Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I mentioned tax cuts in my first sentence, Deputy Speaker. We have been let down by successive federal governments—by the Liberal-National coalition and its inaction on climate change, and by the Albanese government, which has negotiated a gas price cap which is almost double the production cost, effectively anchoring prices higher than they need to be, and which has exempted new gas projects from that price cap. The Albanese government's Future Gas Strategy is a 68-page document about gas which does not mention royalties, tax or revenue once. This is a policy failure.

Australians are smarter than their own government. We know how to bring electricity prices down. Three million Australian households have become electricity generators by investing in rooftop solar. The 40 per cent of our power that comes from solar, wind and hydro, however, is being cancelled out by the 60 per cent that is coming from coal and gas. So when Australians are struggling with high gas and electricity bills this winter they should remember that those prices are high because Australian governments have allowed virtually unlimited gas exports. They allow LNG export companies to price gouge us for our own gas, then they've set a price cap which is too high and then they've exempted new gas projects from that cap without a guaranteed increase in our domestic gas supply. Australians should be able to pay their own electricity bills. But, for that to happen, the government has to use its power to act on this all-important aspect of the cost-of-living crisis.

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