James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023. The opposition will support the passage of these bills to ensure the continued functioning of government and so Australians can continue to benefit from the essential services that the Commonwealth provides. However, the opposition is deeply concerned with the government's first budget. In short, it was a missed opportunity. It left Australians short-changed. In a cost-of-living crisis, the government couldn't find a single policy—not one—that would deliver immediate support to Australians doing it tough. In fact, by Christmas, the average Australian family will be at least $2,000 worse off under this Labor government.

Before the election, Anthony Albanese was clear with the Australian people. He said:

I'll say this very clearly. They—

Australians—

will be better off under a Labor government than they will be under a Morrison government …

This budget, with the names of the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance on the front in blue and white, proves that that was a lie. Before the election, the Prime Minister said of the Labor Party's plan:

It will see electricity prices fall from the current level by $275 for households—

by 2025. That promise was made 97 times. But this budget proves that that lie was a strong lie by Mr Albanese. Instead we can see in this budget that electricity and gas prices will skyrocket over the coming two years—retail electricity prices by over 50 per cent and retail gas prices by 40 per cent.

Perhaps most relevant this week, as the government is forcing its job-destroying, anti-small-business industrial relations reforms through the parliament, this budget confirms that, under the government's policy settings—including its IR legislation—and Labor's forecast, real wages will fall over the coming years. Put simply, this government demonstrates that you cannot trust anything that Labor says. They are a party of broken promises, and we should not be surprised. A leopard cannot change its spots and Labor will always cost you more.

As the Treasurer said, this is a standard bread-and-butter Labor budget, but Labor's bread and butter are higher taxes and higher spending and it is evident here. Under Labor, the tax paid by Australians will increase by $142 billion over the forward estimates. There will be a new $555 million tax on retiree investors. The tax-to-GDP cap of 23.9 per cent, which the former coalition government put in place to ensure Australians were not hit by the invisible thief—bracket creep—goes out the window. And Labor has exceeded its pre-election spendathon. Instead of spending an additional $18 billion on new policies, not one which will provide immediate cost-of-living relief to Australians, Labor actually has hit $23 billion—again, higher taxes, higher spending and that is all that Labor knows. This is a $23 billion spendathon that will push up inflation, forcing the Reserve Bank governor to use the only tool available to him—that is, to increase interest rates.

This government's reckless spending is forcing the RBA to ratchet up interest rates, and mortgagees are feeling it. Rate rises every month since this government has come to power, with each one making it harder for Australians to pay their mortgage, buy groceries, pay their bills, all thanks to this Labor government. The opposition acknowledges that the October budget includes some measures that we will support and, indeed, have already supported through this parliament: assistance to victims of devastating floods; reducing the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co-payment to lower the cost of medicines. There are others outlined in the opposition leader's budget address-in-reply delivered in the other place. However, when taken as a whole, this budget fails a test; indeed, it even fails Labor's own test set by them. This budget breaks many of the promises the government made before the election. It lets Australia down. Australians were promised cost-of-living relief but, just in time for Christmas, they see this government has no plan to help them.

The opposition will support the appropriation bills but we remain committed to holding the government to account over the promises it made to the Australian people. Australians expect it; Australians deserve it.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the Albanese Labor government's first budget there was over $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, over $1.9 billion for the toxic petrochemical plant as part of the Middle Arm precinct and $2 million for new gas. Labor are showing Australians their love for dirty fossil fuel projects and, in fact, they're no different from the coalition. It is far from being sustainable when the so-called Middle Arm Sustainable Precinct in the middle of Darwin Harbour is planned to be a gas-fed petrochemical hub that poses serious environmental and health risks to those in the surrounding area. The industries this government has slated for this development at Middle Arm include: petrochemicals, processing, critical minerals processing, and carbon capture and storage, which we all know is a bit of a myth. Don't let the name of this precinct fool you; it is in fact a fossil fuel project.

The Petroni report estimates that the industrial hub itself could increase the Northern Territory's emissions by 75 per cent. But worse, it will increase the demand for some of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in Australia. Fracking in the Beetaloo and drilling the offshore Barossa gas field, this dirty gas is required to drive the petrochemical development, and these onshore and offshore projects in these fields will be exploited, with gas running through those pipelines direct into Middle Arm.

Exploiting the Beetaloo basin alone could increase Australia's total emissions by 20 per cent, at a time when we need to be transitioning to net zero. Comparable petrochemical precincts in the US, such as the one in Louisiana, have been dubbed 'cancer alley'; that is what they are called. Modelling shows that Middle Arm could increase industrial air pollution by over 500 per cent in both Darwin and Palmerston, resulting in $75 million of additional health impacts—direct links, no different, not separating them. This project is only three kilometres from Palmerston, where locals will be inhaling toxins produced at Middle Arm. This project could increase industrial cancer hazards in Darwin and Palmerston fourfold. We see an 800 per cent increase in carbon monoxide being released into the Greater Darwin region, and significant increases in releases of other harmful chemicals that have been linked to heart disease, respiratory conditions and in fact strokes.

Middle arm, just like many other projects that this government is throwing money at, is a dirty, fossil fuel project that does not deserve the Australian public's money. When many Australians are struggling to pay their rent and their mortgages, to put food on the table and fuel in their car, this government is now handing out public funds to foreign owned companies who will destroy our natural environment and wreck our climate. When many Australians can't afford to access health care, this government is lining the pockets of billionaires who are in fact making us sicker and in need of that health care. So while the government loves to give money to billionaires, much of that investment in Australian fossil fuel projects comes from overseas investors such as Japan and South Korea. The resources minister, from the other place, was in Japan recently, assuring foreign companies that their investments in Australia's fossil fuel is warmly welcomed here in Australia.

Middle Arm precinct is one of those 114 fossil fuel projects currently in the pipeline for expansion. Public money for Middle Arm amplifies the public money for the Beetaloo and Barossa basins to be fracked and those gas fields opened up. These projects all depend on each other. They are all, in fact, making and achieving net zero a fantasy in this country. Both the federal and the Territory governments have committed large amounts of public money to Middle Arm already. Of the money that has already been spent it has gone directly into the pockets of these fossil fuel companies, like Santos. Santos received $100 million in the previous federal government's budget for carbon capture and storage. I'm not even going to get into that yarn, because we don't have time today. But the previous federal government announced the $1.5 billion for this precinct in April.

The current resources minister couldn't wait to get into a helicopter, sponsored by Santos, and head up there in the first few weeks to support this funding continuing. This is what we hear from locals. She didn't even have the decency to contact her Labor colleagues from this jurisdiction to let them know she was flying in on this wonderful helicopter. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Minister King, said on 25 October that while the funding commitment to the Middle Arm industrial area was previously committed by the coalition, Labor would be funding it—not as a potential defence project but rather to get hydrogen and other goods in. It's a very vague comment from the minister. So it may be for hydrogen—maybe, potentially, possibly—for all those scenarios that she's floated. It's one of the things that's been talked about only as a possibility.

What she wasn't talking about is the fossil fuels that this project will actually support and use. The Labor government want an equity fund for this project, and they want the Commonwealth to have a stake in it. The Northern Territory government claims to be developing a 'globally competitive sustainable development zone for low-emission petrochemicals, renewable hydrogen, carbon capture and storage and mineral processing'. All that language is greenwashing—all of it. I don't even know how you get low-emission petrochemicals; I just outlined the health impacts for people living in Darwin and Palmerston, less than three kilometres away.

This government today has a very important decision to make: do they continue to throw billions of dollars at projects that wreck the climate, destroy the natural environment and cultural heritage of this precinct and, ultimately, make Australians who live in the direct area sick? Or do they commit with the same intensity to use public funds to transition this country to a cleaner future with renewable energy? Australians are demanding a green future. They in fact are sick and tired of governments using greenwash language and continuing to use the Australian public's money to prop up a dying industry in this country.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank everybody who has contributed to the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2022-23. The bills seek authority from the parliament for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for endorsed March 2022 budget measures, 2022 election commitments and other decisions taken by the government in the October 2022 budget. They build on the appropriations already provided in the first set of the 2022-2023 supply act containing broadly five-twelfths of the 2022-23 annual appropriations to support the ongoing business of government, and the additional 2022-23 supply bills containing the remaining seven-twelfths of the 2022-23 annual appropriations for the ongoing business of government.

In introducing these bills, the government has already highlighted some of the more significant measures provided for in these bills. The total of the appropriations sought through these three bills is approximately $13.6 billion. These are the principal bills that underpin the 2022-23 October budget. It is, indeed, the first Labor budget in nearly a decade. It is a budget that builds a better future and a budget that I and all who sit on this side of the chamber are extremely proud of. It is a responsible budget that delivers on the Albanese government's election commitments, delivering targeted cost-of-living relief and investing in Australia's future. I understand that there is an amendment to come. We will deal with that amendment in due course.

There are very good reasons for this party of government and other parties to support a consistent approach to supply bills. I know one previous senator here was, for a period, fond of moving amendments to these bills to make political points and partisan speeches. Of course, people have got a right to do that. There is an important set of principles here, though. Speeches and posts for Facebook are one thing. Actually making sure that supply bills make their way through here in a way that's consistent with institutional arrangements is pretty important for the proper functioning of government. So we'll go through those debates when the time comes. I commend the appropriation bills to the Senate, and I look forward to the Senate's support.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.