. Those are adjustments, not a lifetime exemption from responsibility. We have listened to the people who will have to make this system work. Consultation has changed the design, including the start date, the calculation of obligations and the arrangements for flexibility. A sensible government listens, changes what needs changing and still delivers reform. The goal is downward pressure on domestic prices. I will not promise that every bill will fall overnight. Gas markets don't work that way. But giving Australian buyers more secure access and a stronger position when negotiating contracts is a worthwhile reform.

Western Australians already understand domestic reservation. Our state has required LNG projects to make gas available for local use for years. It is one of the reasons we have a different starting point from the east coast. Australia has two physically separate gas markets, with different pipelines, contracts and supply conditions. This national scheme recognises that difference. It can operate alongside the state arrangements and adjust conditions in each market. As a Western Australian, I do not want Canberra pretending a system that works in Queensland will operate identically in the Pilbara. But neither should we pretend that the needs of Australian users stop at the state border.

I represent people who work in resources, construction, electrical maintenance and manufacturing. Some travel long distances to their jobs. They know that investment takes years, projects cost money and supply does not magically appear because a politician makes a speech. They also know that the Australian public should receive a fair return for its natural resources. Both things can be true.

I want to address some voices in the media and in this debate who say the answer is simply to tax gas exports more heavily. There are two very different arguments being mixed together. One is that taxpayers should receive more revenue from valuable resources. That is a legitimate argument and one I take seriously. The other one is that higher taxes might discourage gas production and help bring the industry to an end. That is a different objective altogether. People are entitled to argue for either, but they should be upfront about what they are trying to achieve and what the consequences might be, because raising revenue is not the same as securing supply. You can collect another billion dollars in tax and still leave an Australian factory unable to secure a gas contract. You can announce a new tax rate without delivering an extra kilojoule to a household or manufacturer. And if you damage investment in the essential supply before alternatives exist, the people paying the price may be workers, not the company executives everyone was hoping to punish.

That does not mean the gas industry gets a free ride—far from it. The Albanese Labor government has reformed the petroleum resource rent tax to bring forward additional revenue. Gas companies should pay their fair share, and Australians should benefit from what comes out of the ground, but we should judge every new proposal on the evidence. Will it raise sustainable revenue? Will it affect domestic prices? Will it support investment? What happens to jobs and emissions? The experience in the North Sea is a warning that tax investment and production decisions interact. It is not proof that every gas tax destroys an industry, and pretending otherwise would be another slogan. A tax can be justified, and so can stronger environmental standards, but neither substitutes for a plan to keep Australian factories supplied.

I serve on the committee dealing with climate change, energy, environment and water. I care about the environment. I want emissions to fall. I want cleaner air, healthier oceans and a safer climate for our children. But I also know the energy transition is a construction job, an engineering job and a workforce job. It needs more solar, wind, storage and transmission. It needs electricians installing equipment, apprentices learning new skills and tradespeople maintaining the systems that we build, and it needs a reliable supply of energy while those systems expand. Gas remains important to some industrial processes and can support electricity reliability during the transition.

Certain clean energy supply chains also rely on gas today. These include the processing and refining of materials used in renewable technologies. This is a fact, and it's not an excuse to abandon net zero. In fact, the scheme can recognise renewable gas in arrangements that reduce natural gas demand. Its calibration is designed to avoid making gas so artificially cheap that it undermines investment in renewables and storage. We can pursue affordable gas today without giving up on a cleaner energy tomorrow. The alternative is to pretend that we can close one part of the economy before we have built what replaces it. That might earn applause at a rally, but it will not keep a furnace operating or a family employed.

Energy prices flow directly into wages and job security. When a manufacturer pays more for gas, it has less room to invest in equipment, train an apprentice or negotiate a pay rise. If production becomes uncompetitive, overtime disappears, then jobs and then, sometimes, the entire plant. That reaches far beyond the factory gate. It reaches the local cafe, the supplier and the family sitting at the kitchen table working out a mortgage. We should never talk about closing an industry as though we were simply closing a spreadsheet. A worker's pay packet is not an inconvenient footnote in an energy debate—which brings me to One Nation.

One Nation likes to present itself as the champion of working Australians, but workers should look very carefully at what it offers and what it changes. In March this year, One Nation proposed introducing a 15 per cent domestic gas reserve. Then it shifted to a policy based on government taking equity in new offshore projects and subsidising exploration costs. It has moved away from the clear domestic reservation proposal it put before parliament. So where is the guarantee for Australian households and manufacturers under its new approach, and what would its broader rejection of net zero mean for the thousands of workers building Australia's new energy industries? An electrician installing solar panels is a worker. The technician maintaining batteries is a worker. The gas plant operator is a worker. So is the steel worker whose factory needs affordable energy. They should not have to pick which group of workers deserves a future. One Nation cannot claim to speak for wages while treating the energy transition as something we can simply wish away. Gaslighting is not a gas policy. If a party wants working people to trust it, it should explain how its policy protects their industries, their next pay rise and their children's jobs.

And what of the coalition? After years of talking about a gas fired recovery, Australians were left with announcements, subsidies and a market still struggling with price and supply pressures. The coalition itself went to the last election with a gas reservation policy. Now its members must decide whether they will support an actual national framework or find another reason to oppose it. The question is not whether they like the government; the question is whether Australian buyers should have a dependable claim on Australian gas.

It is worth remembering how difficult governing actually is. You have to protect households from high prices without undermining the investment needed for supply. You have to make climate commitments without forgetting workers in existing industries. You have to maintain export relationships and make sure Australian businesses come first in their own market. Sometimes that means disappointing people on both sides. It is easy to demand a higher tax with no account of what happens next, easy to call for the end of gas without explaining the replacement jobs, and easy to promise cheaper energy without doing the work of connecting supply to customers. It is easy to throw rocks from outside of government. It is much harder to build something that works. That does not mean criticism should stop. It means the criticism should be useful: bring evidence; attend inquiries; and meet workers, businesses and environmental groups; propose changes that improve the outcome; and get involved with building the solution, instead of cheering for every difficult decision to fail.

This legislation is not a magic wand. It will require careful regulation, genuine compliance and scrutiny of its effects on supply prices and investment. But it makes a choice about whose interests Australia's resources should serve. We can remain a reliable trading partner without putting Australian users last. We can require industry to meet its obligations without pretending investment is optional. We can cut emissions without abandoning the people whose wages support our communities. We can make decisions for the long-term instead of chasing the next headline. Australian gas should support Australian homes. Australian industry should support Australian jobs. That is the balance this package seeks to strike, and that is the responsibility of governing. I commend the bill to the House.