Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Are we seriously being asked to believe that slapping a punitive tax on the gas industry will somehow deliver better early childhood education and care for Australian families? This is just fantasy. It's not grounded in economics, evidence or even basic logic. It is quite simply madness dressed up as moral virtue. This is just an ideological hit job on an industry that employs thousands of Australians, keeps the lights on and underpins a large part of our economy. To casually propose taxing it into submission in pursuit of a completely unrelated policy goal is economic sabotage. Supporting early childhood education is a worthy objective, but hijacking it to justify dismantling a critical sector is as cynical as it is absurd.

The real problem here is there is no credible link—none. The motion asks us to draw a straight line between two entirely separate issues and just pretend the unrelated link between the two doesn't exist. It is just a hand wave and a promise that, if we squeeze one sector hard enough, everything else will somehow fall into place. By that logic, why stop at gas? Why not tax air? Perhaps breathing is the hidden obstacle to childcare access. Or walking—yes, maybe families would finally get relief if we taxed every step they took! It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous, yet it is no more detached from reality than the argument being put forward here.

This chamber is supposed to stand for serious, evidence based policymaking. Families facing skyrocketing childcare costs deserve real solutions, targeted investment, workforce strategies and reforms that actually address access and affordability. Instead, we get economic sleight of hand: tax one thing, promise another, and hope no-one looks too closely. I have heard some astonishing arguments in my short time in this chamber. This may not win outright, but it's certainly a finalist. This motion belongs in the bin.