Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Fuel security is a terrific idea, and Australia, with our magnificent sun and wind, could be not only fully energy independent but also be exporting energy to the rest of the world. But this bill, the Fuel Security Bill 2021, isn't about fuel security; it's about subsidies to fossil fuel corporations and about picking out a couple of those, with no guarantee that one cent of the money will find its way down to the workers in any of those corporations.

We know that in the rest of the world there has been a massive shift to electric vehicles. People not only have seen the pollution related benefits to switching away from oil or petrol towards renewable-powered electric vehicles but also have understood the security related benefits and the energy-independence related benefits. If your country is running on electric vehicles then you are not at the whim of geopolitics, of oil-producing corporations and of fights between countries that have very little to do with the people who just want to be able to get around and use their car, their bike or their truck. If your country is running on electric vehicles and generates enough energy to power itself and a surplus to export to the rest of the world, you're in the box seat both economically and environmentally, and you also have a security advantage.

If the government had come in here and said, 'We want fuel security and we've understood, as other countries have, that the best way to get that is to make sure we're not dependent on other countries or big corporations and we are going to make sure our transport fleet can run on power produced here in Australia,' then they'd get a big tick from us. But that is not what this bill is about. This bill says that $2 billion goes to fossil fuel corporations without a guarantee that a cent of that finds its way down to the workers. And there will be no plan in the long term for making Australia more fuel secure by switching over to EVs—by switching our industry over, by switching our transport over.

This comes on top of a budget that gave $11.4 billion in handouts to fossil fuels alone, another $1.1 billion for new coal and gas projects and now another $2 billion to some fossil fuel corporations but nothing for electrifying transport, nothing for electrifying industry—nothing for moving our country towards 700 per cent renewables, with our electricity running on 100 per cent renewables and all our other sectors running on renewably generated electricity while we're exporting it to the rest of the world through green hydrogen, or to Asia through direct undersea cable. That is what real fuel security would look like. Instead we've had a budget for billionaires and now more handouts for big corporations and billionaires without, I repeat, a guarantee that one cent will find its way to the workers in those corporations.

This bill is a continuation of the government's approach of giving billions of dollars in handouts to big corporations and billionaires—the same corporations that donate to the Liberal and Labor parties—while leaving everyone behind. Apparently there's $11.4 billion in the budget to giving handouts to fossil fuel corporations but not enough money to put dental into Medicare for everyone or to make education free again. That's because this government is in the pocket of the big corporations and billionaires—many of whom pay no tax.

We have a situation in this country where one in three big corporations pay no tax. Instead of making them pay, we have bills like this where the government lines up and says, 'How can we give you a handout?' At the G7 that happened over the weekend, they said that it's time to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. In other words, stop putting your hand in the public's pocket and asking the public to give money to big coal and gas corporations and oil corporations, many of whom pay no tax. Instead, address the climate crisis by using that money to get us onto renewables. You see this shift that's happening in the rest of the world in electric vehicles. By 2030 in Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK you won't be able to buy a new combustion engine car. That's when they are shifting over. By 2035, Japan will have phased out the sale of new combustion engines. France, Sri Lanka and Singapore will be selling only electric vehicles in 2040. Other countries are providing clear, up-front incentives for consumers, making it easier for people to shift to an EV right now.

Here in the ACT, thanks to having Greens in shared power, you get incentives to switch over to an electric vehicle as well, but instead this government is taking us the other way. But, because of what is happening around the world, manufacturers are responding. The Electric Vehicle Council recently summarised some of those shifts. Major manufacturers like Ford, BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, Nissan and others have made clear commitments to offer more EVs or to transition their fleets entirely. Those radical environmentalists at General Motors have said that they are going to shift their entire sales range to electric vehicles by 2035. If you don't believe what the Greens are saying, listen to what General Motors are saying—all electric by 2035. What does it mean to have fuel security? It means to switch over to electric and generate the electricity here. Generate the electricity here, so we're not reliant on a big corporation or another country on the other side of the world for oil or petrol. That's what it means to have genuine fuel security.

We have had such a lack of leadership from this Prime Minister. We were promised a national strategy in 2019, but instead it took two years for the Liberals to release a discussion paper in which the only thing they were willing to commit to was not offering any consumer incentives for electric vehicles at all. In that gap of federal leadership, we've seen a disjointed, and at times harmful, approach from state governments, including the Victorian government's tax on electric vehicles at exactly the time we need more of them.

A group of 25 organisations ranging from car manufacturers to environmental groups published an open letter calling the Victorian tax the worst in the world. This is happening because of the tragic lack of federal leadership. They've had several years to act on fuel security—that is, to genuinely act on fuel security—and to make us not only energy self-sufficient but energy exporters from 100 per cent renewables. Instead, we have this bill, which was rushed out of the door without any proper process. There was no public exposure draft of the bill that the community could have input on. The government will presumably oppose any kind of scrutiny through a committee inquiry. We've got the rushed, artificial deadline of 1 July to hand over an enormous amount of funding without any scrutiny at all. That's why the Greens will be moving to amend this bill, to try and force the parties in this place to acknowledge that, if you are serious about fuel security and you are serious about tackling the climate crisis, you must have an electric vehicle strategy. The government is not serious about either of those things. Instead of spending $2 billion of the public's money on a subsidy, without any requirement to protect jobs, we could be investing that in a national EV strategy—in a clear plan to transition to EVs, with urgent, significant public investment in a national fast-charging network, which Infrastructure Australia has identified as a national priority.

We think it's also appropriate that there be a review of how effective this subsidy is in improving fuel security, as opposed to lining the pockets of big corporations. We want to see a clear comparison with the benefits of an EV transition. We're not huge fans of trickle-down economics, economic rationalism and the market driven approach, but I know the Productivity Commission is. At the least, the government and the opposition should support letting the Productivity Commission have a look at whether you're better off giving a straight cash handout of $2 billion to big corporations, with no strings attached, or having a proper fuel security strategy based on electric vehicles. Let them run the ruler over it.

When you look at what is happening in the rest of the world, you'll see that the clearest and best way to make Australia fuel secure is to stop our reliance on oil and petrol. That is how we do it. Make the fuel here from our sun and our wind. That's how we do it. Make the batteries here in Australia. Develop a domestic, 100 per cent renewable industry that can drive the transport in this country. That is how we make ourselves fuel secure. If any country in the world can do it, it's Australia. We are not short of sun and wind. We are not short of places to put solar and wind farms, and we are not short of the nous to make batteries and fuel like liquid hydrogen here. We can do all those things. That's where the $2 billion should be going—to driving that transition. Instead, this government is doing the bidding of its big corporate donors and stapling us to a technology that the rest of the world is rapidly moving away from. The government says it's for technology, not taxes. It's giving handouts to big corporations, it's letting one in three big corporations in this country pay absolutely no tax and it's using a technology that is rapidly being superseded and about which everywhere else in the world is saying, 'We've got to get off it because that is the way to address the climate crisis.'

We also think—and this is why we're moving a separate amendment—that this bill should not apply until the government has taken some basic steps on EVs. That will be as simple as requiring them to state what their EV strategy is and provide some analysis of how it compares to that of other countries. I really hope that these amendments get the support of the government and the opposition. I have heard from the opposition that their reason for supporting this is that the $2 billion will guarantee jobs, but the problem is that it doesn't. We should have learnt from the way that the government handed out JobKeeper that, if you don't design the scheme right, billions of dollars can end up just lining the pockets of big corporations. That's what this is. This is another blank cheque.

To be crystal clear: the Greens support fuel security. But we want a genuine policy, developed with public consultation, about how we improve our fuel security by making the fuel here, from the sun and the wind that we are blessed with, so that we are not reliant on other countries and big corporations overseas. We have the capacity to do this, but all this bill and this subsidy will do is prolong our dependence on big corporations, big multinationals and other governments, because we will still be reliant on hoping that things trickle into this country at the right point in time. But we do not have to be. We not only have the sun and the wind but also the smarts in this country to be powering and driving our whole country from renewables.

This bill doesn't even have the pretence of a long-term plan. It's a short-term handout in the hope that giving more money to big corporations will fix the problem. Well, if there's anything the last 30 years has taught us, it's that giving public money in the form of handouts to billionaires in big corporations who don't need them doesn't work in the interests of people; it just makes them richer at the expense of everyone else. That's why this bill and this approach are wrong, why they need to be fixed and why the Greens will move amendments.

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