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

I rise to speak on the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Equity Investments and Other Measures) Bill 2021. I'm a big fan of Efic. I sat here listening to Senator Fierravanti-Wells and she made some very, very good points that will play on my mind as I enter the chamber when the bells ring.

The main reason I came into the chamber was to talk to the Greens amendment, which is basically seeking to prevent investments in areas of coal, oil and natural gas. I think it's a good amendment and I'm going to spell out why that is the case. And I do that not from some far-left Green perspective but simply from my knowledge of the commercial world. Right now, what we're seeing in relation to oil, gas and coal products is a collapse in the market. That's probably not true for coal but it is certainly true for the other two. Here in Australia, perhaps to the benefit of the gas cartel, we are seeing less consumption of gas. As the states switch across to their programs of renewable energy, we are now seeing negative electricity prices appearing on the market in South Australia. If you go to AEMO's quarterly report for the first part of this year you'll see that from 8 am until 5 pm, the time of manufacturing, there's a good chance that the spot price of electricity in South Australia will be negative. Whilst I accept that electricity prices are in fact quite complex—with AEMO intervening in the market to get inertia into the system—it is a tell-tale sign and one that interested me when I saw it. I'm not pretending it was something that it wasn't, but it is an indicator.

We are seeing the gas market dry up. We will be forced, over time, to reduce our oil consumption simply by the arrival of electric vehicles. That is not necessarily helped by this government in terms of its national strategy. Simply, the reality is that car manufacturers have announced that they are moving away from internal combustion engine cars—that's all going. And that means, eventually, we will be dragged kicking and screaming into the electric vehicle market, which will reduce our dependency on oil. And that is happening overseas as well.

So the Greens amendment makes sense in terms of the economics, the way in which markets work. And I note that Senator Steele-John stood up and talked about the banks no longer being willing to invest in these areas. That ought to alarm people. If the banks aren't willing to invest in these areas then we shouldn't be putting government money into these areas. We shouldn't have underwriting of oil and gas investments in circumstances where the banks understand better than anyone in this place exactly where this is all going. I saw a tweet this morning by Senator Canavan counter to the banks. He said:

… My rule of thumb is, if something is good for the banks it is probably bad for me.

I was forced to tweet back to say that my rule of thumb is that if something is good for the Nationals, it is almost certainly bad for South Australia and indeed the Murray-Darling.

I'm glad that Senator McKenzie is here trying to interject. She has the Nationals streak through her. Did anyone not see the dumbest idea for 2021 coming from the Nationals over the break? They suggested that we invest $250 billion of taxpayers' money into investments that the banks won't touch. That is the dumbest idea in 2021, coming straight from the National Party.

I'm looking forward to seeing all those Nationals ministers who will have to resign when the cabinet make decisions on reducing emissions. They will have to make those decisions because that's the will of the Australian people, and they know it. So I will be interested to see when Mr Pitt, Senator Mackenzie or Mr Joyce resign because their position is somewhat different to that of the cabinet. Although we do know that Senator McKenzie wandered in here and tried to remove the 450-gigalitre requirement from the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. She was big and bold when she did that, but when she became a cabinet minister she sat quietly because she knows the cabinet's position is that the plan be delivered in full. So while the Nationals—