David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Right now, Australians are paying for Trump and Netanyahu's warmongering. We're watching another US forever war spread pain and violence across the Middle East, and, every day, civilians are dying because of bullies like Trump. This is being cheered on by the war parties in this place—One Nation and their mates in the Labor and Liberal parties—who now expect us to believe their crocodile tears about the economic pain caused by their mate's war. The Australian public doesn't want this war. They don't want the government to support it and they don't want Australian troops involved, but the war parties have done all these things. When big corporations—their donors who fly them around in their corporate jets or fund their election campaigns—start profiting from the war and the Greens start saying, 'Make them pay some tax,' we get the talking points from the gas giants. That's what we get in this place.

The war parties are probably thrilled to see their donors—the Gina Rineharts and others, the oil, gas and minerals industries, the arms industry—raking it in right now. Let's be clear, a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports at this time will go some way to clawing back to the public some of the obscene profits that these fossil fuel corporations are leeching from us under the cover of war. We could use the money to help pay people's energy bills, to fund public transport and to help with real costs while people are struggling with their mate Donald Trump's and Netanyahu's war of choice.

The war in the Middle East should never have started. The Albanese Labor government should never have supported it. Australia must withdraw all support right now. But, even then, regular people will still be paying the cost of that war, and that's also what this tax is about—taking power away from big corporations and bullies and putting it back in the hands of people. If we had a lot more of that in this place, if we'd stuck to those principles, we wouldn't be part of this bloody war now.