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

In politics, we tend to focus on left versus right, and the media focuses a huge amount on left versus right. But the more time you spend in this place the more you start to realise that, actually, there are so many issues that we're not getting action on and that aren't actually left versus right; they are up versus down. They are vested interests—with the hold that they have on some of our political parties in this country—versus the Australian people. We're seeing this play out. We are seeing more and more Australians looking at the decisions that are made in this place and saying: 'Hang on. That doesn't make sense to me.' We're one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, and, every time the global LNG price goes up, we struggle. Aussies get smashed. Electricity prices go up. This is gas that is belonging to all Australians and being exported, and we haven't had the political will from either side of politics in the major parties, from Labor or the coalition, to actually say to gas companies: 'Hey, you're exporting Australia's gas. That belongs to all Australians. It actually belongs to future generations of Australians. Surely, we should be getting a fair return so we can pay for the services that Australians want now and ideally put some away for the future.' So this is just another one of those issues where you actually see, amongst the minor parties and Independents, there is such broad agreement. We should have a 25 per cent tax on gas exports in this country. Had we had the political leadership and foresight when Russia invaded Ukraine to introduce that, we'd be sitting on over $60 billion worth of revenue from the sale of our gas, and that would rightly be in the hands of the Australian people, held by the government to spend money on the things that Australians need and, as I said, to hopefully put some away for future generations. So I thank Senator Tyrrell for bringing this motion forward.

We have to deal with this as a country. We can't keep getting distracted by culture wars or by left-versus-right politics, when, actually, at the core of so many of the issues we face are vested interests and their stranglehold on the major parties, meaning that we're not getting the action that Australians want.