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

Let's just do a quick stocktake. The international price of oil is skyrocketing. Public transport remains underfunded and inaccessible for so many. Electric vehicle uptake has been deliberately slowed. Let's be honest. None of this happened by accident. Decades of policy choices have locked us into fossil fuel dependency—decades of governments backing in oil and gas and sidelining the alternatives, decades of following the US into conflicts that destabilise global energy markets. Now here we are, hooked on petrol, exposed to every international shock and sending billions of dollars offshore while households struggle to keep up. What's the plan—to double-down with a multibillion-dollar nuclear submarine project that does nothing to bring down energy prices or to make people's lives easier? We get sprayed by insults from Donald Trump, despite our obedience to his war regime.

But maybe—just maybe—this is an opportunity for every single person in this chamber to look past the lobbyists and the corporate donors and start acting in the public interest. It sounds pretty novel. There is a clear, practical step that we could take right now. The Greens have written to the Prime Minister offering to pass a tax of at least 25 per cent on gas exports, and we've secured an inquiry into it. A minimum 25 per cent gas export tax could bring in $17 billion per year to help with electrification, to make public transport free and to help people who are experiencing soaring costs of living. The question, time and time again, is not whether we can afford it, but whether this place is willing to do it.

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to put it plainly to Australians: our nation must become self-sufficient and self-reliant. We're not a fragile outpost; we're an entire continent rich in iron ore, coal, gas, uranium, fertile land, sunshine, water—all of it. We've got it all. Yet somehow we behave like a country with nothing. We dig the wealth out of the ground, we ship it overseas, and we buy it back at a premium once others have made it useful. It's ridiculous. This is not economic strategy. It's national self-sabotage.

Now, any serious country would ask: 'Why can't we refine our own fuel? Why can't we manufacture our own medicines? Why can't we build a car? Why can't we build our own advanced technology here at home, instead of importing everything?' We rely on these global supply chains, and we don't control them. We can't guarantee what happens. One disruption and we're all exposed, vulnerable. We're dependent.

Then there's defence. We speak about alliances. They matter, but they're not sovereignty, right? In a crisis, every nation is going to look after itself first. Now Australia must be able to stand on its own two feet, not wait, not hope and not ask. It must stand.

What of our culture? Like our industries, it's increasingly imported until, eventually, we're going to become indistinguishable from everywhere else. A nation that forgets who it is does not remain a nation for long. It just doesn't; that's the simple truth of it. A country that can't stand alone is eventually going to be made to kneel. Australia has everything that we need right here—every resource, every advantage and everything, it seems, except the will to act like a sovereign nation. That's got to change decisively and without any delay. We should be able to build a big, giant, beautiful wall around Australia and have everything that we need right here without having to rely on anyone.