Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I would like to follow-up on a couple of the contributions as well. It is a shame that we again find ourselves in the chamber trying to hold people to account in relation to past indiscretions—the unconscionable sale to a smaller company of a vessel that was rapidly becoming a stranded asset. We find, again, that only the crossbench is pursuing this. Labor do not really want to stick up their hands and support Senator Hanson in her attempt to hold Woodside to account. I would encourage the Labor Party to reconsider their position, because this is about making people accountable.

When we recognise that there has been a failure in a company, a failure that ultimately sought to have the taxpayer bear the cost of a stranded asset, the parliament should act. We shouldn't always be protecting the oil and gas industry, as we seem to be. I said yesterday that in an inquiry last Friday with the economics committee, we went through the fact that in 2018-19 this industry has taken $62 billion of our resource, exported it overseas and, in return, the taxpayer has got one $1.06 billion in PRRT as compensation for the sale of this non-renewable asset. Every single time oil and gas companies engage in activity here in this country, it appears as though the taxpayer pays; we end up with the taxpayer basically paying for all of their investments. If they make a bad mistake in terms of a project, again that value is written off; the taxpayer basically bears the cost of it. We have an amendment put up that aims to hold one of the companies to account for an unquestionable sequence of events, yet the Labor Party doesn't want to stand up.

I will direct myself back at the Liberal Party here. We know that, if we go back two decades, Woodside again were beneficiaries of the spying activity that took place in East Timor. In 2004, the Australian government—ASIS—bugged the Timorese cabinet rooms to listen in on their negotiating team when we were negotiating a sea boundary. They did that when we had shook hands with the Timorese and said, 'We're going to negotiate in good faith.' The government then commanded ASIS to go and set up, under cover of an aid program, listening devices inside the cabinet rooms of the Timor-Leste government. While they were doing that, I might point out, there were quite significant terrorist activities and rising threats in Indonesia in relation to Jemaah Islamiyah. They went on within the month, of course, to blow up the Australian embassy. But, no, we were focusing our efforts on oil and gas negotiations for which Woodside became the beneficiary. Why is the government continually operating on behalf of this company?

We've had an expert in international law provide information to [inaudible] that, in fact, Australia's national interest is apparently whatever Woodside's company interest is. So I ask the minister: I understand the issues associated with retrospectivity, but is it not proper to hold a company to account when it is clear on the evidence that they sought to basically divest themselves of an asset in order to avoid their clean-up obligations? Why is that not something that the government can do? That's all this does in terms of retrospectivity. It holds a company to account for misconduct. Why, Minister, are you not going to support this, noting that in these circumstances it is clear that the retrospectivity is designed to remedy unconscionable conduct by a company?