Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very proud, on behalf of the Greens, to be co-sponsoring this motion which calls on the federal government to fund public transport nationally while this fuel crisis is underway. This is the government that was the first to support this illegal war, and now ordinary people across the world, including here in Australia at the bowser, are bearing the pain. The least the federal government could do would be to make public transport free to ease that cost-of-living pressure on Australians. That would also help free up much-needed fuel for farmers and for families in regional Australia. I'm so pleased that our calls to make public transport free and support for them are growing. It just makes sense. People are being smashed by cost-of-living pressures. First it was the housing crisis, then it was the rising cost of groceries, and now it's the cost of fuel.

We called for the federal government to make public transport free ahead of National Cabinet last week. I wrote to the Prime Minister last week and offered the Greens' support in this chamber to pass a 25 per cent gas export tax which would raise the revenue to fund things like free public transport for Australians, who are desperate for cost-of-living relief. With the numbers here in the Senate, with the Greens, the government can pass progressive reform. It could be putting a minimum 25 per cent gas tax on those greedy gas corporations who are loving this war, whose profit margins are loving this war and who are laughing all the way to the bank while everyone else is genuinely suffering. I wrote suggesting that we could get that done this fortnight and offering the Greens' support to do just that. So where is the action on this? You have the numbers to do it. Where is your courage? Where is your spine? We're still trying to find it, or, rather, you're still trying to find it.

I was pleased that the Rail, Tram and Bus Union today backed in those calls, joining the Victorian Farmers Federation, who have likewise seen the good sense of making public transport free both as a cost-of-living measure and as a way of helping the fuel shortages in the regions. This is a commonsense call, and it's being backed by people at the pump and right across the spectrum. In the middle of a fuel crisis, this is a no-brainer. People are spending hundreds every week on transport, and this could save them serious dollars. It could also make sure that those regional servos are not, in fact, running out of petrol and diesel, as we hear in continued and increasingly disturbing reports. Free public transport is an immediate, straightforward way to give Australians cost-of-living relief. We've got the some of the most expensive public transport in the world. Let's make it easier and cheaper for people to leave their cars at home and to get on the bus or the train. Let's free up that fuel for use in the regions, where, sadly, they don't have public transport that's any good. We need to fix that as well in the long term.

Free public transport could be funded by that $17 billion that a gas export tax of a minimum of 25 per cent could bring in. Like I said, we have written to the Prime Minister and could not be clearer. We could get this done this fortnight. What are you here for? People are actually hurting right now because of a war that you backed in, and you've done absolutely nothing about it. We've got a bill that's coming in tomorrow that's not actually going to do what you're saying it's going to do. It's going to make it illegal for petrol companies to lie to you about ripping you off, but it's not going to make it illegal for them to actually rip you off. Again, we see the government doing the—I was about to swear then—inadequate thing rather than actually tackling the real thing.

Pass a gas tax. Make public transport free. It is not that difficult to work for people. Stop working for corporate profits and actually do your job to represent people. Instead of working for people, what we've heard is that the Treasurer is working on ways to cut support for electric vehicles in a fuel crisis. We're hearing that, rather than making EVs more affordable so that more people can have the benefit of them, which also helps the climate, they're moving changes to road user charges and fringe benefits tax. They're going to make the cheapest cars to run in a fuel crisis more expensive for people. Make that make sense! How does that get us off dependence on overseas oil? How does that get us onto clean, renewable energy? We need renewable energy independence. That is where our financial security will come from. That is what will help people at the bowser, and that is what will help nature and the climate. It is not rocket science, people. (Time expired)