Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I wrote to the Prime Minister to offer the Greens' support for a minimum 25 per cent gas export tax. With the Greens in the Senate, there are the numbers to pass a gas export tax. The majority of Australians want it, so where is it?

Gas corporations are making eye-watering wartime profits while ordinary people are paying the price of this illegal war. A 25 per cent tax on gas exports would generate around $17 billion annually. That's $17 billion in revenue that could be used to deliver urgent cost-of-living relief, like making public transport free for the duration of the fuel crisis, which would help people in the cities and free up fuel for farmers in the regions. Labor must prioritise people over corporate profits, and we would support them to do that by passing a gas tax this sitting fortnight.

While Trump and Netanyahu unleash chaos across the Middle East, fossil fuel companies are making massive profits. Our government needs to stand up to the big corporations and their obscene profiteering and their price gouging off people's pain and of destruction. Instead, the government is flagging a crackdown on electric vehicles in a fuel crisis! Why on Earth are the Treasurer and energy minister looking at ways to slow down the transition from imported oil? Why deter the cleanest and cheapest cars to run available to Australian motorists right now? We should be looking at ways to incentivise EV uptake and make them cheaper so that people can afford one, not making them more expensive in a fuel crisis.

If this illegal war has taught us anything, it's that we need our own reliable fuel sources, and the most reliable source is clean alternative fuels and renewable energy. The sun and the wind are not going through the Strait of Hormuz. We need renewable energy independence.