Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

There are few more dangerous ideas in a democracy than banning people and ideas you don't like. The Greens political party's vendetta against the oil and gas industry is relentless and irrational, and it's in full swing here again today. This motion tries to single out and ban representatives of the gas industry and prevent them from engaging with elected representatives. It's undemocratic, it would hurt the Australian economy and it would set back the achievement of net zero. But none of that matters to the Greens because it's about grandstanding, it's about stunts, it's about props; it's not about achieving good policy.

I also can't speak to this motion without addressing what is at its core, which is an attempt to ban people whose ideas one political party doesn't like. That is the creeping hallmark of the totalitarian left—not democratic engagement but proscription, naming names and preventing people from putting arguments in this parliament. The idea that, in a democracy, we would bar a group of stakeholders involved in the production of a crucial resource, a key pillar of our economy, from interacting with decision-makers is quite simply absurd.

Good government doesn't operate in an echo chamber. It does not seek only to hear voices that it agrees with. Meeting peak bodies, industry bodies, regulators, workers, customers and members of the community is an incredibly important part of our role in this place. It's an incredibly important part of developing good policy. Trying to exclude one group from that is absurd. It's more than absurd; it's dangerous.

But let's have a think about this industry that the Greens so badly want to demonise, because the oil and gas industries—the gas industry, particularly, is an important part of Australia's future. It is a vital element, as a firming fuel in the energy transition and our path to net zero. It's vital as an industrial feedstock, particularly in the state of Western Australia, and as a fuel for industrial and mining processes that are hard to abate. It has energy density that, in different areas, can't be matched. Over five million households are currently connected to gas networks, as are thousands of small businesses, particularly in the food and hospitality industry.

And it's an important export. I'll say it again: our gas industry is an important export industry. It increases the standards of living of all Australians; it supports well-paid, secure jobs in Australia, and in Western Australia particularly; it supports the energy needs of our regional partners; and it underpins aspects of Australia's energy security. By remaining a reliable LNG supplier and a responsible climate actor, Australia can develop new regional partnerships in emerging energy industries and clean energy exports as well. It is vital for our energy transition and as we move to net zero that we have gas available here and gas available to our regional partners to achieve that transition. Why is that relevant to the motion? It is relevant because making good gas policy requires us to listen to a wide range of people, including—surprise, surprise—the people affected by that policy.

You would think that the Greens political party would be interested in advancing the transition to net zero and the clean energy system, which, under the model we're moving forward at the moment, requires and relies on gas. It's a firming fuel for intermittent renewable sources of energy. But, just as the Greens voted with the coalition against meaningful action on climate change in 2009, when they voted down an emissions trading scheme, and just like they come in here week in, week out and run these stunts with no view to the Australian interest and no view to good public policymaking in this place, they've got another absurd motion in here today. And it's got that extra kick, that extra barb—to ban people they don't agree with from the building. It's intellectually pathetic, and it's democratically dangerous. It's the kind of charlatanism that has come to characterise the Greens political party, the mountebanks of the environment movement.

If you're actually serious about net zero and the transition, then you have to be serious about gas not only in Australia but in the region. If you're serious about how this industry works in Australia, you have to listen to the people in the industry—and not only those people. We should listen to a wide range of stakeholders. We should listen to environmental groups. We should listen to people in the community. But we should also listen to people in the industry when we're designing these sorts of policies. That's why, again, this motion, this attempt to proscribe people from access to the Australian parliament, is not only stupid; it's dangerous.