Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to consideration of a motion concerning the domestic gas reserve, as circulated.

Leave granted.

I move:

That:

(a) the consideration of private senators' bills not proceed today; and

(b) instead the question be put on the following motion after 70 minutes of debate.

The motion reads as follows:

That the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) Australian gas should benefit Australians first; and

(ii) the petroleum resource rent tax has fundamentally failed to properly tax gas exports and must be changed to apply to production volume; and

(b) calls on the Government to subject all gas production to a 15% minimum domestic reserve.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the motion be put.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion as moved by Minister Watt be agreed to.

Senator Henderson, I have put a vote and I can't determine the outcome because of your rude interjections.

Question agreed to.

The question is that the motion as moved by Senator Hanson be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to my Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2026. With this legislation I deliver on my commitment to ensure the Australian people benefit from the national energy and mineral resources they own.

I have been fighting for this for many years. Australia has tremendous reserves of natural energy resources, which are some of the largest in the world, yet we face energy shortages, driving up our energy prices to among the highest in the world. This makes no sense. This natural wealth, which should make every Australian rich, has been squandered by successive Labor and coalition governments over decades, allowing other countries to use our continent as a cheap dirt mine. It is fundamentally wrong any way you look at it. It is a betrayal of the Australian people, it is incredibly damaging to our economy and it makes us an international laughing stock.

I can only imagine what Norwegians think of Australia's approach. They are laughing all the way to the bank. Norway's sovereign wealth fund, built on revenue from the country's oil deposits in the North Sea, is now valued at over $2.17 trillion. That's almost $400,000 per Norwegian. It's easily twice as much as most Australians' superannuation balances, although that's probably an unfair comparison because our super comes from our individual earnings and Norwegians contribute nothing personally. All that wealth comes from their natural resources and governments which have wisely invested in them. When I think about the wealth Australia could have generated from natural resources, which dwarf Norway's, I get very angry.

This criminal waste of our natural wealth is an outrage. It's why I introduced my Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Benefit to Australia) Bill in 2022, hoping to generate more revenue for the nation from the exportation of our resources. The main parties voted against it, faithfully serving their pay masters in the resources sector and continuing the betrayal of the Australian people.

There has been one small step in the right direction recently, and it is something for which I lobbied the past three prime ministers. On my first meeting with the current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, I pleaded with him with regard to the PRRT in relation to the North West Shelf, and then he proposed changes to the petroleum resource rent tax that are forecast to increase revenue by about $2.4 million. That was delivered in the budget of 2023. Originally all we were getting was about $200 million to $300 million a year, but I lobbied the prime ministers. I even lobbied the Morrison government over this. It is something I have been passionate about. The PRRT was reduced from 100 per cent to 90 per cent. That's why we are starting to get some money on it.

Australia has some of the largest reserves of natural gas on the planet, and we're the world biggest exporter of it. About 93 per cent of these reserves are in Commonwealth waters concentrated in the North West Shelf of Western Australia. The majority of it is exported to Asian markets, so much in fact that Asian countries' customers pay less for our gas than Australians do. How can that be? Here we are exporting our gas, and now we are going to have to import our own gas to supply our needs in Australia. How stupid are we? How ridiculous is it to actually do that in the cost-of-living crisis that we have? A small amount is kept in the west thanks to the policy of the Western Australian government to ensure 15 per cent domestic gas supply is processed in the state and kept in the domestic reserve. This has been done for decades. They were smart enough to do it. But what annoys me is that that gas is in Commonwealth waters. That gas should be 15 per cent domestic gas supplied to all Australians, with not just those in Western Australia getting the cheaper gas.

That's why I have proposed a bill for a pipeline from Western Australia to the east coast so we can bring the gas across so all Australians can use it. My bill also proposes that the 15 per cent domestic gas supply should be on the east coast as well. Wherever we actually utilise our gas, even by foreign investors, it must give us a 15 per cent domestic gas supply here in Australia.

My bill will amend section 95 of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 and include references to a condition that petroleum and gas producers must enter into a domestic reserve agreement with the Commonwealth. The substantial amendment is to introduce a new section, 162A. This new section provides that licences will have 12 months to enter into a domestic reserve agreement. If the licence was generated before then, that licensee will still have 12 months to enter an agreement from the day the licence is granted if this happens after 1 January next year. For each year the agreement or licence operates, the licensee must reserve an amount of petroleum or gas equivalent to 15 per cent of the amount exported by the licensee the previous year. Such agreements must operate for a minimum of 10 years. If the first contract expires but the production licence is still enforced, licensees will be required to enter a new agreement.

A lot of you will vote against this. I have no doubt the Greens and Labor will vote against this. I know your attitude. Because One Nation puts up these bills, you won't support them. You don't care about the Australian people. You're not economic managers of this country. You have no idea how to utilise our resources here. You're running this country into a hell of a debt that future generations won't be able to pay down. You're overspending money. You can't control the credit card. You keep handing it over. We're going higher and higher in the debt—more interest that we are paying a year in paying off our debt. And we will not be able to provide these services that future Australians will need with an ageing population, with nursing homes, hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure, bridges—all this that needs to be done. And we won't be able to do it because you're so—what can I say? Your attitude towards this is unbelievable, and you do not care about the Australian people that are struggling out there.

What I am saying here is the Australian people are struggling. Their energy costs are going through the roof. People are losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages due to rising costs, and this all comes down to energy, like I explained. Norway has a tremendous wealth fund gained from their resources. We have been so stupid in this country. We haven't done it. We've had governments and members of parliament who have never had long-term vision as our politicians did a century ago. They're here just for your term, and all they want to do is make sure that they make the right decisions to win their seats back again. But they're all making the right long-term decisions for this nation, and it is a shame, because it is the Australian people who are missing out.

This is a great opportunity that we have to actually recover from our resources some money that we can put to good use. We're struggling with hospitals in rural and regional areas. Hospitals are closing down—schools and infrastructure. The roads are an absolute mess. There's so much waste of government money, and you're scratching around and you're bringing in a productivity commissioner who's talking about a heritage tax. That's a death duty on tax. That's what you're going to consider, whether this budget or the one after—increase taxes. Forget about getting wealth from our resources that other countries pay us—let's hit the Australian people again with another tax, whether it is capital gains tax, let's look at superannuation, let's tax them more on their superannuation, let's look at an inheritance tax or let's look at a death duties tax. All this government can see is tax, tax, tax, more regulation, more red tape, shutting down the farming sector, shutting down business, industries, manufacturing—we've had over 1,400 industries manufacturing shut down under this government and 40,000 small businesses shut down insolvent under this government. Forty-five per cent of businesses are struggling to pay their power bills because of climate change. That is right. Let's, in fear, along with the Greens, climate change—it is all coming to an end, so we actually have to put in all this generation of power of Snowy 2.0. From $2 billion now to $20 billion once the transmission lines—$40 billion Snowy 2.0 is going to cost us with not one extra kilowatt of power delivered. Then all your transmission lines are going through farming sector, which they don't want, so you are destroying the farming land out there. You've destroyed how many millions of hectares of prime agricultural farming land to put your solar panels on that are destroying the land. Where are they going to go? into the ground. Your wind turbines that you destroy land to put up—all this is coming from China. We're just seeing the dollars flow out of this country, going to China to provide these wind turbines and the solar panels that we put on our prime agricultural land that then have to be buried in the ground, because nothing else happens. How much money is being spent on this? How much is it—$50 billion or $60 billion so far in subsidies to multinational companies that you bring out here to Australia and paying them, making sure they get a good deal out of all this?

I cannot believe—I've been a businesswoman most of my life, and what you have done is absolutely disgraceful to this nation. You really have—and then you brainwash the kids in the educational system that they're in fear that the world is coming to an end, which is an absolute rubbish. It's a load of rubbish. You can't back up anything that you put out there, and you play on the fear of people out there, and that is why they're feeling this way. But this is the way that we can move forward to give security to people and lower the gas costs.

Even now, this government and governments in the states—you want to get rid of the gas appliances in the houses and put in electricity. How ridiculous is that? When the wind doesn't blow and your turbines don't work, especially in South Australia, the only thing you've got left is gas because you got rid of the coal-fired power stations. If you don't have enough gas here, what's going to happen? Blackouts. Oh, that's right—it's already happening. If you get short of electricity—oh, that's right; I spoke to a cotton farmer, and guess what? He said, 'They ring us up and say, "If you turn off your power, we're going to pay you $150,000 so that we can actually deliver power to other Australians without being seen as incompetent because we can't deliver the power that this nation needs."' That's where you run this country into the ground.

Gas is so important to us, but utilise that gas to the best of your ability so that we get a return for Australians, because it's our resource, and you're not using it to the best of your ability. Gas is so important. This bill that I'm putting up here shows that we can use basic business common sense to deliver gas to the Australian people, get money back on our returns and be a wealthy nation to pay down your debt that you made along with the coalition over the years. Both of you are to blame for the state of this nation, which is absolutely disgraceful. You haven't been thinking. You haven't used your brains. Politicians should have this problem solved, and the lot of you have no background or experience in running a business. You wouldn't have a clue.

You're absolutely brain dead when it comes to things like this that can make money for this country. Start listening to the grassroots Australian people. Start caring about the grassroots Australian people. Start making them some money instead of spending it all the time. As far as I'm concerned, it's an absolutely disgraceful waste. Start learning how to make money instead of spending the Australian taxpayers' money. That's what One Nation stands for: putting up good policies that are for the benefit of the Australian people. There's no denying that we need to do something about it. Give us the 15 per cent domestic gas reserve. Australians get cheaper gas.

Have your investments in Australia by all means. I've got Australian companies that want to start working here, but you shut it down. The Labor Party shuts everything down here in Australia, whether it's gas on land or—you're not looking after the North West Shelf at all. You're not using your common sense. That should reduce your PRRT again there. You dropped it 10 per cent, and guess what? We made $2.4 billion by dropping it 10 per cent. This is only giving more benefit to the multinationals setting up and taking our gas. That's a resource that belongs to the Australian people. If you can't do your job properly here, then I think that we need to get rid of the ministers who make these incompetent decisions and cost Australian taxpayers billions of dollars. I think you should lose your jobs and go back to the backbench.

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

The natural resources of a nation belong to its people. The benefits of these resources must flow to them. One Nation recognises the vital role that industry plays in extracting the bountiful energy reserves of Australia. Without the expertise of world-class industry, these resources would be worth nothing to us. However, it is the job of the government to ensure that the people of Australia see the maximum benefit of our incredible natural wealth while ensuring that the incentives remain strong for their extraction. This balance is vital in the crucial energy sector. All economic activity, no matter what you are engaged in, is downstream of cheap, reliable energy. Without it, our country grinds to a halt.

We have seen over the past couple of weeks just what it looks like when a government puts ideology before energy security. We have seen how quickly a crisis can escalate when we no longer have sovereign energy capabilities. The fact is that our energy systems have been under assault for a very long time, with unreliable, intermittent power sources being forced on us and replacing what was reliable, predictable generation. We've heard this week about the extraordinary steps farmers in the regions have had to consider, because they aren't sure they'll be able to feed their stock or plant or harvest their crops due to fuel shortages. They've had to consider if they need to put down their animals rather than let them starve, because we cannot guarantee they will have the fuel they need to keep going, to feed their animals and in turn feed the nation. This is merely weeks into the Iran war—not months or years, but weeks. We used to refine well over 90 per cent of our fuel domestically. We used to be self-reliant. Now, any blip in global supply and we are sent into turmoil and shortages, when we have an abundance of fuel right here in our own backyard.

There is much competition for our oil and gas in the region, especially natural gas, with our neighbours in South-East Asia recognising the vital importance of this energy source. They incentivise the use of these fuels and pay out long-term contracts to ensure they have a long-term stable supply. If only we had the same foresight in this country. Senator Hanson's bill, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2026, would shore up the domestic supply and bring back to our energy markets the certainty that is sorely lacking under this Labor government. Look around at the havoc brought on Australia by Labor's radical energy sabotage. Manufacturing is fleeing the country as power becomes unaffordable. Our energy companies are looking to invest overseas as uncertainty over environmental regulations, taxes and vexatious court cases drives out capital. We need to get our country back to certainty, back to an economy that people can thrive in. Cheap reliable energy is the first step to that.

While energy is the cornerstone of all modern economies, the use of oil and gas extend far beyond into innumerable products and processes. Natural gas is a vital resource; it was previously the darling of the green movement, the saviour to come in and oust evil coal. Now, the suicidal Left has put gas on the same demonised scrap heap, along with any other form of reliable, consistent dispatchable energy. Gas isn't just used to burn for electricity or heat; it is vital for so much more in our economy. The biggest non-energy use for gas is to create ammonia, which is how we get our nitrogen based fertilisers, which is how we feed ourselves. It is estimated that nitrogen based fertilisers feed around four billion people, or half the world's population. It's a modern miracle we can produce food so readily. But without a reliable supply of natural gas, the imports for our farmers, the people who feed our nation, become more expensive and, in turn, our food becomes more expensive.

Securing our domestic supplies of oil and gas is not just an energy issue; it is vital across all levels of the Australian economy. The Labor government won't prioritise Australian supply because it doesn't fit in with their insane green crusade, so One Nation will step in to fight for Australians' rights to their own resources.

Let's not forget about oil. Oil is used to produce some of the most useful material we have today—plastics and polymers, synthetic fibre and more. These are the building blocks for all the goods we take for granted, goods that have raised our standard of living and provided even the worst off in our society with a dignified life. We use oil for bitumen to pave our roads that carry the trucks and transport that are the lifeblood of our economy. It is in paints, lubricants, cosmetics, detergents—you name it—and some component of it probably started its life in a barrel of oil.

As much as Labor and the Greens might hate it, the reality is we would be centuries behind where we are today if it wasn't for oil. A reservation policy is a novel concept. We know it works. Western Australia has a state based reserve policy, and we're seeing the cheapest retail prices in the country. We won't mention the fact that the Labor government in WA is trying to shut down the cheap coal plants, but reservation policies work. They ensure that the domestic price is driven down by the additional supply while still allowing the industry to access foreign markets.

'Australia first' is all we're asking for. Why Labor doesn't understand that is beyond me. These projects are going to produce these vital resources, whether we like it or not. They will be burned in one way or another somewhere in the world. Let's make sure that, when they are, it is Australia that gets the benefit. Refusing to debate energy security at a time when affordability and supply are major concerns in Australia is simply not good enough. Australians deserve to be heard. They deserve a government willing to listen, and they deserve a genuine debate about the future of energy in Australia.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me no joy at all to speak on this motion, because, at the heart of it, the ability for Australia to extract more of its resources is absolutely imperative to the economic and social success of this nation. We are a great mining country. We are a great gas country. They have powered and funded the fact that we are a First World nation. We should be proud of that. We do it to the highest standards in the world, and not only do we do it for Australia's benefit but it has allowed us to become a reliable trading partner and a dependable defence ally. That is what resources have done in this country. They made us one of the First World nations.

Unfortunately, though, we are also a very trusting nation. We are so trusting that we have allowed foreign influenced money to flood in and provide soft influence on our policy debate and setting. I spoke about this yesterday. We have organisations, like the Environmental Defenders Office, whose sole purpose on Earth seems to be shutting down mining activity in this country, including gas projects. But, when they were discovered to be confecting evidence and when they were discovered to be running against the national interest, the courts ordered a significant penalty and fine. Of course, the EDO couldn't pay for that fine themselves, so a huge loan was given to the organisation to pay it, and now we discover that that money has been forgiven. We don't know who is funding it.

I reflect on what happened in the UK. A huge antifracking campaign was run, which meant that the English voters were convinced that they should not allow gas extraction in the UK and offshore to go ahead. It was later discovered that the money for the campaign had come from Russian sources, which is a country that was doing its best to keep the UK poor, both energetically and financially. In this country, whether it's donations to the Environmental Defenders Office or the Australia Institute and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis—both have refused to provide me with their funding sources at Senate estimates and at committee hearings.

These groups are funding this kind of debate. They're saying we should stop using economics and a business model—which Senator Hanson referred to—to attract more investment into this country, to see more taxes, more onshore and offshore royalties and more incredibly well-paid jobs. You receive about $400,000 a year to be a cook on an offshore rig. You receive huge salaries, and that benefits all of Australia, but it is a competitive space. We are already seeing investment going to Alaska, investment going to the Gulf of Mexico and investment not coming here, because we are making it too hard—whether it be environmental groups or this kind of changing the rules and changing the goalposts, when it comes to investment, after a decision has been made.

There are a couple of reasons why this motion doesn't work, and I want to work through that, but I do want everybody to understand that the offshore foreign money that is funding anti-fossil-fuel projects will leave us poor. It is not Australian. We should be frightened of the influence of these groups that hold themselves out as being energy experts and as being interested in Australia's wellbeing, because they are not.

The reservation that has been proposed this morning, a 15 per cent reservation in Commonwealth waters, is a noble idea, but I'll tell you why it won't work: we are extracting gas in places that have no infrastructure to support it. Western Australia, which has a 15 per cent reservation, has absolutely benefited from that. They are using it to extract a portion of the gas from their onshore developments and from the offshore developments. That is terrific. When we were in government, through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, we provided funding to the Perdaman project, a terrific project that's going to use some of that gas to develop fertiliser for use here in this country. But what it doesn't allow—when we talk about the big projects that are offshore in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia—is the sort of pipeline investment that's proposed by One Nation. It's billions and billions of dollars.

But I'll give you some good news: as at right now, we have drills in the ground extracting gas from the Beetaloo in the Northern Territory. In Queensland, the minister there has just approved further exploration leases to extract gas from the Taroom Trough, which will also have some liquids with it from which we should be able to develop more Australian fuel refining. These are close to the places where they're needed, close to the big manufacturing hubs. But I'll tell you where it's not close to: it's not close to Victoria, the state that has crippled itself. It has got manufacturing jobs—forget the businesses; it's the jobs of Victorians—being forced out of that state, either into states like Queensland or, worse, offshore because of this agenda to shut down gas extraction in places like Victoria. Even Western Australia has been suckered into this antifracking campaign, which has meant that they have bans on fracking there too. This is why it doesn't work. Senator Hanson talked about being businesslike and having common sense. Well, this is what we have to focus on: what is practical and what is in Australia's best interests.

Let me turn now to the PRRT. This is another agenda that has been run by anti-fossil-fuel activists. They think that we can change the investment mandates and decisions and that people will continue to invest in this country, no questions asked. That's not businesslike. That's not common sense. They're telling me with their dollars that they are investing somewhere else. So the changes the government made recently to reduce the amount of deductions that can be made to 90 per cent didn't create a huge influx of cash. It brought forward a small amount, but we were always going to receive over $2 billion in PRRT last year. Now we've received $2.4 billion, and that amount will continue to grow because we allow companies to offset their capital costs before they start paying tax. For those people who are watching or listening, it's a supertax. It's 40 per cent, not the 25 per cent that Senator Pocock wants to introduce. We'd actually get less PRRT under his proposal. That's why it has got to be carefully understood and cannot follow the agenda of these anti-Australian anti-fossil-fuel activists who have crept into our civil discussion. They are affecting our policies, they are affecting Australians' beliefs, and it is beholden on those of us who care about Australia and love Australia to speak up and to stop being sucked in by people who want to see us poor and in the dark. Queensland's and Western Australia's reservations are working very well in those states. As a senator, coming here, I believe in states' rights. I don't want the Commonwealth to run all over the top of us, the way they do with vegetation management and environmental overlays—things that slow down and stop projects that affect Australians.

I take the interjection from over there. It doesn't kill the planet because we operate to the highest standards in the world. Under the Greens, we shut down most of our forestry industry but we're okay to import it from countries that have absolutely no environmental standards at all. That's what happens when environmentalists get out of control.

Our domestic reservations in states work—unlike in Victoria, where it is a complete disaster. We are seeing such a negative impact on our future viability. Gas is the pointy end—remember when it was coal? Remember when coal was the pointy end for all these activists? I think we even had senators chaining themselves to trains. But coal is the cheapest form of electricity in Australia. It provided the ability for states to open up, to attract manufacturing, and then gas came along to further support that development. But let's be clear. You're fighting against gas today, but tomorrow it will be the next agenda. It'll be broad-scale agriculture. It'll be food production from cattle. It'll be broad-scale wheat and other crops. Be afraid of what this agenda is because it is dangerous for Australia.

We are absolutely having a cost-of-living crisis in this country. We are absolutely having a fuel crisis in this country. But, please, this dangerous soft policy influence that is being funded by foreign actors who will not disclose their donations and who are, in many cases, getting tax deductibility status from the government—the Environmental Defenders Office receives tax deductibility status, but, at the same time, is paying millions of dollars in penalties for falsely confecting evidence. When we talk about a gas reservation in this land, be clear. It's got to be practical. It's got to be in the places where we need it, and it has to be on a scale that we can use.

Do you know what 15 per cent of gas from offshore would do to the Australian market? Well, you couldn't get it here. That's why we'll never know that. The infrastructure doesn't exist. Thanks to the unions, thanks to the Maritime Union, we have cabotage in this country. You can't even put it on a ship from Western Australia and sail it around to the gas-poor state of Victoria. You can't do it. Legislation doesn't allow it. That's the sort of stuff that we should focus on fixing, not this absolute rubbish of sending messages to the people who invest in this country, who paid $21 billion in corporate taxes, state royalties, PRRT—and that doesn't include the PAYG on hundreds of thousands of Australians that receive a salary at least double the average. We are threatening all those people. We are threatening communities like Roma and Chinchilla who now have farmers able to stay on their properties. They can send their kids to boarding school. This gives them choices.

That's what this sort of discussion does. It is dangerous. I'm putting it on the record now: if we keep attacking investment in this country, we will be poor. We will be dark, and guess where the activists will move next? They won't really care, will they? They will have done their job here. For people who scoff and laugh at this, we have plenty of countries where this has worked. This worked in Argentina. In the 1970s and 1980s they moved to a different model, and they had to subsidise gas companies to come back and assist them. They also shut down their beef industry because they decided beef was too expensive. They stopped exporting it, and beef got very difficult to invest in.

The final point I'll leave you on, for people who think that Qatar and Norway are some sort of textbook example, is that the reason why they receive more in gas taxes is that they pay for the investment. They pay. Is Australia prepared to pay the $30 billion or $40 billion that it would take to get up one of those offshore projects? You would have to take it out of Medicare, the PBS, roads, schools and hospitals. If that's the debate you want to have, let's have that, but stop with this rubbish. (Time expired)

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the amendment that has been circulated in my name:

Omit paragraph (b), substitute: (b) calls on the Government to subject all gas production to a minimum 25% gas export tax.

A tax on Australia's gas exports is an absolute no-brainer and long overdue. The Australian public supports it. Polling shows that it's supported across the political spectrum, and, as far as I can tell, the crossbench supports it too. Yet, year after year, successive governments of the two major parties—the two old parties—refuse to act and rein in our gas exporters. Instead they come in here and read out the talking points of the gas industry. What a farce that everyday people—teachers, nurses and retail workers—are paying more tax on their wages than multinational gas corporations pay on gas extracted from Australia and shipped overseas! Australians pay more each year in HECS and HELP repayments than gas companies pay through the so-called petroleum resource rent tax. Students paying back their education contribute more to Commonwealth revenue than corporations exporting tens of billions of dollars worth of our gas.

Since large-scale LNG exports began on the east coast, energy prices have surged. Domestic gas prices have been pulled into volatile global markets, and when international prices spike Australians feel it in their power bills and in their heating costs. In other words, we are exporting our gas, importing global price volatility and collecting almost none of the revenue. What better time to confront this reality than right now, in this moment, when this government is dragging us into another international conflict that is once again driving global gas prices higher? Global exporters stand poised to make billions in additional war profits, but Australians, who actually own the resource in the first place, will have barely a cent returned.

That is why the proposal for a minimum 25 per cent levy on gas exports makes so much sense and why Australians are demanding it. Replacing the broken PRRT with a flat 25 per cent tax could raise $17 billion every single year for the Australian public—$17 billion that could compensate households for soaring energy bills; $17 billion that could accelerate the transition to renewable energy, finally move Australia off polluting fossil fuels, create new jobs in industries and protect us from volatile global energy markets; $17 billion that could help repair the catastrophic climate damage that these corporations are behind, of which my home state of Victoria has experienced far too much; $17 billion that could fund an entire wish list of things we desperately need, such as universal childhood education, expanded paid parental leave and desperately needed public housing. Instead, that wealth flows offshore.

To put the scale of this into perspective, from the moment I began this speech to when I finish it Australia will have missed out on roughly $320,000 in public revenue—$320,000 that could have been taxed from the more than 1,300 tonnes of LNG exported in just 10 minutes. Look at the clock ticking and imagine that flow of LNG off our shores—those millions of dollars of profit, and next to nothing for Australians paying the price. It's not a fair deal. We're being ripped off.

It's not just about the revenue; it's about decoupling our domestic gas supply from the volatile international market and prioritising supply for Australian households and businesses whilst we rapidly and fairly wean ourselves off toxic gas altogether. Importantly, this would be without the incentive of new gas fields.

We don't have a gas supply problem. We have an export problem. The so-called shortages projected on the east coast could have been avoided simply by redirecting uncontracted gas currently shipped offshore, often for little public return, back into the domestic market. Instead, the Labor government is incentivising new gas fields, opening new acreage and letting the gas lobby run wild in this place. They are cartels operating in this country, gas cartels. They're insisting that more gas is the answer rather than using what we already have and finally, finally breaking our dependence on it.

Thousands of acres in the Bass Coast opened up just a few months ago, a gift to the gas industry that brave coastal communities across Victoria are fighting. There's risky, toxic fracking proceeding in the Northern Territory, which the Northern Territory community are rightly fiercely opposing. There's the climate bomb of the North West Shelf extension that we continue to oppose and fight, which was cynically approved by the Labor government straight after the election. Communities in South Australia continue to fight for justice in the wake of the devastating algal bloom, Australia's largest ongoing environmental crisis, driven by Santos and the gas companies just like them who get away with climate and environmental destruction. They're cowboys.

The Greens continue to stand with these grassroots climate activists and community advocates who will not let these multinational corporations continue to pillage our resources, pollute our environments and get away with not paying for the mess they create. They are being left to get away with it by the major parties in this place, who are very quiet. I've noticed the Albanese government side of the chamber are very quiet on this debate.

This week in the chamber we heard some of the usual, familiar talking points—so familiar we've got a question: are we actually in the Parliament of Australia, or are we in a shareholder meeting of Woodside or Santos? Honestly. Members dutifully repeat lines of the gas lobby, defending inflated claims about how much the industry supposedly contributes to our economy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that flow through to their campaign coffers before an election.

But the truth is simple that no amount of spin can hide the failure of the petroleum resource rent tax. There is not much in this chamber that I agree with One Nation about, but on this point there is rare common ground. Our gas tax system is broken. Decades of loopholes have allowed multinational corporations to extract Australia's resources, report massive profits and still pay little or no tax. Successive governments have failed to fix it. They are too beholden to their mates in the fossil fuel industry and to their generous donations. Instead, they have allowed a system to persist that is clearly rigged in favour of multinational gas corporations and against everyday Aussies, against everyday people—against nurses, against educators, against retail workers.

At the very same time, just today, new analysis shows that billions of dollars in public subsidies are continuing to flow to fossil fuel companies—$30,000 a minute in subsidies by a government that claims not to be giving public money to fossil fuel projects but refused to tell me whether that's still government policy in recent Senate estimates. 'I'll take that question on notice,' they said. These subsidies are flowing to some of the largest and most profitable corporations operating in Australia at the same time that households are being absolutely squeezed and being forced to make decisions about whether they put a roof over their head, whether they pay for medicine that week or whether they buy fresh produce.

Support for fossil fuels continues to grow. It's growing, under this government. In the face of the climate crisis, this government's solution is more public money to the companies causing climate catastrophe. Total subsidies for coal mining, gas production and large diesel users rose by 9.4 per cent, up from $14.9 billion in 2024-25. By comparison, despite constant claims that it is expanding too quickly, spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme increased by only 7.6 per cent over that same period. The largest single fossil fuel subsidy remains the federal government's fuel tax credit scheme, which cost $10.8 billion and overwhelmingly benefits large mining companies, many of them multinational. How much longer are these parties willing to see our money flow offshore? Where's the outrage? Where's the listening to the community outrage on these issues?

According to the government's own budget forecasts, the cost of this scheme is expected to grow faster than federal spending on a range of essential services, including disability support, childcare assistance, aged care and services for veterans. Australians are effectively paying twice—once through their energy bills and again through taxpayer support for the very industries driving these costs up. Enough is enough. The Australian public is ready for change and is demanding change, and this parliament is ready for change. The arguments could not be clearer.

Australia should not be giving away its natural resources for free while households struggle with the cost of living and surging energy prices. We should be accelerating the fast and fair transition to renewables—which, by the way, aren't beholden to international markets. The sun and wind remain, regardless of international wars. A gas export tax of at least 25 per cent is the first step towards restoring fairness in this country, restoring justice and driving Australia towards the clean future that Australians want and deserve.

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

I rise in support of this motion and put on the record that it's disappointing and quite worrying for the Senate that we are seeing bills not allowed to be debated in the time for private senators' bills. We saw Labor and the Greens stop One Nation from debating a bill. At the same time, we know drafting resources are very scarce when it comes to the crossbench; it takes a very long time to get things drafted. The argument we heard from the government, from Minister Watt, was it's not the convention to introduce and vote on a bill in the same week—yet today we'll be voting on a bill that the government introduced yesterday and slammed through the House. We'll probably vote on it in the Senate with not many, if any, second reading speeches—probably no time for debate. I don't think that argument holds much weight. It is disappointing to see that the government got support from anyone in this place to stop a bill being debated.

To the motion at hand, I seek leave to move an amendment to Senator Hodgins-May's amendment to Senator Hanson's motion.

Leave granted.

I move:

Omit "Omit", substitute "After"; omit "substitute", substitute "add".

We're in this ridiculous situation, as a country, where we are one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, yet we don't get much for our offshore LNG exports. We have a petroleum resource rent tax that is not working; it is not providing a fair return. A 25 per cent export tax would change that. It would say to gas exporters, to multinational companies, 'You can export our gas, you can export it overseas, but you're going to pay us a 25 per cent tax on that.' That would bring in $17 billion a year—and if we look at what happened to gas prices after Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, we could add an extra $12 billion to that. This is a huge amount of revenue that is rightly owed to the Australian people. That gas belongs to all Australians.

Speaking as a senator for the ACT, we have the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre seeing a 60 per cent reduction in its funding. We have DVCS, another frontline service provider, $820,000 short on their budget. At the moment, one in two calls to DVCS go unanswered because they do not have the resources. We're told the budget is tight, yet we're in a situation where we are giving away a natural resource for free—something that belongs to all Australians, young and old. It belongs to future generations. I strongly support efforts to ensure that Australians get a fair return on our resources.

Aussies are looking at the petrol station and seeing petrol over $2 a litre, and they are hearing that premium could be heading up to $3 a litre, yet we have no mechanism in place to ensure that Australians actually benefit from rising energy costs. It's just everyday Aussies that have to bear the brunt of that. We have a perfect example of what happens with big shocks to energy supply at a global level, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Multinational fossil fuel companies make bank. They make tens of billions of dollars of additional profit. Why have we not put a mechanism in place? This is shameful. This shows a total lack of political courage, a total lack of long-term thinking and a total lack of recognition that the natural resources of this incredible continent belong to the Australian people. We need to get a fair return.

Today we'll hopefully be voting on an inquiry to actually look at this, to look at why, as a country, we're happy to give away gas for free; at why the PRRT isn't returning much, if anything, on offshore LNG exports; and at what can be done about it. We should be looking at the 25 per cent export tax that has been put forward by the ACTU, and I assume it has fairly strong support amongst Labor branches and backbenchers, but we haven't heard much from ministers and spokespeople from the Labor government.

One of the things that have become so clear in this debate—and I think this holds for a range of issues in this country and is one of the reasons we're seeing a decline in primary vote for the major parties—is that there are so many issues that aren't actually about left versus right; they are about vested interests versus the interests of the Australian people. They're about vested interests with power holding on to a system that benefits them at the expense of Australians. We see it in this chamber. We have the entire crossbench, from the Greens to One Nation, saying: 'Gas belongs to the Australian people. Let's reserve some for our use, for households, for businesses and for manufacturers, and let's actually get a return on its export.' And you have the vested interests leaning on the major parties and saying: 'Leave it as it is. This is a pretty sweet system. We'll keep donating to you. We'll make sure that there are some jobs after politics.' We've got to do better. We've got to actually put the Australian people first.

We often hear this argument from the major parties: 'This is sovereign risk. We've got long-term contracts.' If you had the guts to even apply this to uncontracted gas and phase it in over time, it would make a huge difference to gas supply in this country and to manufacturers who are currently on the brink because they are paying international prices for Australian gas, and it would actually ensure that we get some revenue. I think this is a test for the major parties. Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of multinational gas companies, who give us all the talking points, all the fearmongering, around sovereign risk and them going to invest elsewhere?

That is what they said to the Norwegian government. They said, 'If you tax us, we'll go elsewhere.' Norway stared them down and said: 'Okay. This belongs to Norwegians. You can come, take it and export it, but you're going to pay us for it.' Oil and gas companies, a few days later, said, 'Actually, we think we'll still invest.' Norway now has a $3 trillion sovereign wealth fund. That's $3 trillion set aside for Norwegians present and future. Here in Australia we've got a trillion dollars of national debt—two very different approaches. It's not too late. We are still one of the biggest gas exporters in the world. Let's at least make a start on uncontracted gas.

Finally, I understand if there isn't the long-term thinking and political courage from the Labor government to actually get a fair return for our gas and to have a 25 per cent export tax in line with what the ACTU and others are saying, but they could at least introduce a windfall profits tax. These profits are not something that these companies have done anything to deserve. This is because of skyrocketing energy costs. We could actually use the money—potentially $12 billion, if you look at what happened after Russia's invasion of Ukraine—to provide support to farmers who are struggling at the moment and to provide support to households who aren't sure how they're going to put food on the table and who are going to the petrol station and paying huge amounts of money to fill up their tanks to commute to work or to drop kids off at school and then going to the supermarket duopoly and getting fleeced hundreds of dollars for a trolley of groceries. We've got to do better in this country.

I would urge the major parties to actually listen to the Australian people. I think, on this one, you are so wildly out of touch. When we see poll after poll after poll that says 75 to 80 per cent of Australian people support a 25 per cent tax on gas exports, what gives you the right to say, 'No, we're going to side with the gas companies'? It's going to be interesting to see how the vote turns out on this and very interesting to see how the vote turns out on the inquiry, and I hope Australian people will judge all of us in this place not on our talking points or what we say but how we vote and how we represent them and how we vote on behalf of the states and territories we're meant to be representing in this place.

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just foreshadow that we will be moving an amendment to Senator Hanson's motion.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation circulated the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2026 last Thursday. The government has prevented us from debating the bill because democracy and the Labor Party are mutually exclusive these days. The issue One Nation's bill raised is simple: should Australia have a domestic gas reservation which requires 15 per cent of our own gas to be used here in Australia—our own gas staying here to help our own people? On this issue the Albanese Labor government are running scared.

After selling off Australia's liquid fuel reserve in 2022 and after failing to increase storage in Australia, they know the electorate is holding them responsible for the fuel shortages we have across Australia right now—fuel shortages that extend to gas or will when the Lytton refinery closes in a few weeks time for 10 weeks maintenance. I hope the government has worked with the owner of Lytton, which is Ampol, to postpone that maintenance until buffer stocks have been put in place. Although, the necessary maintenance at Lytton has already been pushed back for a year because of Australia's pathetic stocks of gas products thanks to a Labor government that hates hydrocarbon fuels and that would rather descend the economy into an energy nightmare than actually work with industry to fix the problem.

One Nation warned the Liberal, National and Labor uni-party governments about this problem in 2016—a decade ago. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, after the Labor Albanese government sold off our fuel reserves—our warnings were ignored. Now look at the state of our country. A domestic gas reservation will provide high-quality low-cost natural gas into the Australian market. This replaces the current supply arrangements for Australian gas users, which does have some local sale of our natural gas, supplemented with imports of our own gas which is sent overseas and then brought back again. Same gas, same ships—Australian gas sails around the world and comes back to us at double or triple the price we would pay out of the well. How incompetent are successive uni-party Labor and coalition governments to allow the stupidity of the current arrangement where we allow foreign corporate rations to export gas at low prices to avoid the petroleum rent resource tax and then we buy it back at double or triple the price—really clever. Not only do Australian taxpayers miss out on billions in taxation, but we pay more for the gas we use. This is insane. It's our bloody gas.

Thanks to the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals' incompetence—the uni-party. One Nation will change the point at which the PRRT is levied. Currently the PRRT is levied on profits, which don't happen because the gas companies using transfer pricing. Remember that when you think about the Greens amendment and David Pocock's amendment. Australia has lost out on more than $100 billion in gas revenue since the PRRT came into place thanks to Bob Hawke. One Nation will levy the tax at the wellhead. The volume will be counted and can't be beaten at the wellhead at a dollar value rate per gigajoule of energy, making transfer prices irrelevant. This will raise at least $10 billion a year in additional revenue. This isn't a new tax. It's the same tax being calculated differently, better and on multinationals. It will be important to ensure the tax is levied on exported gas only so that any tax revenue does not affect domestic gas prices. That's very important.

The second part of this motion, a domestic gas reservation, will allow a guaranteed supply of our own gas to lower the gas price through removing the expensive imported component. This will lower costs for businesses and everyday Australians. Given the current inflation, due to the uni-party's ineptitude, anything getting cheaper—indeed, anything not going up in price—is a win for consumers, the Australian people. Our use of this gas will support gas-to-liquid plants located near capital cities, anywhere that is on the end of a national gas pipeline. Gas-to-liquid plants convert gas to petrol and diesel. As long as the gas is sourced cheaply, the petrol that's produced will cost around the same as petrol before the Iran war, around $1.50 a litre. It's a profitable and commercial proven process. Even better, it makes really clean petrol and diesel, improving engine life and fuel economy with less carbon dioxide, for those who still believe in that rubbish.

In addition, One Nation has already promised to reduce the fuel excise by 26c a litre, halving the fuel excise. That's fully costed. The Labor government has refused to adopt this policy despite it being fully costed. Everyday Australians are struggling with the cost of living. Reducing the fuel excise will make a huge difference to household budgets. Instead, this Labor government is too busy spending taxpayers' money on net zero and social engineering to care about Australians, who are working harder and going backwards. So much for Labor being the party of the worker! One Nation are the party of the worker now.

We need more of our gas here to keep the lights on when Labor's insane weather-dependent power is not coping with demand, which is frequently, and driving unaffordable electricity prices. With the abundance of coal, oil and natural gas under our feet, Australia is an energy superpower. Australia is a top 5 gas exporter, a top 2 coal exporter and the largest energy exporter in the world, and yet we have an energy crisis and can't use the stuff here.

You are not going to believe what the Greens' brilliant solution to the energy crisis is. They want to ban gas. 'It's toxic,' we just heard from them. So your gas stove top and your gas hot water heater are to be forcibly converted to electric. That's not forgetting Senator Pocock, who is right there championing the electrification agenda. That's a word that means no petrol, no diesel and no gas—just a nation blanketed in toxic solar panels and wind turbines so virtue-signalling lefties can sip their champagne in their inner-city high-rises and bask in the glory of their own ignorance. This is the dream team—it's a nightmare! This is the modern Labor Party and the teal party team. Voters in South Australia, Nepean and Farrer: please, make a stand, sweep away the stupidity and give One Nation a chance to fix this country while we still can.

I want to talk about the Greens amendment and Senator Pocock's amendment. One Nation's bill and the motion we just discussed goes to establishing a 15 per cent domestic gas reserve. One Nation also believes that the petroleum rent resource tax, the PRRT, has completely failed to capture the appropriate tax take for the benefit of Australians. This lady next to me has been saying it for a decade. One Nation supports the PRRT being changed to be based on production at the wellhead. Measured gas quantities cannot be affected by transfer pricing deals—no shonky business profits that have been abused.

The Greens are circulating an amendment striking out our gas reserve policy and replacing it with a 25 per cent tax. Twenty-five per cent of zero is still zero. It is still zero. The 'toxic-gas Greens' welcome a tax. The same applies to David Pocock's amendment. Twenty-five per cent of zero is zero. They can calculate the profit back to zero through transfer pricing. One Nation wants a reserve established. We support lower taxation for citizens and better taxation for everyone, but the Greens' figure appears to have been pulled out of thin air. We won't support the Greens amendment, nor David Pocock's amendment. We would be happy to debate all of these issues in the normal way on One Nation's gas reserve bill, which we haven't been able to do this morning because the government does not want scrutiny.

Labor are now saying they want a 15 to 25 per cent reserve of gas production for the domestic market, to modify the Albanese Labor government's domestic gas reservation scheme. Labor has no gas reservation scheme! Fifteen to 25 per cent of zero is still zero. You can't figure this out. What's 25 per cent tax on zero profit? It's zero. What's a 25 per cent reservation on zero? It's zero. Only One Nation has thought this through. We've been at it for a decade. Why? Because security is vital to us. Security is absolutely essential. I want to thank the farmers and fishers in New South Wales and Queensland who have been contacting my office, and the offices of Senator Tyron Whitten, Senator Pauline Hanson and Senator Sean Bell—across three states—saying, 'Please do something about the diesel supply.'

One farmer was in tears: 2,500 cattle may not be fed in his dairy farm this week, because he can't get the fodder crop out of the ground. It becomes an animal welfare issue. But there are three words that are important in this, in addition to animal welfare. The first word is 'security'—oil and gas security. We're exporting gas overseas when it could be made into petrol and diesel here, and we're importing petrol and diesel. Now, because of the Iran conflict, there's no security of supply.

The second word is 'volatility'—price volatility. If we had the proper gas fuel reserves in this country, then there would be reduced volatility. Instead, we now have high price volatility. That means that the people of Australia, the farmers of Australia and the truckies of Australia are paying through the neck.

The third word is 'truth'. We've had lies, misrepresentations, misinformation and disinformation from the ministers on the other side in regard to our security. I raised this first on Monday last week, the first thing after we knew about the Iranian war. Then Senator Tyron Whitten, Senator Bell and Senator Hanson followed it up every day last week—Monday to Thursday in the Senate and Friday outside. Then we started again on Tuesday this week, the first day in the Senate.

This is extremely important because it's a matter of life and death. When fridges shut down because the coal mines don't produce coal for the electricity, the food spoils. This is about food security, it's about farm security, it's about electricity security, it's about lifestyle and it's about life security, and we've got to stop the people having to pay for the government's mistakes and waste.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has expired.

An incident having occurred in the gallery—

Could the gallery please be quiet. You need to leave the gallery immediately. Could security please remove the person from the gallery.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment, as moved by Senator David Pocock, to the Australian Greens amendment be agreed to.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment as moved by Senator Hodgins-May be agreed to.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the amendment that has been foreshadowed and circulated to the chamber:

Omit paragraphs (a)(ii) and (b), substitute:

(b) notes the Albanese Labor Government's domestic gas reservation scheme, which will require exporters to reserve between 15 and 25% of gas production for the domestic market.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Gallagher be agreed to.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Hanson be agreed to.