Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

It is hard to believe, in a nation that relies on resources—whether it be mining resources or gas extraction—that we would have such economic vandalism happening from the Greens. They continue to ignore that it is mining that pays the bills, that it is gas extraction that pays the bills, and we are in enormous competition with the other parts of the world that also have fantastic resources. We've seen Australian gas companies investing offshore, rather than here in Australia, thanks to the activism that's been organised by some of those political parties. We are seeing investment, small business investment and Australian jobs exported offshore as a result of this sort of grandstanding.

It is also incredibly difficult to understand at a time when gas production in trade is what guarantees us fuel supply. It's this wicked circle. Over the last 10 years, we have seen more oil and gas extraction leave this country because of the impacts of activists—activists who drive their four-wheel drives onto the beaches to protest these things; I love the hypocrisy of that. It is because of that that we are seeing less investment and less oil production here. Let's be clear: twenty years ago we had fuel security in this country. We produced enough oil to support our six or seven refineries. That's what Australia had.

Now, under this crazy agenda, we are seeing people not investing into oil and gas production. Instead, we're seeing policies like this one where we seek to increase taxes with no guarantee of where they would go. If it were up to the Greens, who knows where the taxes would go. Our economy is in the most dire straits—certainly since I've been working, I would say, apart from when we had the recession we had to have in the nineties. Now we have inflation skyrocketing, interest rates increasing, real wages down to 2011 levels and a high cost of living, and it is thanks to this government's out-of-control spending. This is not happening in any other of the leading economies of the world, but it's happening right here in Australia.

Labor's own resources minister said a few weeks ago:

… imposing new costs on the gas industry would freeze gas production in this country, and a tax on gas exports, as was proposed by those opposite in the last election, would discourage investment in the new supply we need to back up our transition to net zero.

The idea that we are going to tax our way into prosperity makes absolutely no sense at all. I can guarantee that the new gas projects here in Australia, which would serve to support families, households and small businesses right around Australia, will dry up. Those investments in gas will dry up if this sort of policy goes ahead.

At a time when we are seeing a tax on infrastructure in the Middle East and at a time when shipments are blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, gas remains a necessity for energy production globally and Australia needs to do more, not less. Yet that is what more taxes do. They dry up investment, they drive away competition for investment into this country, and we will see less investment here, which means fewer taxes received in Australia. Gas paid more than the amount of the PBS for last year. Under this policy we would not see increased taxes—the fantasy tax scenario that the Greens are proposing. We would instead see less investment and fewer taxes, both now and into the future.

We want to see more investment and more streamlined approvals with faster approval times so that we can get back to having our own capacity to produce here. We want to get back to producing the 90 per cent of oil that we need for refineries right here in Australia, rather than having to rely on offshore production, as we have under Labor. (Time expired)