Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my comments.

Leave granted.

Given the damage these fossil fuels do to the planet, even with this amendment, our PRRT structure is encouraging development of new fossil fuel projects at a bargain rate. We allow 90 per cent deductions. Deductions can be rolled over. We value the assets at the cheapest point of the supply chain, and we give a seven-year exception to the deduction cap. These are all choices that we're making about how much revenue we earn from our natural resources, which are finite and, in this case, damaging to the planet. To add insult to injury, since the Ukraine war, these fossil fuel companies have generated additional profits of about $40 billion over and above their expectations. Of this, only 1.5 per cent is collectable as PRRT.

In summary, this change to the PRRT is disappointingly meek. You can't change tax regimes too often because it does have an impact on business certainly. This is a missed opportunity to actually get value for the limited resources that are being extracted that damage the planet and ultimately should be staying in the ground. I'll be supporting the amendments to split the bill, to address these two significant issues separately and to strengthen the PRRT changes so Australians get more value for gas in the limited time that it continues to be extracted.

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