Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022. The fact that we're back here today, a week before Christmas, shows that it's finally becoming clear to this government that the cost-of-living crisis needs urgent attention. We know that people across Australia are doing it tough and that, obviously, this is often the time of year when people feel it the most.

The cost of living just keeps rising, much faster than wages are rising. Rent, going to the doctor, putting food on the table, electricity bills, shoes for the kids, petrol, mortgage payments—everything is more expensive. The only ones not having a tough time are the big corporations and the fossil fuel sector. They are making record profits while ordinary people are struggling. Gas corporations such as Santos and Woodside are making billions in profits and paying next to no tax. According to a report released this morning, coal exporters made a windfall gain last financial year of $45 billion. Fossil fuel companies have been profiting from the war in Ukraine and making record profits. Coal and gas companies are destroying farmland in Queensland while farmers in the New Acland mine have to fundraise to protect their water supplies.

This problem has been created by the Liberal and Labor parties because they give too much special treatment to the coal and gas industry. It could be because of the promise of cushy postparliament lobbying roles within the fossil fuel industry, or maybe it's that the major parties have accepted $11 million in donations from the fossil fuel sector in the past decade. And, what do you know? every year over $10 billion in public money—subsidies for fossil fuels—is handed back to the coal and gas industry. It's a good return on investment for them, but it's a terrible deal for the rest of us and for the planet. In the most recent budget, the Labor government gifted $1.9 billion of new money, public money, for gas in the Northern Territory, and that's on top of continuing the nearly $40 billion of fossil fuel subsidies put in place by the former government.

There are 113 fossil fuel projects in the pipeline that this government has refused to rule out. Despite the damage this is causing to our household budgets, to our national budget and to our climate budget, there are efforts underway to expand more gas in my home state of Queensland. We've seen billionaire Gina Rinehart trying to get more gas out of Queensland. We see continuing threats to frack the sensitive Channel Country, an area that the Queensland and Commonwealth governments have previously committed to protect—and we see this despite clear opposition from First Nations owners and farmers. We do not need more gas. Gas is just as dirty as coal and its extraction risks our land and water. We need to stop the gas industry from ripping us off, disrespecting First Nations communities, and mining and burning a product which is destroying the planet.

This bill is a first step towards the coal and gas corporations taking a much needed haircut. It will give powers to the minister to implement a 12-month price cap on the price of gas, which the government has said they'll set at $12 a gigajoule. In conjunction with the coal price caps to be implemented by New South Wales and Queensland, this will deliver approximately $230 per household in savings over the coming year. But, sadly, this doesn't mean that people will pay less on their gas and power bills. Those bills are still going to increase. They will just increase by less than they would have without this piece of legislation.

This bill also allows the government to provide $1½ billion of funding, co-funded by another $1½ billion from the states and territories, to households and businesses to reduce power bills. Now, this is a start, but it's not enough. It's one-sixteenth of the amount that the government just gave in stage 3 tax cuts to the rich in the recent budget. Those folk get $24 billion a year, and ordinary people are getting only $1½ billion. That's why I'll be moving a second reading amendment to raise the rate of income support so that people can be helped out of abject poverty, and to freeze power prices for two-years at the level they were before the war in Ukraine, to be funded by the big coal and gas polluters. That's what the Greens will continue to push for even after this legislation passes, and it's what households deserve.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get the government to agree to make coal and gas pay a windfall tax from their record profits to help households. We were able to get the government to agree to a support package in the next budget to help low-income households, renters and businesses get off gas and switch to high-quality electric appliances. That will lower power bills, reduce emissions and reduce health impacts. The government has agreed to work with the Greens to develop a significant package of measures to help households and businesses electrify their operations, improve their energy performance and cut energy bills as part of that 2023-24 budget process. This will help roll out electrification to businesses and households. We'll be particularly looking to support those groups that have struggled to access the benefits of home electrification, like people on lower incomes, private renters, people in public and community housing, and folk in apartments.

If we're going to transform this country to run on 100 per cent clean, green renewable energy, which we need to do as soon as possible, we need a solution for everyone to access thousands of dollars of energy savings and climate benefits, not just those with disposable income who can afford to upgrade their rooftops, cars and appliances. The Climate Council has looked at the financial benefit of electrifying homes, and it's estimated that a household can save between $500 and $1,900 a year by switching from gas appliances to electricity. Unlike the $230 the government's modelling says will be saved by this 12-month-only price cap, those savings would be permanent. They will be delivered year after year.

One extra dirty little secret that the gas industry excludes from its sales pitch is that gas in your home is hurting you and your family. Gas cooking in the home has been estimated to be responsible for up to 12 per cent of the burden of childhood asthma in this country. There are so many good reasons to get out of gas. Keeping gas in the ground and replacing it with renewables is the best way to secure real cost-of-living support, real action on climate and fewer health impacts for our kids, so of course the gas industry is having a meltdown and threatening to deny gas to the east coast gas market. This is cartel-like behaviour, and it's further evidence of why a lot more government intervention in this market is urgently necessary.

As part of our arrangement to pass this bill today, the Greens also secured a number of important guarantees. We've confirmed that the compensation to households will be wider in scope. It will not be settled this year and we will keep pushing for more help for more households. We've confirmed that this package does not contain any of the coal subsidies that have been spoken about in the media. While my colleague Senator McKim will say more about this, let me be crystal clear: the Greens will never support any subsidies going to the coal and gas industries. If the government brings future legislation to give effect to any coal or gas subsidies, we will oppose it. The coal and gas companies should be compensating the people, not the other way around.

People in this country should not be held to ransom by the international gas corporations. This bill is a start on protecting people from their bottomless greed, but there is a lot more to do. The Greens' demands are simple: no more coal and no more gas; no more public money for the coal or gas industries; freeze power bills for two years at the rates they were before the illegal war in Ukraine, to be funded it by making those massive corporations pay their fair share of tax while we transition off those dirty industries to clean, affordable, renewable energy, which is job rich.

It's good that Labor has taken a first step to stand up to these powerful interests. On top of the 12-month price cap, the bill gives the minister powers to introduce a mandatory code of conduct for the gas industry. This will allow the government to begin taking back the reins on who controls our energy markets from the big gas corporations. It will take courage to tackle those special interests, and we will keep pushing the government to do so.

Banning political donations from the fossil fuel industries would also break the chains and allow parliament to stand up for the community, not the vested interests of big corporations and political donors. With the Greens, Labor has the numbers to stop new coal and gas, to make them pay their fair share of tax and to end the public subsidies, or Labor can choose to run scared of the power of the gas industry and their threatened advertising campaigns. With the powers in this bill the government will now face a choice, and we'll keep pushing them to make the right one. We'll be moving a series of amendments to give effect to some of the points that I've made, and I foreshadow the second reading amendment standing in my name.

I conclude by saying: we are in a cost-of-living crisis. We need to bring people's power bills down, and we need to speed up the transition to clean, green renewable energy, but we think that coal and gas companies should be paying for that transition and for those subsidies out of the record profits that they have made off the back of the misery of the people in Ukraine. We are deeply disappointed that the government would not join in taking on the coal and gas corporations and making them pay their fair share of tax, but we will be supporting this payment as slight relief for folk. We will keep pushing for broader cost-of-living relief not just in the climate context but in all things, whether it be access to mental healthcare support, dental health care, housing—you name it. Government should be delivering for the people, not just for the big companies and the fossil fuel industry that's tried to run this place for so long.