Unfortunately, we've seen this movie before: Labor bringing on an ill-considered, ill-consulted-on and ill-designed gas reservation bill, only to see a litany of problems sink it before their very eyes. That's what we're looking at here, with this package of three bills which are nothing less than an assault on Western Australia's gas industry and, indeed, on the prosperity of Western Australians, because this legislation seeks to import east coast problems over the border into my own home state of Western Australia.

For Labor MPs from Western Australia, this represents a test: will they put their home state and the interests of the Western Australian people who trusted them to come to Canberra to represent them and to be a voice in this place, ahead of the eastern states? That is the test that we see this legislation present, because, as it stands today, these three bills—the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026—represent a $330 billion threat to the opportunity for Western Australia's gas industry, because we have, and have long had, for more than two decades now, a gas reservation system that works. But, rather than take something that works and replicate it on a national scale, rewarding those states who have managed their hydrocarbons industries well, we see this legislation in front of us. The holes in it are so numerous that it warrants serious scrutiny by the parliament. The fact that we see debate gagged in this place and this legislation rammed through the House whilst there are such fundamental issues with it is obscene, frankly. And that's why we are, effectively, standing for Western Australia and demanding amendments to this legislation—not for it to be patched up later, as the Labor government like to do, with a bandaid here or there, as with the fourth bill to fix up the ART which was rushed through the parliament as well. This legislation should not pass this place until it is fit for purpose.

Effectively, at the moment, the most important issue with this bill is that Western Australia's fate is to be decided by ministerial discretion, and the minister that we're talking about is none other than the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen—part-time president of the COP flop, now sunning himself in Fiji to get over the jet lag, because his own convention, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian taxpayer, wasn't enough excitement to keep him awake—and that idea is frightening for our gas industry and, indeed, Western Australia's industries that depend on cheap, reliable and affordable gas. That's why we want to see amendments to this legislation. Where a state scheme is already in operation and substantially achieves the bill's objectives—because, let's face it, Western Australia's domestic gas reservation scheme has been doing so for more than 20 years—we argue that the minister must set the domestic supply obligation for the market to zero.

There must be an automatic mechanism in the legislation so that where a state is proactively reserving gas for its domestic needs in a functioning market, the Commonwealth scheme doesn't fiddle with it. What we see here is the imposition from the eastern states squarely over the top of a scheme that has worked for 20 years with an untested, untried and, frankly, horrible set of legislation that asks more questions than it answers. For instance, this reservation scheme would apply in the Northern Territory. Now, anyone who's considered the transportation of gas from the Northern Territory to the eastern seaboard, and particularly to southern states like Victoria, would understand just how frighteningly expensive that can be. But, nonetheless, the obligation stands under this legislation that 20 per cent of gas produced offshore the NT would be required to be transported to the eastern states market, and it must be sold even if the market price is effectively insufficient to recover the cost of production. What sort of madness is this? You would think that there would be pause on the government benches to ask those simple questions and have them resolved before they tabled such legislation, which is frankly an absolute embarrassment. Nonetheless, the energy minister should have no discretionary role in the fate of Western Australia's gas reservation scheme.

Where exemptions are applied under the legislation, they should run indefinitely or at least the life of project, which, in the case of the gas industry, is typically 40 years. We are seeing investment capital flee from Australia's shores. At the same time as our productivity has flatlined, absolutely going nowhere, our standards of living are going backwards. The very investment that we need to attract to get our economy moving again is fleeing elsewhere. Perth-headquartered companies are amongst the first to be sending their investment capital overseas. If you look at, as a prime example, Western Australia's—and indeed Australia's—largest LNG producer, Woodside Energy, they've spent more money investing in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Senegal in Africa than in Australia in recent years. That's frightening.

We've got to ask ourselves why Australian companies are fleeing offshore with capital to invest in other jurisdictions. Frankly, it's because of the fact that the Labor government has made the gas industry in Australia almost uninvestable in recent years. The reason why market participants have that view should be pretty obvious. These interventions from the Labor government have included gas price caps; a complex and poorly developed mandatory code of conduct, which did absolutely nothing except drive prices up on the eastern seaboard; the rushed announcement of a gas reservation scheme in December 2025 without any real detail behind it except that it was alleged to commence immediately; and then we've had the past eight months of design and consultation on this dog's breakfast of a legislative package, which has left the industry confused, paralysed and frozen. Indeed, those investment dollars are fleeing our shores whilst customers are looking elsewhere in the world for supply guarantees. This is playing into the hands of other jurisdictions like Canada and the US. Outside of the conflict in the Middle East, of course, Qatar is also the beneficiary of underwriting gas projects with significant life-of-project and billions of dollars of prosperity for those host countries.

So the facts speak for themselves in that energy prices are up 40 per cent since the Albanese government came to power. We face looming winter shortfalls, exacerbating the risk of blackouts. At the end of the day, this scheme does nothing to boost supply. In fact, it scares investment dollars away from Australia whilst posing difficult problems for existing operators that can't simply be answered. The pipelines that exist between Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are at capacity or very, very close to it, so how is this reservation scheme supposed to answer the transmission problem of gas molecules from states that have done the right thing and have backed investment capital that wanted to take the risk, wanted to develop these projects and has successfully done so in Australia in the last 40 or 50 years, since Western Australia's pioneering North West Shelf development and, of course, the boom that we saw through the mid-2010s with Gorgon and Wheatstone and with Gladstone in Queensland?

The states that have done the right thing are enjoying the results of low, reliable and sustainable gas prices. The states that have not done the right thing are the ones bleating for change today. But Victoria has a moratorium on gas exploration in its own state, whilst New South Wales is making moves towards the same madness. The questions of how these peculiar decisions of state jurisdictions will play out with this Commonwealth intervention need to be answered before we pass the legislation, not afterwards, because, at the end of the day, the uncertainty that's already crippling the industry will be more pronounced if we see an even bigger legislative mess as a result of the passage of this.

The coalition has always said that we want Australian gas to work for Australians and our export partners. Whilst we were in government, of course, we never saw the Japanese ambassador take to publicly commenting on the fact that they saw Australia as a risky destination for investment and an increasingly untrustworthy partner for energy security. Anyone who understands Japanese culture and the Japanese psyche knows just how startling a pronouncement that was from a Japanese ambassador.

But, at the end of the day, this package of bills has done nothing to advance the ability to invest in Australia for the development of gas. In fact, it does the opposite. In Western Australia, our Perth Basin has in recent years seen an investment boom, and it is that onshore domestic gas production, where 100 per cent of those molecules are going directly into the industries that underpin jobs and prosperity in my home state, that is exactly the sort of thing that keeps gas prices low. What you are going to see under a domestic gas reservation policy like the one this package of bills represents is a starvation of investment in the exploration and development of onshore gas, which is critical to keeping industry going.

The Albanese government likes to talk about a future made in Australia and is very quick to shell out taxpayer dollars to prop up unprofitable and unviable businesses suffering at the hands of high energy costs. Look at the recent announcement of $2½ billion for Tomago. Don't get me started, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas, on the fact that high energy prices sank the Albemarle lithium refinery in my own seat, with the loss of some 800 jobs. The Albanese government was nowhere to be seen. That's a whole other issue.

I turn back to this legislation. It does nothing to improve the ability to invest in domestic gas production and in onshore gas exploration, which, of course, in five or 10 years time leads to that domestic gas production. We are setting ourselves up for an epic fail, and some would contend that there's a risk here that the Albanese government will rush off and do what they always do: do a deal with the Australian Greens. At the end of the day, we want to see reliable and affordable gas for Australians, with gas production and policies that encourage investment. If there is a legislative package that can be salvaged out of this through significant amendment and with protections for states like Western Australia, then, of course, we will vote in the national interest. But we will stand in the way of bad legislation that does not deliver more gas for the Australian people now and into the future. That is our responsibility to the Australian people.

So the test of whether his government will put aside politics, act in the national interest and work with the coalition to amend this dog's breakfast of bills into some sort of package that can actually work for the Australian people really lies now with the Prime Minister. We've never hidden our desire to see more Australian gas working harder for Australians, but this legislation as it stands will not deliver that reality. If the government decides to do a dirty deal with the Greens, well, so be it, and let there be no mistaking that that may well have been the intention all along, because with this government you don't look at what it says, you look at what it does. As I say, Western Australian Labor MPs are quick to say that they stand up for Western Australia. Well, the test is coming. The test is coming in this place this very week, and either they will vote to protect Western Australia's gas reservation scheme and Western Australian jobs by not allowing the passage of the bills in the current form or they will sell out their home state, Western Australians and our successful Western Australian gas reservation scheme, which, I might add, was introduced by a Labor government. I do give credit where credit is due, and it was the Western Australian Labor government, in 2005, that set our state on this journey to prosperity. That's something worth remembering, because bipartisanship in the national interest is possible with this package of bills. There is a way, with substantial amendment, of working with the coalition and with industry to get something that might actually deliver more Australian gas for Australians. But, as it stands, this is a journey to blackouts, higher prices, less investment in Australia, less prosperity and fewer jobs in an industry that delivers extremely high standards of living and wages to the workers who benefit from it.

I rise to make a contribution on the domestic gas reservation bills before the House: the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026. We are home to some of the world's largest gas reserves—resources that have helped power economic growth, support communities, create jobs and establish Australia as one of the world's leading energy exporters. These resources are a national asset—an asset that belongs to all of us. Therefore, Australians rightfully demand reliable access to their own gas at prices they can afford. That simple principle sits at the heart of the government's domestic gas reservation reforms.

The government recognises the significant investment made by companies, workers and international partners in helping develop Australia's natural gas export industry. Those exports generate economic activity, support well-paying and skilled jobs, support our regional communities and play a critical role in securing our region's energy security. But Australians should not be facing uncertainty on whether they'll have access to their own gas given the fact that vast volumes are shipped overseas. Australian consumers and businesses should not pay high prices for a resource that is abundant right here in Australia, and Australian manufacturers and heavy industry should not be placed at a competitive disadvantage because the market fails to deliver adequate domestic supply. This package of reforms brings the balance back in our natural gas market and addresses the failures of the previous government when it came to our natural gas market.

At its core, the reform establishes a new domestic gas reservation framework based on export licensing. Liquefied natural gas exporters will continue to have the opportunity to export gas to international markets. These reforms will not see a cap on LNG exports. Companies can continue exporting as much LNG as they can supply, provided they also meet their obligations to support domestic supply. Put simply, we can secure domestic supplies and affordability without putting a stranglehold on our export markets. Australia can continue to be a major exporter while ensuring Australian consumers, manufacturers, heavy industries and businesses receive adequate access to Australian gas. This is not about restricting trade and growth in the natural gas market; it is about making sure the Australian natural gas market works for Australians too.

Under these new reforms, Australian LNG exporters will be required to contribute additional natural gas to the Australian domestic market. The bills before the House will establish a domestic supply obligation, which is set at 20 per cent of LNG exports. Put simply, 20 per cent of gas production will need to be set aside for Australians in the domestic market. The bill will also give the Australian Energy Regulator the responsibility for overseeing this scheme. Importantly, this obligation will not be a static requirement. This will allow the Australian Energy Regulator to have the power to calibrate obligations according to forecast domestic demand and supply requirements in the market. This also gives the Australian Energy Regulator the ability to maintain a modest surplus in the domestic market. By having a modest oversupply in the market, this will allow for downward pressure on natural gas prices. This will see major benefits to Australian households, Australian manufacturers, Australian heavy industry and Australian businesses. It helps strengthen economic resilience. It supports Australian jobs. It supports Australian industry. And it reduces the risk of supply shortfalls that can undermine confidence and security throughout the economy.

The government has also included strong integrity measures. We recognise that the effectiveness of any reservation framework depends on ensuring that additional domestic supply is genuine and represents a net increase in supply rather than a reallocation of existing supply. Exporters will not be able to satisfy their obligations merely by reclassifying gas that was already available to Australian customers. The expectation is made clear from the onset: the scheme must deliver real additional supply to the domestic market, not merely a reclassification. The Australian Energy Regulator will oversee compliance, monitor market behaviour and ensure obligations are met.

The package is also supported by improvements to the Gas Market Code designed to strengthen transparency and encourage responsible market conduct. It is important not only to set standards for supply and reservation of our natural gas market but to implement the necessary transparency and accountability mechanisms to see it successfully through. Importantly, the government has listened throughout the development of these reforms. Over the course of two years, extensive consultations were held with industry stakeholders. More than 130 submissions were received during the consultation process. As a result of extensive consultations, the government refined the framework to make it clearer, simpler and more predictable. The commencement date for domestic supply obligations was moved to 1 January 2028, as opposed to the original 1 July 2027 commencement, to better align with contracting cycles.

The formula used to calculate obligations has been simplified. Flexibility arrangements were simplified and narrowed. The government has also provided confidence in existing contracts, and how existing contracts are treated against the framework has been clarified with the sector. And regulatory discretion was reduced by providing clearer rules and requirements. The result is a framework that balances domestic energy security with investment certainty for the producers as well. We must get the balance right, building on existing market settings and obligations while ensuring our reforms deliver secure and reliable gas supplies into the future.

Australia's economy benefits enormously from investment and stability in the resources sector. The government understands the need to provide businesses in this sector with certainty when making long-term investment decisions, allowing them to plan ahead for new reforms and minimise disruptions to their operations. That is why contracts entered into before 22 December 2025 will be respected and upheld. The scheme includes transitional arrangements, which will recognise existing contracts, infrastructure constraints and current reservation arrangements. Importantly, the bills before the House allow for the facilitation of long-term export licences, which will provide investors with greater clarity and greater stability. Compliance pathways that will be enforced will also be clearly defined, and existing obligations appropriately recognised. These measures ensure that Australians receive the benefits of stronger domestic supply whilst ensuring Australia remains an attractive destination for investment.

There has been speculation that these reforms will mean Australia is turning away from international markets, and that's simply not the case. Australia remains committed to being a major LNG exporter and will continue to be a committed and trusted trading partner. Under these reforms, we remain committed to supporting the energy security of our region and, importantly, our regional partners. The government has actively engaged with trading partners and international investment throughout the development of these reforms. Existing contracts will continue to be honoured, and, importantly, Australia's reputation as a reliable supplier will remain solid. What changes is that Australian consumers and businesses will finally have stronger protections that ensure domestic supply is not overlooked. This is not a choice between Australians and our international partners; it is about giving Australian natural gas consumers a fair go.

These reforms are also about the critical flow-on effects of energy supply. By ensuring Australian supply remains available to Australian users, we create a stronger foundation for future investment and future economic growth. These reforms are about jobs. They are about manufacturing, and they are about Australia's future industrial capability. Affordable and reliable gas supports a wide range of industries. It supports our food producers. It supports our agricultural industry through chemicals and fertilisers. It supports manufacturing and construction. It supports our regional and rural economies. When businesses have confidence in future energy supply, they are more likely to invest, expand operations and create jobs.

Our natural gas reservation policy will be a key pillar in shielding industry and households from global price volatility and gas supply shortfalls. By placing downward pressure on gas prices and reducing scarcity risks, these reforms strengthen Australia's economic resilience and sovereign capability. It helps businesses plan for the future with greater confidence, and it supports the competitiveness of Australian industry in increasingly challenging global markets. Seventy per cent of Australia's gas usage stems from industrial activities, serving as the key input for our industrial base and sovereign capability.

Our liquefied natural gas reservation policy will also play an integral role in supporting our Future Made in Australia policy. By securing affordable and reliable access to natural gas, we support our Future Made in Australia agenda and nationally significant trade exposed industries that currently have limited viable electrification pathways. Securing our liquefied natural gas supply has never been more important. As we've seen in recent months and years, reliable access to critical supply chains is essential to our economic resilience, our energy security and our national interest—whether it was the global pandemic, the conflict that followed in Ukraine or the conflict in the Middle East. Access to vital supply chains is critical to economic prosperity and sovereign capability in times of global uncertainty.

Following the conflict in Ukraine, the Albanese government acted decisively to safeguard Australia's energy security. In December '22, the government recalled parliament to shield Australians from surging international gas prices and secured an additional 644 petajoules of gas supply. These were measures the coalition opposed at the time. More recently, following the conflict in Iran this year, the Albanese Labor government worked around the clock with international partners to safeguard Australia's supplies of diesel, fertiliser and other critical fuels. Now before the House the Albanese Labor government is taking further action to secure Australia's natural gas supplies both for the immediate future and for the years ahead.

The reforms also recognise the realities of Australia's geography. As we know, Australia's east coast and west coast gas markets operate differently, and our regulatory framework must reflect those differences. LNG exporters will be required to hold export licences, while our reforms will also allow for tailored regulatory settings where appropriate. This flexibility will ensure our policy settings respond to the realities of Australia's dynamic gas market rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach.

Ultimately, this reform comes down to a simple proposition: Australia's gas resources are a national asset. Australians deserve reliable access to those resources. Australian manufacturers and heavy industries deserve confidence that affordable energy will be available into the future. Australian workers deserve the jobs and opportunities that flow from a strong and competitive industrial base, and Australia can achieve all these goals while remaining a leading LNG exporter and a trusted global partner.

This package is about balance. It is about backing our regions. It is about backing our energy security. It is about supporting Australian jobs, supporting Australian manufacturing and supporting Australia's long-term economic strength. Most importantly, it is about ensuring that Australia's natural resources work for the Australian people and for Australian industry. That is why these reforms matter, and I commend the bills to the House.

I rise to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill and related bills. Overall, I'm supportive of this legislation. The Western Australian gas reservation scheme, which has now been in place for two decades, has shown that gas reservation schemes can be effective in ensuring Australians have abundant access to their own gas for a reasonable price. The east coast has looked enviously at our gas reservation scheme for many years, and it's finally taking action to implement its own. However, another lesson from WA is that the details matter. The gas companies will do whatever they can to exploit the loopholes in the system to prioritise profits over good faith engagement, and there are a range of issues with this Domestic Gas Reservation Bill that remain unresolved and ambiguous, which could form the basis for loopholes that result in more expensive gas for Australians, more emissions or more profits for gas companies.

Let me start with why we're here. Australia is one of the three largest exporters of gas, or LNG, in the world. Yet, despite having abundant reserves of gas in our country, we still often see projected shortages of gas and domestic prices linked to international prices. After Russia invaded Ukraine, wholesale prices went from under $10 a gigajoule to as much as $60. And it's a bit ridiculous that a conflict on the other side of the world can cause the price that Aussies pay for gas to skyrocket, when the gas is sitting here. Of course, the logic for the gas companies is also clear: they make more money by selling the gas overseas, so why wouldn't they? If we want gas to stay at home at a reasonable price for the people who own it, there have to be rules.

And that's why WA took action. Since 2006, through state agreements negotiated project by project, LNG exporters in WA have had to make gas equal to 15 per cent of their exports available to the local market. Now WA sells gas for around $6 to $8 a gigajoule on the domestic market, against $10 to $12 on the east coast. The WA scheme does have some serious problems, which I'll address later, but the basic premise has held up; gas that's kept in WA has been available and cheaper.

With gas prices remaining high on the east coast and with the Australian Energy Market Operator projecting shortfalls towards the end of the decade, the east coast has also decided to act. So what does this bill actually do? In short, this bill makes the right to export LNG depend on holding a licence. The licence comes with an obligation to supply the domestic market with up to 20 per cent of what the exporter sends overseas. Each year, the Australian Energy Regulator works out how much gas the domestic market is likely to need, adds a 10 per cent buffer and divides that amongst the exporters. Exporters have to supply the gas rather than simply offer it. Contracts signed before 25 December are respected, and the minister can reduce an exporter's obligations for those contracts for infrastructure constraints and where a state has its own reservation arrangements, which in practice means WA. Penalties can reach 10 per cent of annual turnover, and a licence can be suspended or cancelled. The companion bills put a levy on licences to cover the cost of the scheme and repeal the existing Domestic Gas Security Mechanism.

I support the principle, because this is Australians' gas. We should not be facing shortages and international prices for something that comes out of the ground here. I also believe the way to deal with a shortage is to put the gas we already have to better use before we go looking for more. New gas fields mean more emissions, and I want to keep new supply to a minimum and get as much as we can from renewables.

There are many specific aspects of this bill which are positives worth highlighting. The requirement that exporters must sell rather than just offer is an important change. It turns this into a buyer's market, where gas exporters must provide gas at prices that buyers will accept, rather than making only unattractive offers. I'm also pleased that exporters can meet their obligation by reducing domestic demand, for example by paying to electrify someone else's gas use. As the bill is drafted, this will depend on rules in the Gas Market Code, which haven't been written yet. But, if they're done well, this could be a positive outcome. Electrification and renewable energy are the long-term solutions as fossil fuels are phased out over time.

I also have a range of concerns with the bill as drafted. They are potential loopholes and ambiguities which threaten to undermine the intent of the legislation. Firstly, I'm concerned that this bill could drive an expansion in gas supply. Exporters want to keep their plants full. If the easiest way to meet a domestic obligation is to develop a new field rather than diverting gas from export, then they'll do that. An expansion of gas fields would not be compatible with our emissions targets and our mission to restore a stable climate for future generations. Secondly, there's a lack of clarity and modelling around how gas prices are actually expected to fall. This is a significant intervention in a major market, and the government is not clear on what's it's expected to do to the market or the prices that people will pay. Thirdly, the bill leaves a great deal in the hands of the minister. The minister can reduce supply obligations, for the whole market, to zero. The minister can adjust the obligation for an individual exporter and can grant extended periods at a reduced percentage. Now, I accept that some discretion is needed because markets change, but anyone trying to plan an investment or sign a supply contract has very little to hold on to. A lot is also still undefined. How additional gas is determined, how the annual demand calibration works and how baselines are set all sit in codes and instruments not before this parliament. Whether the scheme succeeds will depend on getting those right—and we're being asked to vote on the frame without them.

I also want to look at the interaction of this new federal gas reservation scheme with the WA scheme. Technically, this scheme will apply nationwide, but the bill allows the minister to carve out facilities that are already covered by a state scheme. Clearly the intention is to carve out WA facilities, which is the right decision, but there's an opportunity to use this federal scheme to strengthen compliance with the WA scheme. The issue with the WA reservation is that the 15 per cent obligation is measured over the life of the project and not in each year, so an exporter can supply very little for a long time and still say it's on track. The terms are negotiated and confidential. Only about eight per cent of WA gas was supplied domestically in 2023, not 15 per cent. The DomGas Alliance, which represents users such as Alcoa, Wesfarmers and Yara, says the Pluto LNG project has supplied just 3.4 per cent of its production to the local market. Many experts doubt that some facilities will ever reach 15 per cent, so a facility could receive the benefit of a carve-out from the federal reservation, despite not complying with the WA scheme.

There are two further points worth making. Gas reservation is a cost-of-living and energy security policy not a climate policy, and it can have unintended consequences. If it works, gas gets cheaper, and some households and businesses who would have switched to electric could decide to stay on gas. The answer is not a weaker scheme. The answer is to accelerate electrification and renewables alongside it, with help for households, small businesses and industry to get off gas. It also means asking how licences of 20 to 50 years sit alongside our climate targets, given that a licence issued in 2028 could run into the 2070s. We need to stay full steam ahead on net zero, while making sure the lights stay on and stay affordable along the way. Those two aims can work together.

Secondly, this bill is not a substitute for a better tax on gas exports. Gas companies do not pay their fair share for the right to use and sell the gas that belongs to Australians. The PRRT has failed so comprehensively that many gas projects have never paid it and probably never will. Since the invasion of Ukraine, exporters have made windfall profits approaching $100 billion, and the public has seen little of it beyond company tax.

The government has options here. It could fix the PRRT or introduce a targeted windfall profits tax or a two-way cashflow tax that shares both the upside and the downside. Now, I accept that investors need certainty and that sovereign risk is a thing. This calls for a carefully designed tax; it does not justify leaving the problem alone. Reservation and a fair return for the gas are separate questions, and we need an answer for both.

To sum up, I support the Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme. Gas produced here should serve the people who live here, and WA has shown it can work. But the government needs to tell us what it expects this to do to prices. It needs to narrow its own discretion, define additional gas properly, make sure the scheme does not end up producing more gas than the country needs, and then improve the taxation of gas exports. In Western Australia, an exemption from the national scheme should only be earned by delivering in good faith under our state scheme. I'll be introducing amendments to give effect to this so that an exemption is only possible if companies are actually delivering under the state scheme, not just if a state scheme is present. I ask that the government considers these amendments to make the most of this opportunity to make domestic gas reservation work effectively and fairly in every state—even WA. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Australia is one of the most blessed nations on earth when it comes to natural resources. From iron ore to gold, nickel, cobalt and silver—in fact, most of the periodic table—Australia surely leads the world in these riches. But the point needs to be clearly made that they are Australia's assets, a national asset, and for the benefit of all Australians, and that includes our liquefied natural gas, LNG.

Good legislation is based on extensive and thorough consultation across all stakeholders and interested parties. In December 2025, the Albanese Labor government released the Gas Market Review and announced its intention to introduce a Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme. Since then, consultations have included gas producers, exporters, peak bodies, manufacturers, unions, states and territories, and trade partners. Further, an exposure draft of the legislation package was released on 10 September 2026 for public consultation which closed on 24 September 2026. As a result of this exposure draft consultation, 130 submissions were received. The feedback received varied considerably by stakeholder group. The package before us then has been refined as a result of this consultation process.

The fundamental premise underlying the bill is that it recognises national gas as a national asset and, further, that LNG exports are important to supporting jobs and Australians must have access to cheaper and more domestic gas. Surely no-one can argue with these things. The package before us comprises three bills. Firstly, the main bill, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, establishes the export licensing, domestic supply obligation, administration and enforcement framework. Secondly, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 amends a number of other acts, including the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. Thirdly, the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 will ensure costs associated with administrating the scheme are paid for by the gas industry.

The main bill relates to the proposed Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme and has two components. Firstly, LNG exporters will be and are required to hold an export licence. Secondly, these export licence holders are required to contribute to domestic gas supply through a domestic supply obligation, the DSO. The scheme's standard setting, the DSO, will require licence holders to contribute to the equivalent of 20 per cent of annual export volumes to domestic gas markets. Importantly, in relation to the second point, as demand forecasts firm, the Australian Energy Regulator, the AER, will align domestic supply obligations to forecast domestic demand.

This calibration or adjustment will ensure domestic supply prices do not sink to levels that would cause a collapse in gas production or undermine Australia's renewable goals. Further, regarding existing contracts and infrastructure, these will be respected and contractual commitments that predate the scheme's announcement may be recognised through an adjustment system. These adjustments will not operate as a blanket exemption from the domestic gas supply but rather will be limited by time and circumstances. Other flexibility mechanisms incorporated into the package recognise operational realities while maintaining the integrity of the domestic supply obligation.

The main bill also aligns with the Albanese Labor government's commitment to a net zero economy. It does this by enabling the Gas Market Code to prescribe circumstances in which renewable gas, or arrangements that reduce demand for gas, may contribute towards meeting a domestic supply obligation.

Finally, the main bill reflects Australia's two physically and very distinct gas markets, the east coast market and the west coast WA market. The two-speed approach recognises that market fundamentals and effectiveness of state based regulation are very different in these two markets. In other words, the package allows WA's existing state based gas reservation scheme to continue to operate within constitutional constraints.

The Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 commences when the domestic supply obligations begin and repeals the Australian domestic gas security mechanism from 1 January 2028. The reason why the ADGSM is being replaced is that it was designed to respond to forecast gas shortages. The new framework establishes an ongoing system that operates prospectively, preventing forecast gas shortages.

Finally, the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 imposes a levy on export licences to recover the cost of administering and regulating the framework. The levy reflects the principle that the efficient costs of regulating an industry should be recovered from that industry rather than from the wider public.

The new framework and the new scheme outlined and detailed in these bills don't put a limit on the total amount of LNG that may be exported. In fact, exporters can continue to export as much LNG as they want, provided they meet their domestic supply obligations. Let me be clear. The Albanese government remains committed to Australia's role as a major LNG exporter and trusted trading partner, but this cannot come at the expense of domestic gas supply and users who have the right to demand reliable access to gas at prices they can afford.

In summary, access by Australians to reliable liquefied natural gas at an affordable price is fundamental to these bills, and the measures and reforms in these bills ensure that. Equally, these bills provide certainty for export of Australia's LNG and do not cap what can be sent to overseas markets. In this respect, these bills get the balance right. This legislation has and will generate debate. The debate is welcome. I commend to the House the bills and the work the ministers have done to get to this point.

Australians deserve a fair, affordable, transparent and predictable energy system, not the export distorted market that we have today. We have lots of gas, let's be real. This is an Australian resource. But, instead of prioritising our domestic markets, we have for far too long allowed companies to exploit it for great profit for export, prioritising other markets over our domestic market. We do not need more gas approvals. What we do need is to be smarter about where we use it, where it can be sold, what we have and who we prioritise.

Our gas security scheme has previously relied on a combination of market interventions, voluntary agreements and emergency mechanisms to manage supply concerns. These arrangements applied temporary bandaid solutions to avoid shortfalls, building an energy system reliant on fossil fuels and continuing to let the gas industry shape policies long after the science has shifted, also prioritising their profits over Australian consumers. Since liquefied gas exports started in Queensland over 10 years ago, eastern Australia's domestic gas consumption has fallen by about 32 per cent, while prices have tripled. In 2023-24, Australians paid more than four times on HECS debt payments to government revenue than gas companies did on PRRT.

Instead of rules to protect our domestic requirements, producers have had strong incentives to maximise exports for great profits. Projects like Santos's GLNG project in Queensland have siphoned gas away from the domestic market to fulfil export commitments. It is plain wrong, because while they do that at great profit Australians pay. This bill seeks to create a licensing regime for LNG exports from 2028. Each exporter must supply the domestic market with up to 20 per cent of what it exports. The theory behind that approach is clear. More gas in the market means, hopefully, lower prices for consumers, so it's an objective I support. But there are concerns around this bill.

As it stands, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 presents significant concerns. The bill is incredibly complex, at 190 pages long, and after 18 months of consultation it's still unclear how it will work in practice. The bill is unclear about the core areas of the operation of the scheme: how much gas is to be provided to the domestic market, who supplies it and what counts, in fact, as supply. The government seems to be retrofitting a policy on top of projects that were considered without a domestic supply policy and trying to do so without upsetting the gas companies—the great lobbying sector that gets straight into the government—and not wanting to disrupt this sector, its investment business or anyone else. So I would say this is not the best drafted piece of legislation I've seen.

A significant amount of the scheme's operation still depends on future ministerial discretion and decisions by the Australian Energy Regulator. In a joint response, the Australian Workers' Union, Australian Conservation Fund, Australian Council of Social Service and Australian Industry Group have all highlighted that the bill has some major weaknesses that carry the risk that the scheme will be gamed and undermined, potentially to the point of hampering the efficacy of the reservation as a whole. Let's get real. The Australian public is pretty cynical at the prospect of the gas industry yet again gaming this legislation and whether or not the government is yet again creating a policy that will favour the gas industry's superprofits over Australian markets and Australian users. This should concern the government, and I hope they are hearing that feedback. Australians should not have to rely on future ministers making the right decisions behind closed doors. Parliament should provide greater certainty upfront through clear legislative safeguards, transparent decision-making and independent oversight. Australians deserve confidence that this scheme will deliver real, more than just simple paper, compliance.

First, there should be greater limits on ministerial discretion. Ensure that the key principles of the scheme are contained in the legislation itself. There are too many critical questions that are left to future rules, future determinations and future regulatory decisions. If this scheme is to endure, Australians deserve certainty about how obligations will be calculated, how compliance will be assessed and how decisions will be made. A reservation scheme should operate through clear rules, not ongoing ministerial intervention.

Second, we must strengthen the principle of additionality. The bill outlines two ways that you could meet your domestic supply obligations if you are a gas provider—through providing your own gas to the domestic market or by providing additional gas to the domestic market—but how additional gas is determined is not defined in the bill, Instead, it will be provided through the Australian Energy Regulator or ministerial decree. It's simply not good enough. I think the Australian public should be allowed to know how additional gas is to be defined and considered. This should be simple. If gas is counted towards a domestic supply obligation, it should result in a genuine increase in gas available to Australian consumers. There are really legitimate concerns that this can cause gaming by these companies. The fact is that this is not clearly defined. There is—excuse the pun—a Santos sized hole in this bill. Buying gas that was meant for the domestic market anyway and using it to fulfil your own obligations is allowed under this bill, and that is really problematic.

Third, the bill should better align with Australia's energy transition. I welcome the fact that the framework recognises demand size measures, electrification and alternative pathways, but these provisions must be designed to reduce Australia's dependence on gas, not create new incentives for gas expansion.

Fourth, transparency and accountability must be strengthened. The advice provided by the regulator should be published wherever possible. Determinations should be accompanied by clear reasons, and compliance decisions should be transparent and subject to scrutiny, because can I say again, the Australian public is highly cynical about the decisions government has made—this government and previous governments—in relation to the gas sector. Every decision has resulted in a system that the gas sector has been happy with because it continues to make super profits; meanwhile, Australians pay through the roof. It's not good enough.

This bill does not include a mandatory review period or operation to actually even assess whether the reservation scheme is working as intended in putting downward pressure on domestic prices. Ultimately, I hope that this bill provides a mechanism by which Australian gas for Australian consumers will be more affordable. But if the government gets this design wrong, we create a different problem. We don't want a policy designed to improve affordability to incidentally then become a vehicle for the expansion of fossil fuel production on this excuse of providing for the domestic market while maximising sales to export markets.

Whilst in principle I support there being a gas reservation scheme to ensure the domestic market is supplied fairly at a reasonable price, we have to be really clear that there is a high level of scepticism and cynicism when it comes to the involvement of the gas lobby and its power when it comes to dealing with this government and previous governments, so I urge the government to close the loopholes and ensure there is greater accountability and transparency.

To that effect, I move the amendment as circulated in my name to ensure that we have much greater transparency and accountability, pointing out that, for successive governments, there's been a real failure in delivering a fair stewardship of Australian resources for the Australian people.

This is the fourth intervention in the gas market in under a decade, and yet we still don't have a fair system. Such market interventions do undermine the market functioning. This bill relies on ongoing active management on the part of ministers and the regulator to achieve the policy intent. As I've said in my contribution, I am concerned that that makes it unclear as to what could happen in successive governments.

I do, in the amendment as circulated in my name, call on the government to: prevent the expansion of further LNG export capacity; accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels; enshrine the key principles of additionality in this bill instead of deferring to an Australian Energy Regulator instrument and remove ministerial determination; ensure acquisition cannot bypass the additionality test; and transparently publish the Australian Energy Regulator's advice and determinations to ensure the domestic gas reservation scheme does not encourage the development of new gas fields.

That the following words be added after paragraph (2):

(a) successive governments have failed to steward Australia's natural resources for the public benefit;

(b) this is the fourth intervention in the gas market in under a decade and that such market intervention undermines market functioning;

(c) this bill relies on ongoing active management on the part of ministers and the regulator to achieve the policy intent; and

(d) there are concerns that this bill may create incentives for new gas developments that are inconsistent with Australia's emissions reduction commitments; and

(4) further calls on the Government to:

(a) prevent the expansion of further LNG export capacity;

(b) accelerate a transition away from fossil fuels;

(c) enshrine the key principles of additionality in this bill instead of deferring to an Australian Energy Regulator (AER) instrument and remove ministerial determination;

(d) ensure acquisitions cannot bypass the additionality test; and

(e) transparently publish AER advice and determinations ensure the Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme does not encourage the development of new gas fields".

Is there a seconder for this amendment?

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

I rise today to speak in support of the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026. The reality is that governing is rarely that simple.

Australians expect a fair return from their natural resources. They also expect affordable and reliable energy. They expect secure jobs and a stronger manufacturing sector, and good policy requires us to advance all of these objectives together. This legislation is an important contribution towards that goal. At its core, the bill is about energy sovereignty. Energy sovereignty means the capacity of a territory—like Australia—to meet its energy needs in an autonomous and sustainable way to guarantee its independence, having direct control over its energy resources, production and infrastructure. Energy sovereignty is made up of many different parts. It could mean guaranteeing security of energy supply in a particular territory. It could mean encouraging the development of renewable gases to reduce imports of fossil fuels. It could mean investing in the adaptation or construction of infrastructure to strengthen energy resilience. It could mean developing meaningful and long-lasting relationships with allies and partners in our region to achieve gains of trade. It could mean a combination of those things.

We've seen gains of trade in action recently through the Albanese Labor government's broad approach to improving energy sovereignty in this country. This approach included drawing on our relationships with Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia to secure new agreements for the supply of fuel and fertiliser. In securing these resources, the government was able to emphasise that energy security is a dual carriageway, with our gas playing a critical role in this 'gain of trade' approach.

A basket of measures to improve energy sovereignty was also a feature of the May 2026 Federal Budget, which committed $11.9 billion through the previously existing National Fuel Security Plan, with the aim of securing Australia's near-term fuel and fertiliser security. Within this was the establishment of a fuel and fertiliser security facility—a $7.5 billion investment which is intended to increase the domestic supply and storage of fuel and fertiliser by providing financial support, including loans.

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by leave—Equity guarantees insurance and price support. Secondly, $3.2 billion was committed for the establishment of an Australian fuel security reserve. As part of this initiative, approximately one billion litres of fuel was reserved to increase long-term diesel and aviation fuel supply and storage, and the minimum stockholding obligation will increase Australia's critical fuel reserves to 50 days. The focus of this is to address potential regional stock-outs and supply constraints for essential users like critical industries and farmers in anticipation of future potential supply disruptions.

Separately, the federal budget also committed $35.5 million to be spent over four years from 2026-2027 for the establishment of a domestic gas reservation mechanism. This aims to ensure a secure and affordable domestic gas supply through the wholesale gas market. These funds will be spent over four years from 2026-2027 not only to develop and implement the reservation mechanism but to conduct gas market analysis and policy development to promote market reliability and energy security, to modernise offshore resources regulation, support gas investment and mitigate supply shortfalls.

Energy sovereignty also reflects that Australian gas is our natural asset. The Albanese Labor government's Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme is a landmark Labor reform, designed to deliver more supply at the lowest possible prices for gas users, disconnecting domestic prices from the more costly international market, and it's also designed to make Australian industry stronger and our economy more resilient to global, political and supply-chain shocks. These, of course, look like they're becoming more frequent, of longer duration and with much shorter periods of relief in between. Australians rightly expect to receive a fair return from the development of our natural resources. That expectation is reasonable, and it's one that governments must continue to keep in mind when considering future resource, taxation and royalty arrangements.

But energy sovereignty is not one size fits all. As this government has demonstrated, it requires a really broad approach that is much more considered than simple calls to just drill at all costs or to implement a blunt taxation instrument, which is always the inevitable call in response to bills of this nature. Do I want Australians to get a better return on gas and our natural resources? Yes, I do. Do I want Australian gas to be first and foremost available for Australians so that there are no energy shortfalls and so there can be firming as we continue the transition to clean, renewable energy? Yes, I do. I want these things as quickly as reasonably practicable, which is why it's so important to have conversations that can lead to these benefits for the Australian people—conversations that involve fair comparisons and fair and relevant case studies; conversations that are informed by facts and data, not slogans.

The question before us today is not whether Australians should benefit more from Australian gas, because they should. The question is how we deliver that outcome in a way that strengthens energy security, supports Australian industry and provides certainty for investment. Taxation can influence investment and government revenue, but taxation alone does not guarantee affordable domestic supply. The purpose of this bill is to address supply and energy security directly by ensuring Australian gas remains available to Australian households and businesses. Resource taxation will continue to be debated in this place, and rightly so, because Australians expect governments to examine whether the community is receiving a fair return from the extraction and commercialisation of our natural resources. In Australia, we have a mechanism: the petroleum resources rent tax.

The PRRT is a profit based tax designed to capture revenue from Australia's oil and gas resources without discouraging the investment of private capital in identifying and developing those resources that we still need to do at this moment. An entity will be liable to pay PRRT where that entity earns a taxable profit in relation to an offshore petroleum project. PRRT is levied at the rate of 40 per cent of taxable profits, and it's payable in addition to income tax. While views differ on the appropriate level of resource taxation, today's legislation is not principally a taxation measure; it's an energy security measure. Its purpose is to ensure that domestic users can access Australian gas at predictable prices and in reliable quantities.

That being said, since coming to government, the Albanese Labor government has made changes to the PRRT to reflect community sentiment that gas companies should pay more tax. The changes mean that between now and 2030 gas companies will pay approximately $1.6 billion more than originally forecast. But does this mean set and forget, all good? No. There are big differences between Australia and other countries like Norway and Qatar, which are often used as comparison points. The differences between us primarily relate to the ownership structure of assets and organisations, the capital outlays, the downside risk to the taxpayer and the way gas is taxed in essence as a cash flow tax where CAPEX is immediately expensed, leading to lower downside risk for investors, rather than as a revenue tax. As a general principle, Australia and the Australian people do not receive a comparable return once those differences are taken into account.

No tax system should ever be considered beyond review, but reform should be guided by evidence and Australia's long-term national interest. If it involves comparisons between industry, systems or countries, the comparisons should be apples with apples in fairness. Otherwise, they just don't advance the argument. For example, unlike an excise, the PRRT is a profits based tax. An excise is a flat, volume based tax that provides a regular source of revenue regardless of whether a producer of the product attracting the excise makes a profit or not. With respect to the PRRT, the question is not whether tax should be paid but how Australia balances a fair return to the community with maintaining investment in projects that underpin jobs, exports and energy security.

Good energy policy is not about choosing between households and industry, between energy security and decarbonisation, or between domestic consumers and our trading partners; it's about balancing all of these interests responsibly, and that is what this bill seeks to do with an appropriate emphasis on securing supply and fair prices for the Australian people. At this moment in time, Australian gas supports jobs and investment, supports regional communities, and provides energy security for us and our trading partners. At the heart of this bill is a simple proposition: exporters that benefit from Australia's gas resources should make an appropriate contribution to the domestic markets connected to those resources. The regime operates with certainty for both the Australian consumer and the exporter, in that it establishes a predictable and proportionate domestic contribution at prices agreed in commercial negotiations between market participants while allowing exporters to continue to participate in international markets.

The way the regime has been balanced is also important for business and heavy industry, which is particularly reliant on gas. Many industries, like chemicals, plastics and fertilisers, rely on natural gas as a critical raw material or energy source. A reliable, affordable domestic supply keeps these industries competitive and prevents job losses. A good example of this in motion is the South Australian government's agreement with Santos, pursuant to which Santos will supply about 20 petajoules of gas per year to the state's strategic gas reserve from its Moomba operations over 10 years, commencing from 1 March 2030. This arrangement will support the long-term future of the Cooper basin central fields near Moomba, create jobs in Adelaide, create jobs in regional South Australia for at least the next 15 years and ensure South Australia's industrial future and energy security, including the planned sale and transformation of the Whyalla Steelworks.

Australian gas should first and foremost be for Australian consumers and Australian industry. Given its abundance, there should be no gap in supply in the domestic market and prices should be fair, and exporters who export Australian Gas should contribute fairly to the welfare of the Australian people by providing jobs, supporting industry, supporting regional security and paying the Australian people fairly, including by paying the levy contemplated by the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026, which is payment for the opportunity and significant benefits that come to them from extracting Australian natural gas. I commend the bill to the chamber.

I rise to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill and related bills. Australia's gas is a shared national inheritance. It belongs to all of us, and how we share it matters. Right now Australian households and businesses compete with international buyers for their own gas, and too little of the proceeds of selling it come back to the public who own it. I support the principle of domestic gas reservation. The question I want to put to the House is one every resource decision should answer: what is in it for the public?

Western Australia asked that question in 1979. When the WA parliament ratified the North West Shelf agreement, the state did not simply approve a project; it struck a bargain. The state energy commission became the anchor customer on a 20-year take-or-pay contract and built the Dampier to Perth pipeline. In return, Western Australians got first priority in both reserve allocation and deliverability. Read that debate and you'll find members on both sides argued about royalties, foreign ownership, local content and whether a public stake should be taken. Government and opposition disagreed sharply, but both understood that they were deciding how a public resource would serve the public over the long term. Nearly 50 years on, WA's reservation is imperfect, but it has helped buffer domestic prices from international swings.

The east coast took a different path. Between late 2010 and mid-2011, three LNG gas projects at Gladstone were approved and committed around 25 million tonnes a year of export capacity, up from zero in less than a year. Nobody paused to ask how domestic supply would be secured or how the public would benefit. There are people in this House who presided over these decisions. An east coast reservation is 16 years overdue.

The problem the bill seeks to resolve is real. The gas market review found Australia produces around four times as much gas as it consumes, yet AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, is warning of domestic shortfalls from 2030. Since east coast exports began in 2015, production has roughly tripled—so have prices. Gas that once sold for under $5 a gigajoule now contracts at $12. It's in part thanks to a price cap that it's not higher. At the height of the crisis, Australians were offered gas at prices as high as $60 a gigajoule. The minister called this unacceptable. She was right.

I think we do need to stop and think and reflect on this, because at the moment there is much discussion about supply in gas and how we just need to increase supply and that's going to lower prices, but we have seen a situation in this country, on the east coast, where we tripled supply and then the prices almost tripled as well. That shows, I think, the fallacy of that argument and also the need to get the settings right, because gas prices really matter. Households paid around $1 billion more for gas in 2023-24 than in 2014-15, and businesses paid a further $3 billion. That is before counting the impact on electricity prices. Gas still supplies around a quarter of all energy Australians use and more than 80 per cent of the Northern Territory's electricity.

Domestic consumption on the east coast has fallen by around a quarter. Some of that fall is good news—households electrifying and leaving gas behind. Some of it is damning. Manufacturing closures driven by high gas prices have cost at least 1,200 jobs. The Gibson Island urea plant in Brisbane shut at the end of 2022 because it could not secure affordable gas. When the war in Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz this year, the government had to scramble for fertiliser.

High prices have not made the public rich. This is the problem. Rising prices and record volumes should have delivered strong royalties and resource rents. Instead, the PRRT collects nothing from Queensland export projects, and taxpayers are now being asked to prop up energy-intensive industry. Four interventions in under a decade—the ADGSM, the heads of agreement, the Gas Market Code and now a reservation scheme—are not the sign of a functioning market. They are attempts to claw back access to a resource the public already should own.

The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 creates a licensing regime for LNG exports from 2028. Each exporter must supply the domestic market with up to 20 per cent of what it exports. Each year, the Australian Energy Regulator will forecast domestic demand at a 10 per cent buffer, subtract what non-exporters will supply and share the remainder among exporters. The minister can reduce an individual exporter's obligation because of LNG contracts signed before December 2025, infrastructure constraints or existing state reservation arrangements. The companion bills impose a cost recovery levy on licence holders, repeal the ADGSM and rewrite the Gas Market Code, removing the price cap. The minister says the scheme will deliver a reliable supply of affordable gas at home. This is an unobjectionable goal. The question is genuinely whether the bill will deliver it.

So I come back to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026. I support the intent of the bill. Australian resources should benefit Australians. The government has consulted widely and worked across portfolios, and I thank the minister for her office's engagement with mine. I support requiring reserved gas to be supplied, not merely offered. I support excluding renewals and extensions from the protection for existing contracts, and I support the provision allowing demand reduction and renewable gas to count towards the obligation.

But let's now move to my concerns. This is an exceptionally complex bill built around a simple proposition: our resources should serve the national interest and exporters should be net contributors to the domestic market. What makes it so difficult is that we are retrofitting a policy onto projects that were built without one, and we are trying to do so without breaching existing contracts and creating so much sovereign risk that future investment evaporates or atrophies. Yet, across nearly 200 pages, the questions that matter are still left for ministerial decision or rules not yet written: how much gas is supplied domestically, by whom and what counts as supply. The test for whether the gas is additional is not in the bill. It sits in a baseline method the regulator has not yet made, in case-by-case approvals that need not be published and in a power for ministers to declare gas additional in whatever circumstances an instrument specifies.

The minister says the scheme is predictable and proportionate, but the obligation changes every year. Individual exporters can be granted adjustments on regulator advice that need never be published. That is not a rules based reservation scheme; it is a scheme that depends on active, ongoing management by multiple ministers and the regulator, and it will only be as good as the next decision. Consistency depends on later decision-makers. It raises the question: how is this more certain than the intervention it replaces?

There are real risks, and the impact analysis states them plainly. Some high-cost production may become uneconomic, reducing production and constraining supply. The Productivity Commission in 2015 and the ACCC in 2016 both cautioned that a reservation scheme could distort market signals and prove inefficient. Producers call the 110 per cent target a sugar hit—an indirect price control, whose target the government will not state. Rystad Energy estimates that, while most existing gas can be produced for under $10 a gigajoule, the marginal cost of supply rises to $13 to $14 by the mid-2030s, beyond the current price cap. If domestic-only producers cannot compete, they will sell to the exporters. As drafted, an exporter that buys a domestic producer turns that producer's output into its own gas, appearing to bypass the additionality test altogether. That concentrates ownership, undermining competition. Also, reservation alone can only supply around half of the current east coast demand. The ongoing viability of domestic producers remains essential.

Other countries offer lessons. Norway and Qatar control allocation directly through state ownership. The UK taxes windfall profits to subsidise energy users. The United States vastly expanded supply to meet export capacity. Indonesia shows what happens when a reservation is combined with a price cap, falling production and rising demand: rationing, falling investment, and, this month, a public dispute with Singapore over cut supply.

I'm also concerned about cost and trust. The impact analysis puts the regulatory burden at $134 million over 10 years—more than double the status quo. We know from the PRRT that complexity, combined with information asymmetry, favours industry over the public. I'm also concerned the government will treat this scheme as a reason not to reform how we tax gas. And we must reform how we tax gas.

None of these are reasons not to reserve gas. There are reasons to get it right, which means legislating and administering the scheme in a way that is both predictable and transparent. So what is needed? Some changes would make the scheme more predictable and give confidence that it will deliver gas to the domestic market that is genuinely additional.

Firstly, there's additionality. The obligation can be met by either own gas or additional gas. Defining 'additionality' is central to ensuring gas doesn't leak from the domestic market. Those principles belong in the act, not in a method the regulator has yet to write. The minister should not hold an open-ended power to declare gas additional, and existing production should not be considered as additional, case by case, by the regulator.

Secondly, there are acquisitions. An exporter should not be able to meet its obligation by buying a domestic producer and relabelling that producer's output as its own. This would meet the domestic supply obligation but would only serve to concentrate supply, not add to domestic volumes.

Thirdly, there's transparency. The regulator's advice on adjustments, every production base line and every approval of additionality should be published, with reasons. If these decisions cannot be reviewed, they should be at least seen, and volumes shouldn't be able to hide from scrutiny behind claims of commercial sensitivity.

Fourth, there's export capacity. Gas exports should be limited to the capacity we have today. We can honour our existing commitments without signing new ones. Our trade partners are transitioning away from fossil fuels, and our fields are in decline. Gas infrastructure built today is tomorrow's stranded asset and locks in decades of decommissioning.

This bill is a stopgap for two things we really need: a deliberate transition plan and natural resource stewardship. Reservation is not energy policy on its own. We also need a deliberate and coherent plan to get off gas. Neither the Net Zero Plan nor the Future Gas Strategy sets out one. The most obviously national-interest energy policy on offer is to run as much of Australia as possible on the thing that we have more of than anyone else and is hard to ship: sunshine. Once renewables are built, the fuel is free. Gas only gets more expensive as wells get deeper and pipelines get longer. Gas dependence is inflationary.

We need natural resource stewardship that delivers real public benefit. In 1979, the WA parliament debated royalties, public equity and how fast to produce a public resource. We need that debate again. The public is now co-investing tens of billions in critical minerals and energy-intensive industry through mechanisms that are hard to see and harder to scrutinise. The question the government must answer is what we, the co-investors, get in return. I will shortly release a white paper on how Australia should tax its resources better, to try and put some answers at least into the public domain on this and get some feedback.

We cannot keep tinkering with gas settings every few years. It undermines confidence in Australia as a place to invest, and it undermines the market. This bill is our chance to set rules that last. Western Australia got its share in 1979 because its parliament asked what was in it for the public. Sixteen years late, the east coast deserves the same answer to the same question and to have a clear rules-based answer written into law.

Australia is a country rich in natural energy. We have plenty of sunshine, especially in the state where I come from. We have powerful wind sources. We're also very rich in people with great skills and innovation. Those people are greatly needed to move us to being a country that is fully reliant on clean, renewable energy, and that's been a big priority of this government. We went to the election last year pushing very hard. We had a track record of talking about our commitment to renewables and our net zero targets.

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Sitting suspended from 13:15 to 13:20

by leave—We were talking about the fact that Australia has set our net zero targets and our movement towards renewable energy. For a very long time in Australia, we've been very reliant on fossil fuels, and we recognise that you can't just flick a switch and move fully to renewables. There has to be a transition, and Labor does have a plan in place to transition to renewable energies. That's exactly where the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 fits in. Earlier I heard the member for Wentworth refer to it as a stopgap bill, and I tend to agree with that. It is a stopgap bill in terms of our transition from being fully reliant on fossil fuels to renewables. We are one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas. Even though we're doing that, there is a fairness element here, because I think it's fair for Australians to expect that their domestic gas supply is made a priority here, in Australia, as well. That's essentially what the government's domestic gas reservation plan is about and why it matters.

It does establish some clear principles. Access to Australia's gas export industry must come with a responsibility to supply the Australian market. It matters for a manufacturer trying to negotiate a contract, a small business maybe planning their energy costs and households planning the family budget. Our resources should support Australians at home as well as export earnings overseas. As we move towards an electricity system powered increasingly by renewables, we do need to manage the transition, as I said, with some seriousness. We do need cleaner energy, but we also do need reliable energy. We need an energy market that serves the people and the industries who depend on it. Business operates much more productively and much more efficiently when there is certainty, and our gas reservation plan is an important part of meeting those responsibilities.

These proposed reforms will establish Australia's first national domestic gas reservation system. I understand it's been in the works for some time. Under the proposed framework, gas exporters would face a domestic supply obligation equivalent to 20 per cent of the LNG, liquefied natural gas, exports calibrated to forecast domestic demand. That percentage is measured against export volumes. It's not a claim that one-fifth of all Australian gas production will automatically be redirected. The purpose is to make sure more gas is available to Australian customers and reduce the risk of a tight domestic market. We know what happens when markets are tight; prices go up. The proposal also seeks to replace several Commonwealth interventions with a more coherent framework which will give producers and customers clear rules for investment and long-term contracts. The principle behind the reservation is pretty simple. If you benefit from exporting Australia's gas, you should contribute to meeting Australia's gas needs, and it's a reasonable expectation of an industry that's built on natural resources. It's built on resources that are literally under our feet.

Why is this reform necessary? It's necessary because being a major gas producer does not automatically protect domestic consumers. The availability of gas in the ground is only part of the story. What matters to an Australian customer is whether gas is offered to them on workable terms and at a price they can afford and whether it can reach them when they need it. When supply is tight, buyers have few options. When businesses have few options, their bargaining positions weaken. When energy costs become unpredictable, decisions get postponed. A new production line might wait. An expansion may get put on hold. An employer becomes more cautious about taking on staff. Energy insecurity can become economic insecurity, and our reservation plan seeks to address that problem by increasing the pool of gas available to domestic consumers. It's intended to result in a market where Australian buyers have better access to supply and more confidence to negotiate.

For Australian Manufacturing, the stakes are significant. Gas is used for industrial heat and in some industries as a raw material. We don't want that to continue forever, but that's the case now and we have to have a smart transition to full renewables. It plays a role in producing goods that Australians use every day. Some businesses can electrify parts of their operations now. Others face more difficult technical and financial challenges. They may need new equipment. They may need new processes and new technologies that may still be developing. We should encourage that change wherever it is practical to do so.

We cannot build a credible transition around pretending every industrial process can change overnight. Workers deserve a plan that recognises the realities of the industries they work in. A worker in a gas-dependent factory should be able to support climate action without being told that uncertainty about their livelihood is simply something they must accept. A business owner should be able to invest in cleaner production while still securing the energy needed to operate today, and reliable domestic gas can help provide that breathing room. It can support existing production while businesses invest in efficiency, electrification and lower emissions processes.

The objective should be a stronger industrial base that becomes progressively cleaner, and that's certainly the objective of this government. Australians should aspire to make more of the products a changing world needs. We should want investment in Australian facilities, we should want skilled workers in Australian communities, and we should want the value of our resources to support more than the act of shipping them overseas. Our Future Made in Australia policy does just that. It brings all of this together. It brings together our energy transition.

There is sometimes an assumption that supporting renewables and securing gas supply must be contradictory positions. That assumption overlooks how the electricity system works and the fact that not everybody is there yet. The Australian Energy Market Operators 2026 Integrated System Plan identifies renewable energy connected through networks firmed with storage and backed up by gas as the least cost pathway for supplying secure and reliable electricity to our businesses and to our homes, but each part has a different job. Wind and solar provide renewable generation. Transmission allows electricity to move between places and share resources across our regions. Batteries store energy and respond quickly when the systems need them. Hydro and other storage help cover longer periods. Flexible gas generation provides a backup when renewable output is low and storage is insufficient. The task is to build these parts together. A solar farm cannot deliver its full benefit if it cannot connect to the grid. A battery needs electricity to charge, and a gas generator cannot provide dependable backup if it cannot secure fuel.

The last point is where domestic gas reservation can extract directly to the transition. As I said, the transition is a big part of this government's agenda. When I put my hand up to run back in 2022, moving our country towards a country so dependent on renewables was just so important to me and so important to the people of the Brisbane electorate. It was something that I said would be a priority for me as a member of parliament, so I am happy to speak on this bill today for that reason—not because I think the future of our country is fossil fuels. I speak to it because the future of our countries is renewables, and we need to make sure we get there. We need to have a plan to get there.

Back to the domestic gas reservation connecting directly to the transition, if gas is part of the system's backup, then access to gas becomes part of the electricity reliability. A reservation policy can help strengthen that access. It supports the fuel supply behind the backup capacity that the electricity system may need. Imagine a period of high electricity demand where renewable output is lower across several regions or storage has been working hard. Reserves might be running down. At that moment, the system will need a dependable source that can respond, and flexible gas generation can contribute to that.

But the value of that capacity depends on practical questions. Is fuel available? Can it be transported? Is there enough pipeline capacity? Can the plant operate when required? Those questions show why reservation is useful and why it must sit within a broader energy plan. Reserving gas on paper is only part of the task. The fuel, as I said earlier, must be deliverable, and planning must connect gas supply, pipelines, storage and electricity generation. It's a continuum, and all of this must happen alongside continued innovation and construction of renewables, electricity storage and transmission. The more effectively we build the whole system, the more confident we can be to retire ageing coal generation while protecting reliability. That's what a managed transition requires: practical preparation for the conditions the system will actually face.

We should also be clear, though, about the limits of the arguments here. Gas is a fossil fuel. Burning it produces greenhouse gas emissions. Methane leakage from production and transport also matters. Supporting a targeted role for gas does not remove those facts. Our responsibility is to reduce emissions while maintaining a functioning energy system and supporting people who rely on it. It means gas reservation should accompany continued investment in renewable generation, in storage, in energy efficiency and in electrification. For households, efficient electric appliances can reduce the need to buy gas. For businesses, better equipment and improved processes can reduce energy demand. For the electricity grid, more renewable generation and storage can reduce occasions when fossil fuels are required. Those changes must continue. A credible policy secures the gas Australians still need while helping reduce the need for it wherever practical. It should give us confidence to move forward with the transition.

At its heart, this is a debate about what Australians should reasonably expect from natural resources. They should expect those resources to contribute to public prosperity, they should expect the industry to operate under clear rules and they should expect benefits to extend to people who keep this country working: the tradesperson supplying local manufacturers, an apprentice starting a career or the family whose income depends on a regional industrial employer. Maybe it's a small business facing another contract renewal. For these Australians, energy policy is deeply practical. It affects whether the employer expands, whether the business grows, whether jobs are created, whether a business remains competitive, whether a household has room in its budget for that little extra that it might need, and whether a community has confidence in its economic future. That's a big part of this. It's about making sure that businesses, families and communities are confident about where we're going as a nation as we transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.

The transition to renewable energy is an enormous national undertaking. It requires construction, investment and coordination over many, many years. It requires public confidence. It requires workers. It requires education. It requires new skills. I go back again to public confidence. Public confidence depends on showing people that practical challenges are being addressed, and that public confidence does get tied up in skills development, education and what kids today are doing after school. We cannot ask Australians to trust an energy transition while ignoring their concerns about reliability, we can't ask industry to invest while treating secure supply as somebody else's problem, and we cannot assume that resource abundance will automatically produce a fair domestic market. Government has a responsibility to shape the rules, and our domestic gas reservation plan accepts that responsibility. It seeks to secure more gas for Australian users, it aims to improve the conditions under which households and industries obtain energy supply and it supports the back-up roles gas will play as renewable generation and storage become the foundation of our electricity system and of our homes, our businesses and our communities.

The work is to turn that framework into results—more dependable access, better contracting opportunities, a stronger domestic market and an energy transition that Australians can trust. Our ambition should be a country that uses its resources wisely and builds on its renewable advantages, thereby giving people a fair return—a country where export success supports domestic prosperity, where industrial workers have a place in a cleaner economy and where energy security is treated as a public responsibility. I commend this bill to the House.

Sitting suspended from 13:35 to 16:00

I rise to offer a contribution to the three bills the government have introduced: the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026. According to the government, this legislative package will deliver affordable energy, secure national gas supply and guarantee cheap gas for Australian industry and households. The problem for me is that I believe that this will deliver more red tape and more regulatory complexity and is another round of market intervention that creates confusion across the economy, particularly within the gas industry. As you are probably aware, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas, I represent the Central Queensland seat of Flynn, which is home to the largest CSG gas industry, at Curtis Island at the Port of Gladstone. It gets its feedstock largely from Central Queensland and is a major exporter of liquefied natural gas and a major supplier to the domestic market around Australia.

The first question I would ask of my parliamentary colleagues, the wider public and the political commentators is simply this: why do we need a gas reservation policy? There might seem to be an obvious answer to many, but many people do not understand the complexities of the gas industry. There are a few anomalies that need to get pointed out in the whole argument. First and foremost is that the gas resources are the domain of the states not the federal government, with the exception of all the offshore gas. To make arguments around the PRRT, which is the Petroleum Rent Resources Tax, which applies specifically to offshore gas development—to apply that to onshore gas reserves and the companies that develop it, export it, sell it, supply it and so forth is nonsense, because it's not the same thing.

The states—in my case, Queensland—gained huge amounts of revenue from the big export companies that operate out of Gladstone and have developed that gas resource in Queensland. One of the problems with the whole gas reservation policy argument is, as I've said, the question of why we need a gas reservation policy. The answer is very simple. By and large, the New South Wales government and the Victorian government, in particular, have not developed their gas resources. Nor have they developed the infrastructure required to deliver that gas resource or to plug into the systems from Queensland, for example. You would argue that they need gas—and, yes, they do. At the moment, there is not a gas shortage—not right now—but it is projected that in the early 2030s there very much will be a gas shortage, particularly in Victoria. The reason for that is that their gas reserves in the Bass Strait, for example, are becoming depleted and, because they have a fracking ban and they don't want to develop their gas resources and want to electrify all of their business, industry and houses and so forth—the Victorian government, in their wisdom, has developed policies like new home builds can't have a gas stove, gas heating and so forth, because they want them to be all electric—that raises significant issues for the businesses and industries that need gas in the future. They will have to take up the shortfall of the rising cost of that gas.

Those states are asking now for the Queensland gas development companies to supply them with gas and saying, 'It is our right as Australians to have some of that gas, and they should supply it to us.' But that, again, raises some problems. If you are going to now mandate or manipulate the market, as per these bills, and demand that the gas companies supply gas at a lower rate than their export income, what you're actually saying is that Queensland should accept less revenue for the gas that they've developed and that gas should go to the states—in this case, New South Wales, Victoria et cetera—at a discounted rate. From a Queensland point of view, that is not fair. From an industry point of view, we're asking, by this these pieces of legislation, for them to accept less money for the contracts that they've already got in place. That is nothing more than market manipulation, and market manipulation never works. We've seen this many, many times over the years.

I don't doubt that the whole gas issue is complex, but it's got further ramifications, because if you're going to have a gas reservation policy that affects Queensland producers, for example, how do you apply that to Western Australia and the Northern Territory—to demand that those companies and businesses up there supply the same amount of domestic gas? How can you possibly make the price the same where there is just nowhere to use that gas? That adds another layer of complexity to the whole issue of how we get around supplying affordable and reasonable gas.

To me, the other problem with this bill is that it doesn't actually create any more gas. The only way you can create more gas is by convincing the states, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, to explore their gas reserves. To date, they have made no commitments to do that, but that is what needs to be done. This all goes back to the argument of whether we develop our fossil fuel industries. For many, many years, New South Wales and Victoria have chosen not to do that. But now they find themselves in a position where they can't do without gas because they need gas both to supply to their business and industry and to generate electricity with, because it is quite clear that the renewable energy sector is not capable of supplying 24/7 power, so that power generation has to be backed up by something else. In this case it has to be gas. So the whole issue is extremely complex.

There is another problem that the big companies have got if they're expected to reserve up to 20 per cent of their gas production for the domestic market and take less money for it. Does that add any incentive to spending and committing billions of dollars for further development in exploration, drilling wells and developing wells and building the necessary infrastructure that is required to do that? Having dealt with all the big companies—I speak to them on a regular basis—their arguments are, 'That doesn't look very good, and if you're going to manipulate the market, we're not very interested in committing and spending a whole lot of money redeveloping gas tenements and building the necessary infrastructure required.' And there are significant amounts of money required to do that.

Before I came to politics, I came out of the gas industry. I'm a high-pressure pipe welder by trade, and I can assure you there are billions and billions invested into that infrastructure in Queensland that I helped to develop back then when it was all being done. If you are required to duplicate some of those pipelines and some of the infrastructure required—that was 20 years ago when I worked in the business, and there would need to be substantially more money committed from the big gas companies with what we're requiring them to do. As I've said, the whole gas reservation policy is a complex argument. It is not well understood by many of my parliamentary colleagues. I have listened carefully to some of the comment been made, and, for me, one of the big problems is that everybody in the wider public and some of the political commentators simply do not understand that gas as a resource, when it's onshore in Australia, it is controlled by and is the domain of the states. And, unless the state governments are all on the same page in respect to developing these resources, you are going to have problems, and significant ones. And that's why we're all in the position we're in. I would just ask everybody to try and understand the reality of what the government is proposing here. For me, as I've said, it is more complexity in the whole problem. It is more market manipulation that actually doesn't guarantee any more gas, nor does it encourage the gas companies to develop the resources which we sorely need.

Natural gas is vital to Australia's prosperity, our manufacturing industry and our energy security. It is one of our country's greatest natural assets, and we have a responsibility to make sure Australians benefit from the resources beneath our own soil and waters. Gas is essential to the production of products we rely on every single day. It helps our manufacturers produce steel, aluminium, glass and fertiliser. It provides households with energy for cooking and heating, and it plays an important role in backing up our electricity system, helping keep the lights on when the demand is high and renewable generation is not sufficient. The gas industry also supports tens of thousands of Australian jobs, attracts investment into our regions and generates over $60 billion a year in export income.

I am a strong supporter of the Australian gas industry. I want to see it continue to invest, create and grow. But supporting our gas industry also means making sure our domestic market has the reliable and affordable supply it needs. Australian gas should not simply be a resource that we extract, export and sell to the highest bidder overseas. It should support Australian families, Australian businesses and Australian manufacturing. When the east coast LNG market was opened up, Australians were promised this would not come at the expense of domestic supply. But the development of the export industry fundamentally changed the market, with some companies entering into contracts which export more gas than they produce. The result has been a market in which Australian businesses are competing with overseas buyers for access to gas produced here at home.

This is a problem when gas is an essential input into Australian manufacturing. It is a problem when businesses cannot secure affordable long-term contracts with confidence. And it is a problem when families are left dealing with high energy bills and the rising cost of living. We have seen wholesale gas prices rise significantly from the levels that Australians enjoyed before the LNG export industry transformed the market. In 2014, Australia had some of the cheapest wholesale gas prices in the world, at $4 a gigajoule. Today that sits at $14 a gigajoule. These pressures matter in my electorate of Holt. Across Cranbourne, Clyde, Narre South, Hampton Park and surrounding suburbs, families are working hard to keep up with the cost of housing, groceries, transport and energy. For a young family, every increase in the household bills matters. For a local business trying to keep its doors open, higher energy costs can mean difficult decisions about staffing, investment and expansion. And, for Australian manufacturers in places like Dandenong South or Cranbourne West, the cost of energy affects their ability to compete, employ local workers and keep production here in this country. We cannot control movement in international energy markets but we can make sensible decisions about how we manage our own resources and strengthen our resilience to those movements. That is what this legislation seeks to do.

We do not have to look overseas to see how a domestic gas reservation policy can work. We can look west. In 2006, Western Australian Labor Premier, the honourable Alan Carpenter, introduced a domestic gas reservation policy requiring new gas developments to make the equivalent of 15 per cent of their gas available for the domestic market. The policy was designed to secure long-term energy supplies for Western Australians, while allowing the state to develop its significant LNG export industry. This has seen gas remain consistently lower on the west coast than in the east coast markets. It has also seen significantly less volatility, with the market highly insulated. During the peak of the 2022 energy crisis, while the east coast market spiked fivefold to over $50 a gigajoule, the west coast gas market remained stable at $8. This disparity is why, in 2025, we embarked on the gas market review. This review recommended that the Australian government adopts a national domestic gas reservation scheme requiring exporters to reserve up to 20 per cent of their annual export production for domestic use. The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 seeks to implement that recommendation.

From 1 January 2028, gas exporters will be required to hold a gas export licence carrying a legally binding domestic supply obligation. The Australian Energy Regulator will oversee the scheme and determine the quantity of gas that must be supplied to the domestic market—up to 20 per cent of the suppliers production. The scheme is designed to collaborate domestic supply to 110 per cent of the forecast demand. That oversupply will provide a buffer against unexpected demand and increase the volume of gas available to Australian customers, putting downward pressure on prices.

The bill requires exporters to physically supply the gas required under the obligations. It is not enough simply to advertise gas for sale or make an offer that never results in delivery. Companies that fail to meet their obligations will face significant corporate penalties and may have their export licence suspended or cancelled. Licence holders will also be required to submit annual plans explaining how they intend to comply, followed by compliance reports which their performance can be assessed against.

This bill provides four flexible compliance mechanisms to help suppliers meet their obligations. First, the 90-to-10 rule provides flexibility between compliance periods. A company that delivers at least 90 per cent of its obligations in a year can make up the shortfall over the following three years. Equally, extra supply in one period can help offset a shortfall in a in another. Second, commercial arrangements with third party producers can allow exporters to obtain additional gas, providing the arrangements actually deliver additional supply rather than simply redirecting gas that would otherwise have entered the domestic market. Third, the framework allows for production of renewable gases, including biomethane and green hydrogen, to contribute towards compliance. Fourth, industrial demand reduction can be recognised where improvements genuinely reduce the amount of gas required across the economy.

This bill also recognises the reliance on Australian gas of our Asian security partners. for Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Australian LNG is vital, representing over a third of all gas consumed in these countries. At a time of such uncertainty in the world with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Australia has continued to be the bedrock of energy security for these nations. That is why this bill continues to respect existing export contracts. The bill provides an adjustment mechanism for pre-existing contracts entered into before 22 December 2025. It allows exporters to seek adjustments to their domestic supply obligations where there is no viable alternative to satisfy the local reservation requirement without defaulting on these commitments.

For Victoria, ensuring the supply of gas is significant. Victoria has a proud manufacturing history, and our future prosperity depends on retaining the capacity to make things here at home. Manufacturing provides skilled jobs, supports local supply chains and creates opportunities for workers at different stages of their careers. Gas remains an important input for a range of industrial processes, including high-temperature heat and the production of essential materials. When gas becomes unaffordable, manufacturers face pressure on their ability to compete with overseas producers. That is not an outcome we should accept without taking action. We should be giving Victorian businesses the confidence to plan for the future, rather than leaving them exposed to avoidable cost pressures, and we should be giving households greater confidence that Australian resources will help meet Australian needs.

I also want to be clear about what supporting gas means for our future. Australia is investing in renewable energy, storage and the infrastructure needed to modernise our electrical system. Gas has a role to play alongside those investments, particularly where reliable, dispatchable energy is needed to support the system. We need an orderly and practical energy transition that maintains reliability, supports workers and households and protects Australian industry. That means being realistic about the energy our economy needs today while preparing for the technologies that will power tomorrow. It means recognising the value of our existing resources, supporting responsible development and making sure that our energy policies put Australian households and businesses first. It means understanding that energy security is not simply about how much gas we produce; it is also about whether that gas is available at an affordable price when Australians need it the most.

Natural gas is one of Australia's valuable resources. It supports our economy, our industrial capacity, our international relationships and our energy system. As one of the world's largest gas exporters, Australia should be able to maintain a strong export industry while ensuring our businesses and households have the access to the gas they need. This bill establishes a framework to achieve that. By requiring exporters to oversupply the domestic market, the scheme will put downward pressure on prices.

For families in Holt, this is about taking pressure off those household bills. For Victorian manufacturers, it is about supporting investment, jobs and competitiveness. For the Australian gas industry, it is about maintaining their social licence by ensuring that the development of our resources delivers benefits at home as well as abroad.

I support a strong Australian gas industry. I support the workers, businesses and regional communities whose livelihoods depend on it. I also support making sure that Australians receive a fair benefit from the resources that belong to our country. This bill is an important step towards achieving that objective. That is why I commend the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 to the House.

I would like to thank the Minister for Resources, the Hon. Madeleine King, for her work on this legislation. As a proud Western Australian, the minister understands the importance of the gas industry to our national prosperity, and the experience of Western Australia's reservation policy provides valuable lessons for a national framework.

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.

I rise today to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, which establishes licensing and domestic supply obligations for the Australian gas industry. The coalition haven't reached a final position on this bill. There is a Senate inquiry being undertaken at the moment, which will, I'm sure, come back with some recommendations. But I do have to say that, at this point in time, I would find it very hard to support this bill in its current form.

Let's go to the nub of the problem here, and it is that, on the east coast of Australia, there is a shortage of gas for not only household use but also industrial purposes, and that is creating some difficulties for business and also higher costs for homes and communities. How did we get to this position, you might ask? It's great to follow on from my friend, the member for Holt, a Victorian Labor member. The Victorian government has banned the extraction of gas in Victoria, so to now complain that they don't have enough gas is quite sobering, really. You ban the extraction of gas but then complain about not having any gas. That just doesn't make any sense to me.

When the current government won power federally in May 2022, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy said the Kurri Kurri power plant could not run on gas. He sacked Paul Broad, the CEO of Snowy Hydro, the owner of that facility, because Mr Broad said it wouldn't run on green hydrogen—it can't; it won't happen. Where are we today? We're desperate for gas to run the Kurri Kurri power station, and the minister now says that he never bought into the green hydrogen dream. Well, you could have fooled me and a lot of people through that time! Let's face it, gas has been demonised in this place for a long time now. We talk about the vitriol on social media. If you're a gas producer or you work in the gas industry, you'd certainly understand that particular scenario.

We're now in a situation where the government is looking to force gas exporters to supply 20 per cent of their gas into the domestic market. As has been mentioned by many of the speakers here and as you'd be well aware, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas, as a proud Western Australian, Western Australia has a gas reservation policy. But it is a completely different beast to the one that we're talking about here. The first point that I'll make is that the WA gas reservation policy applies to new gas developments. Before a company makes an investment decision, it is aware of what its obligations are. So the companies that operate off the North West Shelf of Western Australia were aware of their obligations before they invested extraordinary amounts of money. In the case of INPEX's Ichthys project, it was $70 billion. They went to the Northern Territory, so they actually weren't caught up in the reservation policy.

The companies that operate off the North West Shelf are certainly supplying that domestic market, but there is a great deal of flexibility built into that program. While they have to provide 15 per cent of their production, it doesn't have to be done year on year. They can stagger that contribution over the life of the project. So, if domestic prices are low, they'll provide less gas into the market, and when domestic prices are high, they will provide more into the market. It's a price-buffering system for the Western Australian domestic market. At the end of the day, they've still got to supply 15 per cent of their production over the life of the project, so at some point that'll average out and it'll be 15 per cent per annum. That, I think, is a very good system for regulating price and supply.

What is being proposed with this legislation is forcing up to 20 per cent or 110 per cent of supply. If you oversupply a market by even one per cent and the buyers or the consumers in that market know that there's going to be an oversupply, then they're just not going to pay the price. They're just going to wait until that excess supply comes on the market and the price collapses. 'That's fine,' you may say. As Kevin Gallagher of Santos said to BlueScope steel, how about you supply us with some discounted steel? Everybody wants discounted gas, right? But nobody wants to provide discounted steel or other products that they produce from the gas.

One wonders why the gas industry is being forced to provide, effectively, a discount to their customers. What that means is you get a 20 per cent additional supply or oversupply into the market. If you're a domestic producer and you don't have an export market to effectively offset a very low price on the domestic market, then there's your business gone. Domestic suppliers of gas will literally go out of business overnight because they don't have the other 80 per cent that they're sending offshore. They supply the domestic market, and they take the domestic price.

The medium- to long-term effect of this policy will be that we will have less gas available, there'll be less investment and we'll all be paying higher prices. We'll see the gas industry go offshore. Already, companies like Woodside are looking to invest in the United States. While there are many in this place who would like to see that, I'll just remind people that the gas industry contributes $105 billion to the national economy. The coal industry, by the way, contributes $165 billion. That's $265 billion from those two industries contributed to the Australian economy. I haven't seen anybody tell me how we're going to replace that national income.

This legislation, while it might provide a short-term sugar hit for the states that have not extracted their own gas—I actually spoke to a Western Australian industrial company the other day who has a plant in Melbourne that's been sitting idle for 10 years because they can't get gas. That is what this problem is trying to solve; I get that. I get it, but why should producers in other states have to bail out Victoria? I don't understand that. By the way, this particular company was moving its operation to Houston, and they said that they could have approvals and be up and running within 12 months. They estimate the same process here would take five to seven years.

While the intent of the bill is to make more gas available to the local market, which I absolutely support, and a reservation policy of some description is a worthy goal—and I have said to my very good friends in the gas industry that to retain their social licence they will need to supply affordable gas into the domestic market—this current legislation is going to have the opposite effect in the medium- to long-term because it will crush the supply going forward. The Chamber of Minerals and Energy, which is the peak minerals and energy body in Western Australia, have called for amendments to this bill, and I think that some of them are very worthy of consideration.

The bill currently gives the minister discretion, and the CME say that this shouldn't be part of the bill; it should be much more specified. If you're going to make an investment of many billions of dollars in a future project and you don't actually know exactly what your supply obligations are going to be—you're having to wait for the minister to make up their mind—then that makes it very difficult to plan and very difficult to make that final investment decision. So I a hundred per cent agree that that needs to happen.

The other thing that needs to happen is that Western Australia needs to be exempted. We—as you would know, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas—already have a reservation policy. The reservation policy is working well. The Premier, Roger Cook, is coming to Canberra tomorrow, I believe, ostensibly to talk about backpackers—and all power to him; good on him, because that's an important issue, particularly in regional WA and across my electorate. But I reckon he might be talking about the gas reservation policy as well, while he's here, because to create this uncertainty for the Western Australian producers is going to cost the Western Australian economy. It is going to put a brake on future investment, and that will cost the people of Western Australia dearly. So, with a $35 billion contribution to the Western Australian economy, we need to look after our gas producers in WA. I say: all power to Roger Cook for coming to Canberra, and let's hope that he can convince the Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy that Western Australia needs to be exempt from this program.

The other thing that no-one's been able to explain to me is whether Western Australian producers will be forced to physically supply the gas. I mean, yes, they can make it available at the wellhead, but it would be pretty costly to get it to Melbourne—if you actually could; I'm not sure that they've actually gone ahead and built an unloading facility there. But no-one in the industry has been able to tell me whether they understand whether that's their obligation or not—to actually physically deliver the product.

These are key issues for Western Australians and Western Australian producers, and, I'm sure, for the Western Australian government—and, hopefully, for Western Australian members, to fight for WA, to protect our industry. It's a magnificent contributor to our state. It employs thousands of people, in very well-paid positions. So I would expect that every Western Australian member in this place will be standing up for WA and will be making it very clear to their respective parties that WA has a system that works and that we're going to fight to protect that system.

I think we have been encouraged to be a bit more thoughtful in the way we debate, and I would like to absolutely take that up. What I would emphasise to the member for O'Connor is that he and I have very different views on this. I dare say, the member for O'Connor even has different views with himself, from listening to that contribution, because he can't, on the one hand, criticise us for wanting to set up an east coast reservation scheme but then, on the other hand, tell us how good the west coast one is.

There is an absolute need for us to be able to seize the moment—similar to when a WA Labor premier stared down the same sorts of arguments that, I dare say, Member for O'Connor, you have advanced here today, on the terrible things that a reservation scheme would do in the WA context: that it would lead to lower investment; that it would lead to companies going elsewhere; that it would lead to higher prices; that it would create all these problems. Alan Carpenter, who was the then premier, did a great thing not just for Western Australia but for the country as well, in being able to show that we can still have that investment, and those companies can still make their money, but we can look after people who needed to see gas much more competitively priced.

As much as I am an admirer of the west coast reservation scheme, Member for O'Connor, it doesn't always guarantee that there will be a consistent flow back to domestic markets. It's done over a period of time. When you look at the way it runs, you just have to guarantee a certain amount has gone into the Western Australian market, and that's how it's measured, whereas we think there should be something done to ensure that there is a consistent availability for Australians.

On the east coast, as much as it's been pointed out that it should apply, if I've heard you correctly, Member for O'Connor, in terms of new fields, we still have uncontracted amounts of gas. We export an eye-watering 80 per cent of our gas; 20 per cent is left aside for the country. Manufacturers can't get decent contracts out of the gas suppliers, out of these gas companies. They're given short-term gas contracts. When you're told you can only get a 12-month contract for such a critical input, how are you supposed to put up with that? The only reason is for the sheer greed of these companies that want to take advantage of a higher price, potentially, outside that 12-month gap. It's just unacceptable. Those manufacturers should be able to get much better prices. We shouldn't have to see our gas then be onsold when we're begging for it here. We're begging for the scraps, and then we see it onsold in some other markets at incredible rates.

I think of our friends in Japan. I understand their energy insecurity, but it cannot be that (1) they get all the gas that they do and then onsell it to other countries at extraordinary prices and make a huge profit out of it; and (2) talking about another thing which I firmly believe in, taxing gas exports, they say to us that we shouldn't tax gas exports while they tax gas imports. It's not consistent and not fair. So my view is that I stick up for Australians. My view is that we should be able to get a better deal out of this resource that should confer on us huge economic and commercial strength.

This is a very important measure in terms of what the parliament's debating, and it will kick in, based on the way it's designed, in 2028. Even though it's a great start, I absolutely do believe we need to put more downward pressure on gas prices. The fact of the matter is we have to fix a broken PRRT. It's not raising the revenue that it should. We've made some changes, but, frankly, I'm always wanting more. I think we need to be able to see a much better deal, and we're not going to get it out of that PRRT. I think Australians want the best possible return from resources that they own. The ACTU's proposal of a 25 per cent tax on gas exports is estimated to generate $17 billion a year. At a time when finding new revenue streams is pretty hard going, we have to have a serious talk about our options.

We're a resource-rich country. It's part of our national character, our national make-up. We're proud of that fact, but everyday Australians aren't seeing the returns of that prosperity. Instead they're reading headlines about Santos not paying company tax for 11 years. The same company that says to us that we shouldn't have a tax on gas exports because it's a bad idea also thinks it's a good idea not to pay tax for 11 years. I think the hypocrisy of that is just wrong. In contrast, Australians look at their pay slips, and every time they do they see the tax taken out. They do their tax returns, but then they read the headlines about some of these big multinational companies not paying their way and crying out poor. The income of those gas companies is around 580,000 times that of an Australian's real wage, and these big companies are not stumping up. The outrage is absolutely justified.

I'll keep saying a gas tax is a missed opportunity, not a lost one, because as long as we can keep up the noise, the fight isn't over. I've held forums in my local community where people from my part of Western Sydney have told me loud and clear how unfair they think the current state of play is. It's an issue that matters to them, and they're not alone. It's an issue that unites Australians of all political backgrounds. It doesn't matter if you're a Labor supporter, a Liberal supporter, a Nationals supporter, a One Nation supporter, a Greens supporter—everyone reckons we should be getting a better deal on gas. There are so many people that believe we should be taxing gas exports, and it's understandable that they do.

My view is that, with the money, at a time where revenue is tight, I do believe we should be looking to see how we invest that in the longer term prosperity of the nation. We, as I said, are a resource-rich nation, but we've made a lot of money in particular from a lot of fossil fuels. As global warming bites more and more and countries think about what they do to generate energy, the way they use energy and the way they cut their emissions, the longer term challenge for our country is—yes, we can recognise the contribution of those resources in times past, but we have to start thinking about what comes next? When the income starts to decline, how do we think ahead as a country and prepare? We should be thinking about how we invest the money out of a gas tax to build long-term economic growth for the nation. What are the jobs that come next? How do we think differently about how we make our money as a country and ensure that the ones that follow us enjoy the living standards we currently enjoy? That's why I'm a big believer in taxing gas. It's why I will continue to fight for this.

Yes, the case might be made that we can't do it right now, because we're in the middle of a fuel crisis from a war that was launched by Donald Trump, who we're told every week is coming up with another ceasefire that's around the corner or another peace plan—and that the war and the hostilities have ended, yet it continues. The sooner that gets sorted out, the better, but we cannot defer this decision to tax gas and push it in to the never-never. Too many Australians believe that we should get a better return. I agree with them, I stand with them and I will fight for them to make sure that we get a better deal, because we have been ripped off for too long by some of these companies who have made a lot of money off this and whose answer, by the way, is 'if you want lower prices, we have to open new fields'. That sounds like a great proposition until you think the more of these fields that they open—which I don't think we can continue to do. It'll be harder and harder into the future to open new gas fields.

When the big gas companies say that the key to lower prices is to open a new field, that's not for Australians. They will do what they've always done. They will simply open the new field, export the gas at the price that they want, make lots of money, not pay tax to this country and leave us poorer for it and begging for the scraps. At least with a domestic gas reservation plan like what this government has had the guts to do, we can ensure that more Australian manufacturers and households get access to the gas that they need and that we don't see it being shipped off in extraordinary amounts with no gain and no long-term benefit for the country. We absolutely, 100 per cent, can do better. I get tired of hearing the criticisms from many who sidle up to these big firms and say, 'If we do anything that stands up for the country, we'll miss out.' If there are gas firms that are threatening us and saying that they'll leave the country if we dare to stand up for ourselves, see you later. Ta-ta. There'll be another firm that will want to rock up and get this resource. They absolutely will. It's in such high demand and it does play an important role, but we should make sure, for the time that we have access to gas, that we get the better return and that we're not scared off by multinationals using the same playbook they've used for decades to scare governments of any political persuasion.

We should stand up and seize this moment to make sure we get the better return and, as I said, use the money from that to invest in the longer term good of the economy. So many other countries have done the same. They have looked at this. We've often pointed to countries in Scandinavia and the like, where they invested, they took that money and they were able to do better for their local populations. I absolutely have the same view. We should do it. I'm stoked that we are doing this reservation scheme, but the missing piece is a tax on gas exports. That absolutely has to come next, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe on that. There are a lot of Australians that believe the same.

I rise to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026. I want to begin by providing the context in which this bill was brought about. It was announced at a time when the government was facing increasing public pressure to introduce a tax on gas exports. Instead, it's chosen to do a gas reservation model. Let's be really clear about one thing from the outset. A gas reservation policy does not raise a single dollar in revenue that a gas tax would. A 25 per cent tax on gas exports would be expected to raise around $17 billion a year. It has incredibly strong support, with polling showing 72 per cent of Australians are in favour of this. In Mackellar, my electorate, that support is over 75 per cent. A gas tax would also create a direct incentive for exporters to redirect gas into the domestic market to avoid the tax, placing downward pressure on the prices for Australian households and businesses.

That context matters because this bill only goes partway to addressing Australia's gas problem. Let's be clear that Australia does not have a gas shortage problem; we have a gas export problem. Australia produces vastly more gas than it consumes, yet exports the majority of it. In doing so, we've exposed Australian households and businesses to volatile international markets and the price shocks that inevitably follow global instability. We are one of the world's largest gas producers, yet families are paying more for energy because domestic prices are increasingly linked to export markets. Since LNG exports commenced on the east coast in 2015, domestic gas prices have tripled. The domestic market has repeatedly experienced price spikes, not due to gas shortages but because export markets have been prioritised over Australian consumers.

In the long-term, the primary solution is the transition to clean, affordable renewable energy. Doing so is the most effective way to build our sovereign energy security and to genuinely insulate households from fossil fuel price shocks and bring energy bills down for good. In the meantime, we must ensure Australian gas supports local industry and households rather than flowing almost entirely overseas.

At the same time, Australians are rightly asking whether gas companies are paying their fair share. More than $55 billion worth of gas was exported in the last financial year alone. Since the Albanese government came to office, well over $300 billion worth of gas has been exported from Australia. Yet the petroleum resource rent tax, the Commonwealth's primary tax on gas, raised just $1.4 billion last year. Many companies also pay little or no company tax. Santos, for example, has not paid company tax in more than a decade despite reporting over $50 billion in total income. Australians see these figures and are frustrated that enormous volumes of publicly owned resources are leaving our shores, yet the public return remains remarkably small. I reiterate that this bill and this gas reservation scheme will not help Australians get a fair return from the sale of their natural resources.

I also want to make the point that a gas reservation policy should not become a mechanism for locking in new gas demand. Gas is not our future. It's expensive, polluting and finite. It's destroying our climate and our children's future. Australia is the world's second-largest fossil fuel exporter and the fifth-largest fossil fuel producer. The emissions associated with those exports contribute to the worsening climate crisis that is driving devastating fires and extreme weather events around the globe. Australia will be at the forefront of these consequences.

As a quorum has been called in the House of Representatives, proceedings are suspended until the chair is resumed.

Sitting suspended from 17:08 to 17:11

There's also the direct cost-of-living dimension I've already spoken about. Because gas remains one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation, wholesale electricity prices are heavily influenced by the price of gas. As domestic gas prices have increased, electricity prices have followed. At the same time, Australia's LNG export sector is projected to decline over the coming decade, including under the federal government's own Future Gas Strategy, due in part to ageing gas fields and shifting global demand.

A well-designed reservation scheme should support Australia's managed exit from gas, not entrenched long-term dependence on it. It should also recognise that not all gas users are the same. Some industries genuinely have limited alternatives available today. Certain heavy industrial processes continue to rely on gas and will do so until practical substitutes emerge. By contrast, many residential, commercial and lower-heat manufacturing users already have access to efficient, affordable and cleaner alternatives through electrification. This is why a number of stakeholders, including the Climate Council, have proposed demand-side compliance mechanisms alongside any reservation scheme. Such measures could fast track the ability of Australian households, particularly disadvantaged households, to access the cost-of-living and health benefits of efficient electric homes. They could help manufacturers realise the productivity, affordability and competitiveness benefits of electrification while protecting jobs. They would help preserve finite gas supplies for industries that genuinely need them, while reducing pressure for costly gas infrastructure expansions. And importantly, they would support Australia's climate goals by reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Turning specifically to this bill before the House, this is highly complex legislation. I note, too, that it's been rushed through the house while the Senate Standing Committee on Economics inquiry is still underway and being debated in the Federation Chamber—the secondary chamber designed for less contentious and uncontroversial parliamentary business. Given the significance of these reforms and the far-fetching consequences they may have for consumers, industry and the broader economy, that is far from an ideal process.

This bill contains three core elements. First, it establishes a licensing regime requiring LNG exporters to hold an export licence from January 2028, backed by substantial penalties for non-compliance. Second, it creates a domestic supply obligation, or DSO, that determines how much gas a licence holder must provide to the domestic market. The obligation is set at 20 per cent of covered exports, adjusted for a range of factors including existing contracts, domestic reservation arrangements and infrastructure constraints. Third, it imposes requirements concerning financial assurance, notification of changed circumstances and cooperation with regulatory requests.

I do want to acknowledge that the government has made several sensible improvements from the original exposure draft and in response to stakeholder feedback. The bill no longer automatically requires exporters to reserve 20 per cent of exports for Australians. Instead, exporters are required to reserve up to that amount, meaning only the quantity actually needed by the domestic market. That is an important change and responds to stakeholder concerns that a blanket 20 per cent obligation would substantially exceed forecast shortfalls and risk locking Australia into greater gas dependence. The Grattan Institute has modelled that requiring exporters to direct the equivalent of 20 per cent of LNG exports into the east coast market would effectively flood the market for the next decade. It found that a even five per cent reservation would be sufficient for the foreseeable future.

Reservation levels should be determined carefully and adjusted regularly according to actual market need. If obligations are set too high, they risk creating unintended consequences, including incentivising new gas developments that may ultimately become stranded assets and facilitating long-term gas lock-in by flooding the domestic market and undermining electrification. The government has also responded to some concerns regarding ministerial discretion within the scheme. Nevertheless, significant concerns remain. While moving away from an automatic 20 per cent reservation is welcome, many stakeholders argued that an independent authority, potentially the Australian Energy Regulator working alongside bodies such as the Australian Energy Market Operator, should be responsible for determining and adjusting reservation levels annually based on actual demand forecasts. There are also concerns regarding the treatment of existing contracts and the potential for loopholes, including issues raised in relation to the Santos GLNG project in Gladstone.

The Australian Conservation Council, Australian Council of Social Services, Australian Workers' Union and Australian Industry Group have called on the government to do these things. Firstly, they call for removing open ended provisions allowing rules to prescribe new methods by which a licence holder could satisfy their domestic supply obligation requirements, retaining appropriate ministerial discretion while preventing investment in future gas supply being used to meet these obligations. They've called to provide that a licence holder cannot meet its domestic supply obligation by its own gas consumption unless it supplies the free-up gas domestically. It introduces a fairness requirement that, where a licence holder DSO is determined via demand calibration, the volume should be with reference to the share of exports. These are just some of the sensible suggestions being put forward through the inquiry process, and I encourage the government to consider these amendments, including those proposed by the crossbench.

More fundamentally, stakeholders have argued that exporters should be able to reduce their obligations by funding verified durable reductions in domestic gas demand through electrification and fuel switching. Such an approach would preserve scarce gas supplies for industries that genuinely need them, while accelerating the transition to cleaner alternatives. There are also questions about how this bill interacts with existing state reservation schemes. Western Australia's domestic gas reservation policy has operated since 2006.

While the principle behind the scheme is sound, the system highlights the risks of weak design. There is no comprehensive statutory framework. Reservation obligations are governed through individual agreements with exporters. Transparency is limited. Enforcement powers are weak. There are no meaningful penalties for non-compliance and limited ministerial powers to compel compliance. Indeed, a report of the Western Australian parliament found that LNG exporters had supplied only a little over half the volume they were required to reserve for the domestic market. A federal reservation framework should learn from these shortcomings. A national scheme could operate alongside state arrangements while ensuring exporters provide gas when and where it is genuinely required. Similarly, I believe this bill risks repeating some of the very problems that have plagued the petroleum resource rent tax. Complexity, exemptions and carve-outs can produce schemes that look robust on paper but fail to deliver in practice. We should be cautious about creating another framework so complicated that its effectiveness is gradually weakened over time.

In conclusion, Australia must ensure that our resources work, first and foremost, for Australians, we must ensure that gas companies pay a fair return to the community, we must protect households and businesses from unnecessary energy price shocks, and we must not lose sight of the fact that Australia's long-term energy future lies not in greater dependence on gas but in the transition to clean, affordable, reliable renewable energy. While the reservation scheme established by this bill is welcome and may help direct more gas to the domestic market, it does nothing to ensure Australians receive a fair return for the sale of their resources. And, given the complexity of the scheme and the limited scrutiny it has received, there remains a risk of unintended consequences. Ultimately, it is a distraction from the real reform Australians are calling for: making gas companies pay their fair share through a gas export tax.

In the lead-up to the last election, I called for a gas reservation policy, and at the time I asked the question about how it was that we were selling gas to China cheaper than to Australians. It's just wrong when so many households and businesses are crying out for cheaper gas, when prices are so high and when the cost-of-living crisis is having such impacts across the Central West and the rest of Australia. Australians shouldn't be forced to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families. That's the bottom line here.

After I announced that policy of a gas reservation, the coalition suddenly announced that their energy policy was—you guessed it—a gas reservation policy, and the government have now come out and announced that they also back a gas reservation policy. So I'm glad that the Liberal, National and Labor parties have seen the light. That's a positive. I have to say this follows other initiatives and bills that major parties have previously not supported or have voted against and then have come to call their own. I'm talking here about my bill to ban the foreign buying of residential property. That was announced by me. I put a bill into parliament. Then the coalition, in opposition, adopted it, and then the government adopted it as well. Then we had my bill to protect prime agricultural land, which has basically now been plagiarised by the National Party after they voted against it. You had my bill to keep cash king in Australia. Again, the National Party failed to support that, and then yesterday they announced a new policy. It's called 'keeping cash king in Australia'. So there are very serious concerns about the originality of some of the policy development that goes on in the major parties. But I'm pleased that the government has seen the light on a gas reservation policy, and I'm pleased that the coalition has seen the light on this as well. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, that's politics.

The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 is not perfect. As speakers who have come before me on this have pointed out, there are still unanswered issues and questions surrounding it, and they do need to be addressed. However, it's better than what we've got at the moment, so, on that basis, I will be supporting it. However, there is a glaring failure from the major parties that continues to this day, and that is the unwillingness to support and impose a 25 per cent tax on gas exports. If we had had such a tax since 2022, this would equate to $79 billion in revenue, but we've lost it. We've lost $80 billion in revenue by not having this tax.

How many Great Western Highways could we have fixed and built with $79 billion to $80 billion? I mean, at the moment the state and federal governments expect us to be happy with the crumbs and scraps from the table—$200 million to fix the convict bridge that was built in 1832. It defies belief that so many billions could be spent in the major cities, with billions and billions spent on gold-plated highway and tunnel projects in Sydney and Newcastle—I could list them. They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars investigating high-speed rail between Sydney and Newcastle. That project would be from $60 billion to $90 billion, but they expect us to be happy with $200 million for the Great Western Highway.

If you had a 25 per cent gas export tax, you would be able to build a new Great Western Highway, tunnels and high-speed access over the mountains. We could build schools and hospitals. We could fund so many things. How many business support packages could we have put out there for our struggling businesses being smashed to pieces by the highway closure? The failure to impose a 25 per cent gas export tax is costing us $17 billion a year, $2 million an hour and $577 a second. Why haven't we imposed such a tax so far? Why are Australians not getting a fair return on the resources that we all own? I think the answer is very simple: follow the money. It's these big gas companies that are the major donors to the major political parties.

Look, they just buy influence, and that's the cold, hard truth of it. That's why the major parties don't want to go near a 25 per cent gas export tax, because they've basically been in league with these gas companies. This is not an issue of left versus right; this is an issue of national interest versus vested interests. It's the vested interests of the big gas companies that are winning out at the moment, and we are forgoing revenue because of it. We've got overseas countries making more out of our gas than we are, and it is an outrage.

I would urge the government and I would urge all parties to come to their senses on this and do the right thing by Australians. Don't be beholden to the lobbyists; don't be beholden to the big corporations and the money people. Do what is right for Australians, and get a fair return from the finite resources that we all own, which are being sold far too cheaply at the moment. Let's fix the Great Western Highways, let's build the schools, let's fund the hospitals, and let's fund better mental healthcare. Let's fund all of those things that can help to build this nation. I would urge the major parties to get behind this 25 per cent gas export tax and do it on the double because every hour you delay it's $2 million in lost revenue, every year it's $17 billion.

There are too many priorities that need to be addressed in our country communities and across our nation to forgo this revenue. So I would urge the major parties to have a good look at their obstruction on this issue and come to their senses and support a 25 per cent gas export tax.

I rise to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, a bill that could have significant impact on the region and Australians that I represent. Under Labor, we have poorly drafted legislation, and I have plenty of questions and concerns around a number of elements in the current draft legislation. I stand for more Australian gas for Australians, more investment, lower energy prices and stronger emergency powers.

However, I can only support this bill if Western Australia is carved out of this legislation and if there is absolute certainty over that. This bill is designed to fix the east coast market, not the WA market. Ours is not broken, far from it. Despite not being legislated for some 20 years, our WA sovereign gas reservation policy has delivered a balanced market and stable prices. In the current draft legislation, WA would be beholden to ministerial discretion. That is not good enough, and I cannot support that. How can the government guarantee that future federal ministers will not step in and include WA in the Commonwealth's scheme? There is too much at stake for us to commit to this.

The current draft could leave more than 25,000 petajoules of undeveloped WA gas at risk. Developing that gas would return about $89 billion to taxpayers and support nearly 4,000 WA construction jobs. Our WA gas industry is too important to see it squandered or put at risk with regard to the many undeveloped projects that are already marginal. This bill will add another layer of cost and uncertainty. It is basic economics. If WA projects do not stack up or are too uncertain, investments will go elsewhere. To families in regional WA, this is their livelihoods. I'm talking about communities like Onslow, Karratha and the Mid West. They will all be most affected if this bill goes through without serious provisions and work done to it. Every investment that goes overseas is Australian jobs, Australian contracts and local spending lost.

I've been in contact with key west Australian stakeholders on this bill—including the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, who have made a submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee with regard to this legislation, with Aaron Morey, their CEO, appearing before the committee only last week. They hold grave concerns for regional Western Australia if this legislation is passed as it is. Western Australia should not be punished for investing in our local gas industry. We should not be punished for delivering a stable market for all west Australians and for providing certainty for our job market. How can you have faith in Labor given they have presided over a gas market and energy crisis that we are living day in and day out? Regional Western Australia should not have to sacrifice jobs, investment, lower supply and higher prices to fix Labor's mess. The coalition will not stand in the way of this legislation passing the lower house, but we will be moving amendments as required.

Put simply, I want WA protected from this legislation. Our market is not broken. It does not need fixing. Regional west Australians do not need uncertainty when it comes to our gas industry. It should not be up to ministerial discretion as to whether WA is included in this. The government has two choices: work in good faith with the coalition to get a workable deal that benefits all Australians—but I would say west Australians in particular—or work with the Greens, which would put regional west Australians out of work, drive up prices, decrease supply and end the gas industry as we know it. Nothing short of a 100 per cent cast-iron exemption of WA will be acceptable. I hope the government does the right thing.

I want to acknowledge that my friend and colleague the Minister for Resources, the Minister for Northern Australia and a west Australian colleague is here in the chamber now. I call upon her, I beg her, to make sure that the Labor government does the right thing by Western Australia.

As quorum has been lost in the House of Representatives, proceedings are suspended until the chair is resumed.

Sitting suspended from 17:33 to 17:35

I was quite taken aback by the last speaker and by how wonderful and marvellous it is for Western Australia and how good it is—and we're not allowed to have it. It was quite fascinating. Only Western Austrade is allowed to have it; the rest of us are not. Every country on earth has a reserved resource policy for gas. Once again, Australia and New Zealand are the two free-market countries. Everyone else on earth is wrong, but the Australian and New Zealand governments are right. Well, I very much doubt that.

Why I have been so obsessed with it—and I don't apologise for being obsessed with it—it that Mount Isa is the fourth-biggest industrial centre in this country. No. 1 is Port Kembla. No. 2 is Newcastle Port, which is owned by China. It is worth absolutely nothing to Australia, because the people in this parliament gave the biggest port in Australia to China. Shame! But I won't go sideways on that; I'll refocus. No. 3 is Gladstone, which is one of the three biggest power stations in Australia. It generated the cheapest electricity in the world because it was run on free coal. The state government called us bushrangers. I suppose they were right. We just took the coal for free. Too bad about the big corporation! They were making plenty out of the coal that they were exporting, so we took it for free. Because of the massive scale—it's one of the biggest power stations in the world—the labour costs were negligible. There were huge economies of scale, and, of course, it was built with government finance, so there were negligible repayments. So we had the cheapest electricity in the world, which enabled us to get, arguably, one of the five or six biggest aluminium smelters in the world at Gladstone.

Let me return to Mount Isa, because that's the fourth-biggest industrial centre in Australia. It relies entirely on gas for its energy, for its electricity, for the heat for its mineral processes and for the chemistry it requires. We should have the biggest phosphate plant in the world. The fertiliser is diammonium phosphate. That's two parts ammonia, which is natural gas, and one part phosphate. The whole of the Northern Territory-Queensland border is alive with phosphate. It's everywhere. So we've got miles of phosphate, and, of course, we've got miles of gas, but big corporations have sold it overseas. The important point to make here is that we sold the gas for 6c a unit and we buy our own gas back at $16.60 a unit. Who is running this country? We import all of our petrol. We export our oil for $8,000 million. We import our petrol for $62,000 million. Who is running this country? The answer, of course, is 'nobody'.

Let me return to the gas. I give praise to the Prime Minister. We're the fourth biggest industrial centre in Australia, and we're closing down. The phosphate plant has announced its closure, and the copper plant has announced its closure. It's a silver, lead and zinc operation, but it's nowhere near as big as the other two. Mount Isa, the fourth biggest industrial centre, is closing down. Two days later, the Prime Minister announced the reserved resource policy on gas on the east coast of Australia. We put on record our thanks and appreciation of the excellent and immediate—but there was no price. So two weeks later I went back to Prime Minister and said, 'You've given us a reserved resource policy, but we got this huge price.' That is being discussed now as a matter of public record. The government has put on the record that they're discussing that issue now. We're heading in the right direction. We just haven't quite got there yet.

The first public activity that I was ever present at was an address by the acting head of Mount Isa Mines, which was then the third biggest mining company on earth. He said that industry follows cheap power and that so long as we've got cheap power we will have a great industry in Mount Isa. That was fine when we had the gas for $6 a unit. I speak with authority because I was the minister that signed that agreement, and I thought it was a bit steep at the time. But it was a 20-year agreement, so really it was a pretty good deal. Now it's $16.60, and there aren't brutal bastards like myself around to just do it. Where we stand at the present moment is: God bless the government for giving us the reserved resource policy, but we need a price that we can live with.

It's the fourth biggest industrial centre in Australia. That phosphate plant should be doing $5,000 million a year, which I understand Western Australia will be doing. Maybe my information is incorrect there, but that's what I've been informed. We are doing $800 million only and we need to—but we can't ramp up unless we've got a price for the gas. We've got the phosphate super cheap—huge, unlimited reserves. We have got the gas. We thank the government for that, but we haven't got a price. That's where the situation lies at the present moment. We hope that the government moves forward with aggression on negotiating a price.

The big boys on the block in fertiliser, Russia and the United States, are getting their gas for $6. We're paying $16.60. Obviously, we need $6. The companies that got this gas got it for nothing. This is an Australian resource. They took it up. I'm not knocking them for that, but now they're making a squillion dollars out of it. If you take it up for nothing and you're selling it for $16.60 a unit when the rest of the world's paying $6 a unit—this is obscene, the current situation.

It's wrong.

Yes, it's obscene and wrong. We would ask the government to speed up, with aggression, their negotiations. It's the idea that powerful, slithering suits in Sydney run this country, which of course they do. They can manoeuvre and manipulate. I mean, we're going like a hundred miles an hour in the right direction. Now, suddenly, we're going slow. The government must be the government. You're the government of Australia. You're there to look after the people of Australia. We are talking here about billions, tens of billions or maybe even a hundred billion dollars on the gas. It's not just the gas. It's the downstream industries. I make the point that, when we provided supercheap electricity in Gladstone, it became the third-biggest industrial centre in Australia. It was because we gave them cheap electricity. If you give us cheap gas in Mount Isa, we'll give you back a result similar to what the Australian people got when we moved on the electricity in Gladstone. This place should be about creating wealth for the people and jobs for the people.

Easily the most important person in Australian history was 'Red Ted' Theodore. I didn't say that; Paul Keating said that. I didn't say that; Malcolm Fraser said that. The only thing I'd ever agree with those two people on is 'Red Ted' Theodore. Theodore wrote to Chifley, who he had put in for the prime ministership—he was getting very old at that stage—that it is the job of government to provide meaningful work for their people. Remember, that was in the Depression years, in the early forties. Actually, it was 1940 that the statement was made. That's what it is our job to create.

As a kid, I hated university. I didn't want to become a lawyer. All I wanted was a job. Please, someone, give me a job! In those days, of the great Bjelke-Petersen government, you could ring up on Thursday and start on Monday. I was an unskilled labourer at Mount Isa Mines. I rang up on Thursday and got a start on Tuesday. In terms of today's money, I was on $235,000 a year, paying very minimal tax, and we had free board and accommodation—three meals a day, seven days a week. Now, if you can get a job, I'd say you're looking at maybe four or five months to get a start in the mines. We were putting down a thousand kilometres of rail line every two years. The rail line was being put down into new mines so that they could get their product to the coast. We were making a lot of money out of it. We were a bit naughty—we made a lot of money out of the rail lines!—but no-one was complaining because we were putting up the money to build the railway line to get the coal out.

Every two years, we put down a thousand kilometres of rail, and that went on for 18 straight years. We started in the mines. Of course, the wages were going through the roof. People say, 'Oh, we can't afford to pay these wages.' Well, I say to the businessmen—and I was once a small-business man and my family before me, going way back 150 years in Australia—'More money will be going through your till.' If the people have got more money, they will spend more money. Enlightened businessmen should say, 'Oh, that is good; the cake has been made bigger, and we will profit from that cake.'

In moving a motion on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, we applaud the government for already moving in this direction with aggression and expedition. They've been very fast on it. I mean, I spoke to the Prime Minister, and three days later they were moving on it. You can't ask for a better deal than that. Of course, the government realises the importance of what is going on here. Unless we have cheap coal, unless we have cheap gas and unless we have cheap electricity, we are simply not going to have any industry in Australia. If we provide those things at a reasonable rate, then we will have it. I was the minister for mines and energy in Queensland, and I'm very well aware of the fact that we paid extremely high wages in the Gladstone Power Station, but there were hardly any jobs. It was all mechanised, so it didn't cost the people anything to provide extremely generous wages. And, to the shock and horror of a lot of people, I'm a very active member of the CFMEU. We want decent wages and safe conditions for our people, and we are entitled to that. And government should be striving tooth and nail, fang and claw, every minute to open new industries and provide employment for their people. This bill is to do exactly that. I thank my crossbench colleagues for their initiative with this bill and commend it to the House.

I move the resolution circulated in my name:

That the following words be added after paragraph (4):

(6) further calls on the Government to ensure that:

(a) no gas may be exported unless sufficient supply is reserved to meet current and future Australian domestic demand;

(b) Australian consumers have first call on Australian gas resources;

(c) sufficient gas is reserved to guarantee long-term domestic energy security for households, manufacturers, primary producers and regional communities;

(d) domestic wholesale gas prices are capped at a level comparable to those available in Western Australia, adjusted only for reasonable transportation and distribution costs; and

(e) Australia's gas resources are developed and managed primarily for the benefit of Australian households, manufacturers, primary producers and regional communities before the interests of overseas customers".

Is the motion seconded?

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

I move amendment to the motion for the second reading in my name, That all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: 'Whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House (1) notes that (a) the gas supply and price pressures that this bill seeks to address are an east coast problem which needs an east coast solution, not a west coast solution; (b) Western Australia's gas market is not connected to the east coast, and Western Australia has had its own domestic gas reservation policy in place since 2006 requiring LNG exporters to make gas equivalent to 15 per cent of their exports available to Western Australian households and businesses; (c) instead of respecting a Western Australian policy that works, the bill leaves the fate of Western Australian Gas to ministerial discretion in Canberra, adding another layer of big government red tape and uncertainty for the projects Western Australia depends on; and (d) the government is yet to approve the Browse Basin development, and this bill will further deter the investment needed to get more Western Australian gas out of the ground; and (2) calls on the government to (a) carve Western Australia out of the reservation scheme in legislation for as long as Western Australia's own reservation policy remains in force, unless the Western Australian government requests otherwise; (b) ensure that carve out covers new projects and expansions, not just existing ones; (c) spare Western Australian producers from duplicate Commonwealth compliance and reporting obligations; and (d) get out of the way and let Western Australia get on with getting gas out of the ground.'

I'm sorry, Member for Hinkler, but that is not in order, so I cannot accept it. We are going to move on and proceed. I will give the minister the call at this point, and then we will progress from there. The Clerk has just informed me that you're entitled to speak, but you can't move that amendment because it's not in order. It hasn't been circulated. The member for Kennedy is seeking the call.

I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

I just need to emphasise that we have massive phosphate deposits. We cannot sell those that phosphate. It's too cheap, and we're 1,200 kilometres from Townsville. It's going to sit in the ground forever. But if we convert it into diammonium phosphate—it sure would be helpful if we had a short rail line into the gulf. But, even under present circumstances, I emphasise that massive phosphate deposits are there. The country has massive gas deposits.

I thank the member for Kennedy for that. You've made those points very eloquently and very forcefully.

I think you're being kind to me, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I'm going to ask you to leave it there now. I'm going to give the call to the minister. But I thank you for the contribution, Member for Kennedy, which you've made so passionately and eloquently this afternoon.

I want to start by thanking all those members who have contributed to this debate on Domestic Gas Reservation Bill and related bills over the last day or so. At its core, this package is about ensuring Australian gas delivers for the Australian people, for Australian households, for Australian businesses and for Australian industry. It is about ensuring Australian households can heat their homes and keep the lights on at a reasonable price. It is about ensuring Australian manufacturers, processors and industrial users have access to the gas they need to invest, to create jobs and to drive our economy forward. It is about ensuring that a country with abundant gas resources can rely on those resources to strengthen its own energy security while supporting the energy security of our region and remaining a trusted trading partner.

The need for reform is clear. For more than a decade, governments of different political persuasions have grappled with the challenge of ensuring sufficient domestic gas supply in a market increasingly connected to global demand. In 2017, the Turnbull coalition government introduced the Australian domestic gas security mechanism, and, in doing so, thereby acknowledged the need for government intervention to ensure domestic gas supply by restricting the export of LNG out of Queensland's Curtis Island facilities should there be issues with supply. In 2022, the Morrison coalition government entered into a new heads of agreement with the east coast LNG exporters to secure additional gas for the domestic market. After being elected in 2022, the Albanese Labor government extended and reformed both of these mechanisms. Firstly, to make sure the ADGSM was available to be used in case of shortages, as it was expiring, and, secondly, so that that mechanism could be used more than once a year. Around the same time, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine led directly to a global crunch in gas supply, and the ripple effects landed squarely on Australia's shores. Gas prices skyrocketed. We then introduced price controls, and indeed members who were here then will remember that we recalled parliament to shield Australian households and businesses from the worst impacts of these global price shocks.

These measures have served Australia well, particularly in the face of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, helping to keep prices relatively stable. However, those measures are neither a long-term nor a sustainable solution to Australia's gas security challenges. Governments continue to confront concerns around domestic supply, affordability and energy security. The simple fact is that, if those arrangements had solved the problem for the community or industry itself, this parliament would not need to be considering this package of bills today.

The Albanese Labor government is delivering the structural reform needed to fix this and deliver enduring and appropriate market regulation for the benefit of all Australians. These bills replace temporary and reactive interventions with an enduring, transparent and predictable framework. We will do this while respecting our commitments to trading partners and maintaining Australia's position as one of the most, if not the most, reliable LNG exporters in the world. Australia's LNG exports play a critical role in supporting energy security throughout the Indo-Pacific, and these bills have been informed by extensive consultation with industry, manufacturers, producers, exporters, unions and trading partners. Throughout that consultation, we have carefully considered our domestic energy needs alongside our responsibility as a trusted supplier of energy to our region. We have struck an important balance.

The framework also recognises the realities of Australia's gas markets. Australia does not have a single nationally integrated gas market. Rather, we have two distinct gas markets—one in the east and one in the west—shaped by geography and infrastructure. The east coast gas market is connected by an extensive pipeline network linking Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Western Australia, by contrast, operates as a separate market because it is not physically connected by pipelines to the east coast gas system.

It's funny—Western Australia is doing a wonderful job now!

I agree with the member for Kennedy in that regard. Different regions face different circumstances, infrastructure constraints and demand profiles. That is particularly true in Western Australia. Western Australia's longstanding domestic gas reservation arrangements have demonstrated that indeed it is possible to support a strong export industry while also ensuring a reliable supply for domestic consumers and industry. Indeed, Western Australia's experience shows that strong domestic supply obligations and a successful export industry can co-exist. Consistent with that reality, the bills provide flexibility to adjust the demand supply obligation downward to reflect a well-supplied Western Australian market.

The bills recognise and respect the existing Western Australian policies and the unique characteristics of Australia's west coast market, while establishing a durable national framework that strengthens energy security right across the country. Importantly, there is recognition across this parliament that action is needed. While views may differ—

A point of order. The minister is giving a wonderful expose, but she's not addressing the critical point. Are we going to get the same rules in Australia that they enjoy in Western Australia?

Member for Kennedy, the minister has every right to be heard. I'd ask you to resume your seat.

As I was saying, there was recognition across parliament that action is needed, and while views may differ on particular mechanisms, there is increasing agreement that the status quo has not delivered the level of energy security Australians deserve and that manufacturers need. Securing more Australian gas for Australian consumers and Australian manufacturers at a reasonable price should be a bipartisan objective.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Senator Susan McDonald and members of the opposition for their constructive engagement in relation to this package of bills. I want to acknowledge the contribution made by the member for Wannon during yesterday's debate. He recognised both the importance of these reforms and the importance of getting them right. We will continue to discuss the legislative package in good faith with the coalition and indeed any member of parliament or senator who wishes to do so.

This is a reform that will shape Australia's energy security for decades to come, and one that will deliver the greatest and most enduring benefits for Australians if it is supported across this parliament. Ultimately, these bills are about ensuring Australian gas delivers for Australians. They will provide greater certainty for households, businesses and industry, strengthen Australia's energy security and establish an enduring framework that recognises a simple principle: Australian gas should benefit the Australian people. I commend the bills to the House.

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time, to which the honourable member for Ryan moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. Subsequent amendments have been moved by honourable members. The immediate question is that the amendments moved by the honourable member for Kennedy be agreed to.

Question unresolved.

As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.