David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this motion and put on the record that it's disappointing and quite worrying for the Senate that we are seeing bills not allowed to be debated in the time for private senators' bills. We saw Labor and the Greens stop One Nation from debating a bill. At the same time, we know drafting resources are very scarce when it comes to the crossbench; it takes a very long time to get things drafted. The argument we heard from the government, from Minister Watt, was it's not the convention to introduce and vote on a bill in the same week—yet today we'll be voting on a bill that the government introduced yesterday and slammed through the House. We'll probably vote on it in the Senate with not many, if any, second reading speeches—probably no time for debate. I don't think that argument holds much weight. It is disappointing to see that the government got support from anyone in this place to stop a bill being debated.

To the motion at hand, I seek leave to move an amendment to Senator Hodgins-May's amendment to Senator Hanson's motion.

Leave granted.

I move:

Omit "Omit", substitute "After"; omit "substitute", substitute "add".

We're in this ridiculous situation, as a country, where we are one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, yet we don't get much for our offshore LNG exports. We have a petroleum resource rent tax that is not working; it is not providing a fair return. A 25 per cent export tax would change that. It would say to gas exporters, to multinational companies, 'You can export our gas, you can export it overseas, but you're going to pay us a 25 per cent tax on that.' That would bring in $17 billion a year—and if we look at what happened to gas prices after Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, we could add an extra $12 billion to that. This is a huge amount of revenue that is rightly owed to the Australian people. That gas belongs to all Australians.

Speaking as a senator for the ACT, we have the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre seeing a 60 per cent reduction in its funding. We have DVCS, another frontline service provider, $820,000 short on their budget. At the moment, one in two calls to DVCS go unanswered because they do not have the resources. We're told the budget is tight, yet we're in a situation where we are giving away a natural resource for free—something that belongs to all Australians, young and old. It belongs to future generations. I strongly support efforts to ensure that Australians get a fair return on our resources.

Aussies are looking at the petrol station and seeing petrol over $2 a litre, and they are hearing that premium could be heading up to $3 a litre, yet we have no mechanism in place to ensure that Australians actually benefit from rising energy costs. It's just everyday Aussies that have to bear the brunt of that. We have a perfect example of what happens with big shocks to energy supply at a global level, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Multinational fossil fuel companies make bank. They make tens of billions of dollars of additional profit. Why have we not put a mechanism in place? This is shameful. This shows a total lack of political courage, a total lack of long-term thinking and a total lack of recognition that the natural resources of this incredible continent belong to the Australian people. We need to get a fair return.

Today we'll hopefully be voting on an inquiry to actually look at this, to look at why, as a country, we're happy to give away gas for free; at why the PRRT isn't returning much, if anything, on offshore LNG exports; and at what can be done about it. We should be looking at the 25 per cent export tax that has been put forward by the ACTU, and I assume it has fairly strong support amongst Labor branches and backbenchers, but we haven't heard much from ministers and spokespeople from the Labor government.

One of the things that have become so clear in this debate—and I think this holds for a range of issues in this country and is one of the reasons we're seeing a decline in primary vote for the major parties—is that there are so many issues that aren't actually about left versus right; they are about vested interests versus the interests of the Australian people. They're about vested interests with power holding on to a system that benefits them at the expense of Australians. We see it in this chamber. We have the entire crossbench, from the Greens to One Nation, saying: 'Gas belongs to the Australian people. Let's reserve some for our use, for households, for businesses and for manufacturers, and let's actually get a return on its export.' And you have the vested interests leaning on the major parties and saying: 'Leave it as it is. This is a pretty sweet system. We'll keep donating to you. We'll make sure that there are some jobs after politics.' We've got to do better. We've got to actually put the Australian people first.

We often hear this argument from the major parties: 'This is sovereign risk. We've got long-term contracts.' If you had the guts to even apply this to uncontracted gas and phase it in over time, it would make a huge difference to gas supply in this country and to manufacturers who are currently on the brink because they are paying international prices for Australian gas, and it would actually ensure that we get some revenue. I think this is a test for the major parties. Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of multinational gas companies, who give us all the talking points, all the fearmongering, around sovereign risk and them going to invest elsewhere?

That is what they said to the Norwegian government. They said, 'If you tax us, we'll go elsewhere.' Norway stared them down and said: 'Okay. This belongs to Norwegians. You can come, take it and export it, but you're going to pay us for it.' Oil and gas companies, a few days later, said, 'Actually, we think we'll still invest.' Norway now has a $3 trillion sovereign wealth fund. That's $3 trillion set aside for Norwegians present and future. Here in Australia we've got a trillion dollars of national debt—two very different approaches. It's not too late. We are still one of the biggest gas exporters in the world. Let's at least make a start on uncontracted gas.

Finally, I understand if there isn't the long-term thinking and political courage from the Labor government to actually get a fair return for our gas and to have a 25 per cent export tax in line with what the ACTU and others are saying, but they could at least introduce a windfall profits tax. These profits are not something that these companies have done anything to deserve. This is because of skyrocketing energy costs. We could actually use the money—potentially $12 billion, if you look at what happened after Russia's invasion of Ukraine—to provide support to farmers who are struggling at the moment and to provide support to households who aren't sure how they're going to put food on the table and who are going to the petrol station and paying huge amounts of money to fill up their tanks to commute to work or to drop kids off at school and then going to the supermarket duopoly and getting fleeced hundreds of dollars for a trolley of groceries. We've got to do better in this country.

I would urge the major parties to actually listen to the Australian people. I think, on this one, you are so wildly out of touch. When we see poll after poll after poll that says 75 to 80 per cent of Australian people support a 25 per cent tax on gas exports, what gives you the right to say, 'No, we're going to side with the gas companies'? It's going to be interesting to see how the vote turns out on this and very interesting to see how the vote turns out on the inquiry, and I hope Australian people will judge all of us in this place not on our talking points or what we say but how we vote and how we represent them and how we vote on behalf of the states and territories we're meant to be representing in this place.