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

I rise to speak on the Offshore Petroleum (Laminaria and Corallina Decommissioning Cost Recovery Levy) Bill 2021. This bill is the culmination of one particular gas corporation's complete and utter stranglehold over both of the establishment parties and, through that, over parliament.

Woodside donates $220,000 a year—every single year—to Labor and the Liberals. They offer not just cash but perks. More than a couple of ministers have left parliament to work for them, countless numbers of advisers too. Woodside has extraordinary access to our lawmakers. How else can they shift a billion-dollar liability off their books and onto everyone else in their industry?

The Greens support this bill because getting any money out of gas corporations for the public benefit is like drawing blood from a stone. It is a miracle to get money out of a sector the ATO has called 'systemic non-payers of tax'. Still, the Greens aren't going to gloss over the fact that something about this bill doesn't sit right. Woodside have acted like bandits—extracted all their profits, paid no taxes, and then punted the old and depleted Northern Endeavour oil rig off to a fly-by-night businessman who went bankrupt shortly afterwards, leaving the government holding the can to cover the clean-up costs.

Rather than force Woodside to take back the asset they made billions in revenue off and force them to clean it up, the power of Woodside's lobbying, donations and future job offers meant that Minister Pitt has decided the entire gas industry has to pay to clean up after Woodside. No company outside such a massive coal or gas donor could ever get away with such negligent or greedy conduct. But here is the kicker: the Australian Liberal government has since paid Woodside $9 million for expert advice on how to decommission their old oil and gas field. In a perfect culmination of corporate state capture, Woodside has been rewarded to the tune of $9 million for sucking a well dry and pushing the clean-up costs onto others.

Just last week, Woodside misled the Guardian and the public that they 'transitioned the vessel over in good condition', when the facts of the Walker report show there were massive corrosion hazards. This is just the latest in a long line of governments doing Woodside's bidding. The Howard government bugged the cabinet room of the East Timor government to help Woodside's commercial negotiations over oilfields between our territorial waters. As a result, they had access to confidential national security information that not even this parliament would have had access to. It is now subject to the Witness K prosecution.

The foreign minister of the time, Alexander Downer, left parliament and went to work for them. Labor's previous resources minister, Gary Gray, was a senior executive for them. The Liberals' previous resources minister, Ian Macfarlane, is currently on their board. Woodside is not just a publicly listed company, it's a hybrid public-private apprenticeship. They're a hybrid government department. They can write laws, hold classified documents, provide and receive cash flows, second staff and set their own environmental and safety standards, and can authorise other entities to take on their liabilities.

Until we cut off the tentacles of these big coal and gas corporations we won't be able to turn the ship of government around on the climate crisis. These companies take what they want and leave the mess for others to clean up. Their pollution is turbocharging natural disasters that we have to pay to clean up. And, according to NOPSEMA's answer to Greens senator Dorinda Cox, there are 400 disused gas wells in Australian waters that haven't been decommissioned. There are 19 mothballed platforms sitting there without being decommissioned. This is their legacy. And it's their legacy, not ours, to pay to clean up.

The Greens want the big polluters and corporations that are profiting off the climate crisis to pay to clean up the damage they are doing. It is time to make the big corporations pay their fair share. It is time to stop giving money to the big coal, oil and gas corporations and, instead, make them pay their fair share. Only the Greens are able to push for that because we're the only ones not taking money from corporations like Woodside. When you look across the entire gas industry, you see that in one year tens of billions of dollars of profit are being brought in and not one cent of tax is being paid. No wonder the Australian tax office calls them systemic nonpayers of tax. It is time to make the big corporations pay to clean up the mess that they are inflicting on all of us.

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