Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1), (2), (3), (5) and (6) on sheet 8702 together:

(1) Clause 4, page 3 (lines 1 to 4), omit the paragraph beginning "The balance of the Building Australia Fund".

(2) Clause 5, page 5 (lines 4 to 10), omit the definitions of Building Australia Fund and Building Australia Fund Special Account.

(3) Clause 9, page 10 (lines 7 to 10), omit the paragraph beginning "The balance of the Building Australia Fund".

(5) Clause 17, page 16 (line 33), omit "; or", substitute ".".

(6) Clause 17, page 16 (lines 34 to 36), omit subparagraph (f) (iii).

These Greens amendments remove the source of the funding for this drought fund from the Building Australia Fund. We are deeply concerned about the proposition that the money to be used for tackling drought should come from the Building Australia Fund. It makes no sense whatsoever that money that we should be spending on essential transport infrastructure gets ripped out when that's where the money needs to go. We know that it is farcical. We do not need to be ripping money out of transport infrastructure to be able to pay for drought relief. We note that this has been the Labor Party's main objection to this bill, and so I am really looking forward to having the Labor Party supporting these amendments. I'm surprised they didn't move amendments themselves to do this.

We've got a situation where you don't need to rip money out of transport infrastructure in order to fund drought works. There are plenty of other places the government could get money from. The government could get money from consolidated revenue. Of course, we have given the very sensible suggestion that maybe we should be getting the money for tackling drought from the big fossil fuel companies that are doing their best to worsen the drought. In particular, my second reading amendment to this bill proposes we use this as an opportunity to fix up the most rorted tax that operates in Australia—in fact, doesn't operate in Australia—the petroleum resource rent tax, which has failed to bring in any money out of digging up the oil and gas. Basically we are giving our oil and gas away to the huge fossil fuel companies. Our suggestion was: how about let's at least take a very small amount, 10 per cent, of their profits, a flat floor, so that at least 10 per cent of the profits of the oil and gas companies in their mining and export of oil and gas could actually fund the works that are needed to tackle the consequences of the mining of that oil and gas, to tackle dealing with drought as a result of our climate crisis?

The Greens have done the numbers, and they show that if you just had that as a 10 per cent floor, a 10 per cent Commonwealth royalty, it would raise $4.9 billion over the next two years. The government would have its fund funded in two years and, of course, the royalties could keep on building so that, by the end of a decade, there would be a decent amount of money that could be invested in the works that are going to be needed to deal with the ongoing drought and the consequences of climate change, because they are going to cost a lot.

We have governments that don't want to do anything to mitigate climate change. We know the costs of those droughts, the costs of not having enough water, the costs of sea level rise are going to keep on rising and rising and rising. So here's an opportunity to actually acknowledge that and here's an opportunity to then say, 'Well, if you're getting the money from that source, you don't need to get it from the Building Australia Fund.'

I've heard the government's argument: 'The Building Australia Fund hasn't been drawn upon in the last five years, so therefore you don't need the money.' That's because the government hasn't wanted to take the money from the Building Australia Fund because there are some conditions attached to the moneys in that fund. They have got to be spent on projects that have the tick from Infrastructure Australia, so there actually has to be some accountability. Where is the government saying, 'We are spending $100m on infrastructure'? There is plenty of money being spent on the government's own pet projects that serve their own vested interests rather than having the accountability that is required by having projects that have been through a proper assessment as per Infrastructure Australia.

I think this is a very sensible suite of amendments. We don't need to take the money away from the much-needed transport infrastructure in our cities and our regions when we could get the money from a much more appropriate source. So I really do look forward to getting the support right across the chamber, particularly from the Labor Party. I mean, they didn't vote with us on the very sensible accountability measures that we just voted on. I'm disappointed that that was the case—but not surprised—because they were measures that would have put in place a few more checks and balances as to how this money is to be spent. They are the sorts of things I would have thought Labor would have been very supportive of and supported the Greens on to make sure that this drought fund doesn't end up being just a slush fund for the National Party. But, no, for their own reasons, the Labor Party decided they weren't going to support those very sensible amendments and voted against them. I really hope that that's not the case with this set of amendments.

As I said, these are amendments that the Labor Party should have moved themselves, given their professed concern about taking money out of our transport infrastructure. I think it is a very sensible suite of amendments that would mean that we wouldn't need to fund drought by ripping money out of essential transport infrastructure. We could fund it, instead, by getting royalties from oil and gas companies.