While I stand to talk about the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill, I have significant issues around this bill. This bill is about trying to address one key aspect in the gas industry, which is supply. To understand that problem, you have to understand our history and the industry. To understand that, you need go no further than the electorate of Maranoa, because the east coast market is underpinned by the Surat Basin, particularly around Chinchilla, Roma, Dalby and Condamine, which produces most of the east coast gas but also goes into much of the export market.

It's important to understand that, when that industry was developed, it was developed on the proviso and the condition of the then premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, and former prime minister Julia Gillard that the gas that was drilled and developed in the Surat Basin was not to be put into the domestic market. In fact, it was to be exported. It was to be exported out of Curtis Island off Gladstone. To demonstrate that, there was a pipeline built from the Surat Basin to Curtis Island. The reason for that by the Queensland premier at the time was that the Queensland government made $1.5 billion in dividends every year out of energy generation and distribution. So that came from coal-fired power assets.

What they didn't want to do is add more supply to the east coast market, which would reduce the price of the dividends that they got in generation and distribution from their coal-fired power assets. So Anna Bligh said, 'You can go and develop these fields, but you must export it.' So, for politicians to come in and condemn gas companies for being greedy and exporting gas to other parts of the world, you need to understand history. That was the condition of the development of those gas fields—that the gas was not to be put into the domestic market; it was to be exported, and it had to go out in a boat. So we created those export markets, and Australia has enjoyed the benefits of those export markets in royalties and in income; in fact, even in my home town.

I grew up in a place called Chinchilla. We would never get more or fewer than 3,000 people. That's what we were always stuck on. There's now 7,000 people living in Chinchilla today because of what the gas industry has done for our community with long-term jobs, not just direct but also indirect. The economic impact that it's had on our economy is enormous, not just in export dollars. If you understand that this is a supply issue, you would understand that, in Queensland, where this gas was drilled and put out on a boat, our industry isn't traditionally fuelled by gas—and probably still isn't—it's fuelled mostly through our energy grid, through coal, because we have significant coal-fired power assets. The states that do rely on gas—New South Wales and Victoria—are the states that are constraining supply because they're not drilling for the gas that sits underneath their feet.

The irony in all of that is that they complain about the price because of the lack of supply, yet we'll allow Queensland to continue to drill holes—and I don't have any problems with that—but they're about to run out of industrial gas, while, as the previous member was just talking about with industries in her own electorate, they sit there and say, 'We need more supply.' Well, they only need to look to their own state governments to see what's underneath their feet. In terms of making sure that the gas companies must supply 110 per cent of the market, if you want to oversupply something, you might drop the price, but then no-one drills any holes and you find yourself back in the same problem you were just in.

If we don't understand the history of how we have found ourselves in this mess, we are going to perpetrate that even further by saying everybody has to provide 110 per cent. What that means is there will be no investment. The town that I now call one of my own in my electorate will see that investment taken away. The boards of these companies make investment decisions, and they will not go and spend money to continue to increase supply if they can't make money. In fact, they're going to lose money. That's just how business works. I'm sorry to explain it to those opposite, but that is the reality of what will happen if you impose such a draconian measure in this bill. Investment will leave this country. It will leave my electorate and I will lose the 3,500 to 4000 people that have come to towns like Chinchilla, because those gas companies will go to another continent and we will have to import our gas. That is the stark reality of economics and business. You can't run away from that through ideology, and ideology is what this bill is about.

This is about making sure that we open up our tenements. We have that supply, and there are some practical things we could do. There are small capacity constraints between the Surat Basin and those in New South Wales and Victoria. In peak periods, we could get more gas down, in addition to what we're already sending out on a boat and paying the bills for to sit here today in the privilege of the air conditioning and the lights in this beautiful building. We might get those royalties and those gas companies to pay those taxes. We could see more gas flow down into New South Wales and Victoria. That is if they don't have the courage to drill a hole themselves, if they don't have the brains to think, 'Wouldn't it be quicker and easier to drill a hole right underneath our feet and pump it into those businesses that sit here and tell us they are going broke because they have high gas prices because they can't get gas?' The further you have to transport it, the higher the cost—another revelation to those opposite about how business works. Lo and behold, if you drilled the hole and you pumped it straight up, you might get cheaper gas and you might solve that supply issue. That's before you even look at, if we had to, plugging in Beetaloo that is in the Northern Territory. That will go out in the export market, and it is an opportunity to work with the gas industry and to plug that into the east coast as well.

We have an abundance of gas, and what we are trying to solve with this bill is a supply issue. The supply is beneath our feet, but those south of the border of Queensland have not had the brains to drill a hole to get it and still want it. To sit there and compare us to Western Australia because they have a gas reservation scheme—that is the right policy for Western Australia. The forefathers of Western Australia that did that did the right thing. But understand that the east coast market is significantly different—a higher population and a higher industry base that has already established coal. Gas has played some part in it, particularly in the southern states, and that's why it's important that you don't compare a reservation scheme in Western Australia to that on the east coast. That is purpose-built for Western Australia, and it is the right thing, but it's not the right thing for the east coast.

The stupidity that we are finding ourselves in is that when the supply is there—and this is the basics of all we're trying to solve—it is simply about us taking it, not forcing companies to make investment decisions that put us up against other countries and other continents that are prepared to develop that asset and allow those companies to get that capital to flow into them, away from Australia. We'll be back here again in another five or 10 years sitting here wondering why our gas prices are so high and why we don't have any gas going to the whingers in New South Wales and Victoria because their industries don't have the gas and they're paying too much for it when it's sitting underneath their feet. This is where common sense has left the building, and this is where a government has overreached and will have significant impacts.

Think about what is coming at our country. We're walking ourselves into the fourth industrial revolution of humanity with AI and the data centres that will be required. To give you an insight into what an AI data centre will need, forget normal data centres; an AI data centre is significantly greater. There's one proposed out near Chinchilla, where I live, and it will need 2,600 megawatts of energy every year to run. That is a bit over a quarter of the total generation of energy in Queensland every year. That's just one.

I'm sure I'll hear—and our teal friends will be here soon telling us—that we need all this energy and renewables will do it all and we've got AI data centres and they should all be run by renewables. If you want to do that 2,600 megawatts with wind turbines, you need to multiply that by three. You need three times the energy generation with a wind turbine over gas or coal or nuclear. Let me tell you what that looks like for the people of my electorate, around Dalby and Chinchilla. To do seven to eight gigawatts of energy, you would need 1,400 wind turbines at 260 metres high swishing around our heads. The member for Warringah got all upset about eight wind turbines at North Head because the good people of North Head were upset they couldn't see the Pacific Ocean unabated. Well, you know what? What about the views of the people of Western Queensland? We don't want to look at the Pacific Ocean—or live in Sydney, for that matter—but we want to live where we live without the amenity of our lives being taken up by 1,400 of them. But it gets worse. If you want to do it with solar panels, it's 1.5 million solar panels across 20,000 hectares. That's probably about the size of the shire of Sydney or more. That is what you are asking us to bear with. But you put your head under a pillow and forget about us, because you can sit in your high-rises in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and forget about what happens to us out there.

I don't want to turn away this AI data centre. I want to see these 1,400 new jobs come to the towns of Dalby and Chinchilla—new jobs, high-paying jobs. We do need to have AI if we want to be competitive with the world, but not at our cost. It should work. That is why, if you put these sorts of bills in place, you tear away the investment decisions of gas companies that are sitting there when there are three gas peaking plants sitting around one of these proposed data centres right at Dalby, which you could actually increase if you sent the investment signals to our gas companies to drill more. That is how markets work. That is the practical reality that happens outside this building. We might think we shape the world, but ultimately what happens is that the capital that flows from the decisions that we make determines what we actually pay, and that is what is lost in all this. We're going to force these companies to sell into certain markets, and we're going to tell them to oversupply, so the CEOs will go to their boards and the boards will say, 'We'll take our money elsewhere.' So we will be stuck with an energy grid that again depletes itself in the lived experience that Australians are already feeling—not that $275 reduction off their 2022 bills that they were meant to get in 2025. It's gone up by 1,300 bucks off their 2022 price.

So this is where physics and economics are catching up with this government. This bill is not well thought through. This will have a detrimental impact. It will have a detrimental impact on our economy but also on the environment, because you know what? You think about 20,000 hectares of native vegetation stripped away to put solar panels on to run a data centre. 'Oh, that's alright. I can still look at the Pacific Ocean. It's all good, because that's the only environment that I can see and that I care about.' Well, I don't really think that is a notion that Australia should predicate its decisions on.

This bill will do serious harm to an industry that has supported this nation and paid its bills. You talk about social licence. Let me tell you what social licence looks like. When Santos, Origin and Arrow turned up in western Queensland, I wouldn't feed them. They treated us like dirt. But we squared up with them, and now they are the best corporate citizens you would find in Australia. They spill more community support in Roma, Chinchilla and Dalby on a Monday before smoko than these wind tower companies give us in about 10 years. They're just throwing bits and pieces at us, thinking we can put up with 1,400 or 1,500 of these 260-metre towers. This is the reality. When you talk about social licence, the gas companies are the ones that actually are doing the right thing by us out there and by our economy. But what we are doing in this bill is saying to them: 'We don't care. We're just going to tax you and put market mechanisms that send you out of this country over you.'

I can tell you, London to a brick, that, if this thing gets through and it sticks long enough, I'll be back here again and we'll be fixing this, because this is just simple demand and supply. The Treasurer doesn't need to write 6,000 words of economic blah. I learnt in grade 8 at Chinchilla State High School from Mrs Hart about demand and supply. This is supply. Mrs Hart would be telling me, 'Increase supply.' Create the environment to increase supply and, lo and behold, you will actually have more stable and lower prices in the long-term. If you want to interfere in a marketplace, you will have detrimental outcomes that will not only strip supply but lead to perverse outcomes for prices into the future. This is just politics getting away from reality, and I fear that the people of Western Queensland who have worked with the gas industry and believe in the gas industry will have their futures stripped away because we believe that we can replace this with renewables, which will never be able to do what gas, coal and nuclear can, because of some ideology. This is dumb politics, this is dumb policy and we will all pay the bill.