Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's $324 billion and growing every year: that's the pile of accumulated tax credits that the gas industry is sitting on and that's why these multinational behemoths that are polluting our atmosphere and contributing to a climate emergency won't pay tax for a decade or more. Think about that figure for a moment—that staggering figure: 17.5 per cent of our entire country's GDP in avoided taxes for the sole benefit of the gas industry to use over the coming decades. These companies get to slowly work through $324 billion of taxable profits before they have to pay tax. Whatever of these tax credits a company doesn't use in a year uplifts by 15 per cent, plus the bond rate. That's a greater rate of return than Sydney's property market or the bitcoin bubble. Think about it and ask yourself, 'Why on earth do these companies get such generous tax treatment?'

As usual, the answer is, 'Follow the money.' The oil and gas industry have now donated $2.7 million to the Liberal Party and $2 million to the Labor Party since 2012. Every retired Labor or Liberal energy minister has worked for a gas company. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it—retired Labor and Liberal energy ministers all working for the gas companies. The former Minister for Trade, Craig Emerson, wrote an op-ed for The Australian Financial Review just last week, saying how gas is crucial for our energy transition. Of course, the online version didn't disclose that his clients are AGL and Santos.

Tax avoidance, lobbying and destroying our environment: the gas industry has it all—the trifecta. They perfectly encapsulate Australia's current political system: get rich quick, pollute the planet, destroy the climate and who gives a stuff about anything else. The carbon emissions from the gas industry have ballooned by 62 per cent in a decade. In fact, the damage that they have contributed to our climate is so big that the gas industry has completely wiped out all the gains from reaching 23 per cent renewable energy in recent years.

Even when we look at the government's own talking points, which we were privy to yesterday, they had the honesty to acknowledge that if it weren't for the gas industry our emissions wouldn't be going up. So there we have it: on the one hand, it's a good thing that we're seeing an increase in the renewable energy sector—23 per cent as a proportion of our energy system. But every gain that we make by replacing dirty energy with renewable energy is wiped out because of the contribution that gas makes to climate pollution.

I note that the industry is engaged in a huge PR campaign. In fact, I happened to take my kids to the show a week or two ago, and there on the big screen was a big advertisement for how important gas is to the economy. You see it on TV now and you see it through social media. But despite the best efforts of the gas industry—despite their greenwash and despite the PR campaign that they're engaged in—there is no hiding this fact: gas is a dirty fossil fuel that contributes to climate damage.

We understand that at the moment there are people who have no choice but to use gas. But the bottom line is that gas, like coal, has no long-term future if we're going to be able to live in a safe and stable climate. Look at the mining of gas: it leaks methane when it's fracked on land or extracted offshore—leaks that get in transport pipelines. It uses huge amounts of energy to freeze it to minus 161 degrees to turn it into a liquid, then more emissions are burnt through transport overseas on ships, and then of course there's the use of the fuel as it's intended. When it's burnt, there are more emissions. Don't be fooled: gas is a dirty, dirty energy source, and part of the transition we need to make is not just from coal but from both coal and gas, which are hugely greenhouse intensive and are contributing to the climate crisis we're now in. You'd think, given that, that the government would be doing what it could to speed the transition away from gas to renewable energy. Instead, we see a government continuing to subsidise the gas industry to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

That's why my colleague Senator Whish-Wilson is going to move an amendment that I'd implore all members of the crossbench to support. I'm not holding my breath for the Liberal and Labor parties, because they want to see those donations coming in, but we implore at least the crossbench to make a clear statement that this free ride has to stop. It's interesting, isn't it? You hear the coalition talk about the subsidies for renewable energy, but you never hear them talk about the massive subsidies to the coal and gas industries. Chevron's given far more in donations to either one of the major parties than they've paid in tax to the ATO. Woodside has given $220,000 a year to each of the major parties.

Our amendment's a modest one. It simply removes the section that would backdate the generous tax credits to a handful of recent gas projects for which there is some legal uncertainty about whether they're eligible for the tax rort that's currently in place. Of course, the amendment doesn't go anywhere near what needs to be done to make these gas giants pay tax in the next decade, but at least it will stop further damage to the tax base. We understand that at the moment there are some industries that need gas and there aren't alternative options available, but that technology is coming. We understand that many households still are reliant on gas; we get that. But unless we start planning for the future and driving the transition that needs to happen, we have no hope of reducing pollution and ensuring that we hand over a safe and liveable climate to future generations.

So I hope we have the support for this amendment. I hope that at some time in the future we will see a ban on political donations in this country—something the Greens have campaigned on for many decades. And I hope industries like the coal and gas industries will finally start to pay their fair share for exploiting Australian resources that belong to each and every one of us. That's the challenge for this government; it is the challenge for future governments. As I said, I don't expect either the government or the opposition to move while the rivers of gold keep flowing, but that is the challenge for those of us in this place: to ensure that the pressure stays on. This amendment is a sensible way of ensuring that they start paying their fair share.