My amendments deal with some serious flaws in this bill. By setting up extensive new ministerial powers, including the power to exempt individual gas companies from regulations, this bill creates fertile ground for favours. Some would call it corruptibility. It would build a favour factory between gas companies and resource ministers: 'A few hundred thousand dollars in donations? Thank you very much. We'll put a carve-out in the regulation for you.' Specifically, this bill allows the minister to exempt gas corporations from the proposed domestic supply obligation. The entire purpose of this bill is to increase domestic gas supply, yet it gives the minister the power to exempt any company they like. We know that the gas companies are very generous donors to both sides of politics—and One Nation, too. They have covered all their bases, hedged their bets. This set-up means it doesn't matter if the government changes; decisions will always be made in the gas corporations' favour.

To dismantle this favour factory between the gas industry and political parties, my amendments prevent all political donations by the gas exporters regulated by this gas reserve legislation. My amendments also remove the open-ended ministerial discretion to create any circumstances in which a gas company meets its obligations to supply gas. We're deeply worried about this, because the minister can say to Santos, for example, 'If you promise to build a pipeline to open up Beetaloo Basin and release its 27 billion tonnes of emissions, we'll give you an exemption from the scheme for a few years.' In short, these powers, as they exist, can be used to encourage new gas development and create an incentive to open up new fields, even if they aren't economic.