Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to my Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2023. With this legislation, I deliver on my commitment to ensure the Australian people benefit from the natural energy and mineral resources they own. I've been fighting for this for many years. Australia has tremendous reserves of natural energy resources, which are some of the largest in the world. Yet we face energy shortages, driving up our energy prices to among the highest in the world. This makes no sense. This natural wealth, which should make every Australian rich, has been squandered by successive Labor and coalition governments over decades, allowing other countries to use our continent as a cheap dirt mine. It is fundamentally wrong any way you look at it. It is a betrayal of the Australian people, incredibly damaging to our economy and makes us an international laughing-stock.

I can only imagine what Norwegians think of Australia's approach. They are laughing all the way to the bank. Norway's sovereign wealth fund, built on revenue from the country's oil deposits in the North Sea, is now valued at A$2.17 trillion. That's almost $400,000 per Norwegian. It's easily twice as much as most Australians' superannuation balances, although that's probably an unfair comparison, because our super comes from our individual earnings. Norwegians contribute nothing personally. All that wealth comes from their natural resources and governments which have wisely created and invested in it.

When I think about the wealth Australia could have generated from natural resources which dwarf Norway's, I get very angry. This criminal waste of our natural wealth is an outrage. It's why I introduced my Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Benefit to Australia) Bill last year, hoping to generate more revenue for the nation from the exploitation of our resources. The main parties voted against it, faithfully serving their paymasters in the resources sector and continuing the betrayal of the Australian people.

There's been one small step in the right direction recently, and it's something for which I have lobbied the past three prime ministers. On my first meeting with the current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, I pleaded with him with regard to the PRRT in relation to the North West Shelf, and now he's proposed changes to the petroleum resources rent tax, the PRRT, that are forecast to increase revenue by about $2.4 billion, something that we've never had before. In comparison, Qatar reaps $26 billion a year in government revenue from its gas. We export more, yet we only get $2.4 billion, and that's only forecast. It's a positive step, if a very small one, and continues the trend of the major parties adopting many of One Nation's policies. This legislation is another step in the right direction.

Australia has some of the largest reserves of natural gas on the planet, and we're the world's biggest exporter. About 93 per cent of these reserves are in Commonwealth waters, concentrated in the North West Shelf of Western Australia. The majority of it is exported to Asian markets—so much, in fact, that Asian customers pay less for our gas than Australians do. Go figure. A small amount of it is kept in the west thanks to a policy of the Western Australian government to ensure 15 per cent of the gas processed in the state is kept as a domestic reserve, and this has been done for decades. However, this resource is primarily in Commonwealth waters, and my bill seeks to create from this resource a domestic reserve of gas that benefits all of us, not just Western Australia. This national reserve would address looming domestic shortages in this critical energy resource.

Today's Australian Financial Review newspaper reminded readers that the Australian Energy Market Operator, AEMO, warned us back in March that east coast gas exporters may have to break long-term sales contracts with Asian customers to prevent domestic customers running short. They wouldn't have to do it if my bill is passed. We'd have all the gas we'll need. And make no mistake: we'll need it, as Labor and the Greens continue with the suicidal rush to unreliable renewables. Gas is essential to make renewables work. Labor and the Greens won't acknowledge this truth, but the evidence is undeniable. Electricity grids require sustained input that intermittent renewables just cannot provide. Gas is the only available dispatchable backup in many cases, thanks to the premature closure of coal-fired power stations across the country. Forget green hydrogen as a replacement for gas. That's a Green pipedream that does not stack up economically and very likely never will. We're nowhere near having it available to us—not for at least another 20 years. It's all a pie-in-the-sky dream. Now we're going to need gas for a very long time to come, since Labor has decided to have 82 per cent of our energy generated by wind and solar by 2030—pie-in-the-sky stuff. My bill will create that critical reserve of this essential energy resource. It will help stabilise prices and our increasingly fragile and unreliable energy grids.

Petroleum and gas resource companies will make the usual noises about sovereign risk. Their representatives said as much to my office today. But it's a joke. It is a lie. Western Australia has had its domestic gas reserve policy in place since 2006, and investment by resource companies in that state has only increased. The experience overseas puts the lie to the sovereign risk argument too. The foreign-owned multinationals who whine about sovereign risk in Australia have no problem operating in countries like Norway. They have no problem operating in Qatar, as I said, which generates $26 billion a year in revenue from natural gas exports, compared to the $200 million or $300 million generated in Australia; that's all we were getting. They have been so used to getting their way with the major parties, so, of course, they're going to complain.

My bill will amend section 95 of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 to include references to a condition that petroleum and gas producers must enter into a domestic reserve agreement with the Commonwealth. The substantial amendment is the introduction of a new section, 162A. This new section provides: that licencees will have 12 months to enter into a domestic reserve agreement from 1 January next year if this licence was or is generated before then; that licencees will have 12 months to enter an agreement from the day the licence is granted if this happens after 1 January next year; that for each year the agreement or licence operates, the licencee reserves an amount of petroleum or gas equivalent to 15 per cent of the amount exported by the licencee the previous year; and that such agreements must operate for a minimum 10 years. If the first contract expires but the production licence is still in force, licencees will be required to enter a new agreement.

The really curious thing about this legislation is that it shouldn't be controversial and should enjoy universal support in this parliament. But for the obvious exception of the Greens, who have less economic expertise than your average guinea pig, why would it be controversial for the Australian people to receive any sort of economic benefit from the resources which belong to them? I urge all senators to remember they're not here to represent the interests of foreign-owned multinationals or Asian importers of Australian gas; they're here to represent the interests of the Australian people, and my bill advances their interests.

As a lot of people would say, you'll vote against this. I know your attitude—because One Nation puts up these bills, you won't support them. A lot of it is common sense and it's for the Australian people. I'm urging you to really think about this. We have a shortage of gas. We export around $4 a gigajoule for gas to overseas countries while Australians here have paid up to $28 a gigajoule for gas. Do you really believe that's fair on Australian people? With this bill, we'll ensure that we do have a gas supply. We have enormous reserves and we should be utilising them to ensure that households, those mums and dads, aged pensioners, have a supply of energy for our needs in this country. We have manufacturing industries that will go under.

If you look at it realistically, your renewables will not work. They can't stand up. In South Australia, they rely on gas because the wind doesn't always blow and the solar panels don't work at night; you have to have another supply. The dream of having green hydrogen—it's not possible. There's nowhere in the world where it works. You're only lying to the Australian people by saying, 'We're going to have this.' It's all pie-in-the-sky. You're cheating the Australian people. You're lying to the Australian people. You're lying about the environment and saying that the world is coming to an end if we go up half a per cent or we're going to have temperature rises, which are all lies.

What I'm saying here is the Australian people are struggling. Their energy costs are going through the roof. People are losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages due to rising costs, and this all comes down to energy. Like I explained, Norway has a tremendous wealth fund gained from their resources, and we have been so stupid in this country; we haven't done it. We've had governments or members of parliament who have never had long-term vision, as our politicians did a century ago. They're here just for your term, and all they want to do is make sure that they make the right decisions to win their seats back again. But they're not making the right long-term decisions for this nation and it's a shame because it is the Australian people who are missing out.

This is a great opportunity that we have to actually recover from our resources some money that we can put to good use. We're struggling with hospitals—in rural and regional areas hospitals are closing down—schools and infrastructure. The roads are an absolute blasted mess. There's so much waste of government money, and you're scratching around and you're bringing in a productivity commissioner who's talking about a heritage tax—that's a death duty or tax—raising the GST, having more taxes on the Australian people and hitting independent retirees and looking at possibly including the family home in assets for the aged pension. All you think about is taxing the Australian people all the time.

You're not thinking. Use your brains. Politicians have to problem solve, and a lot of you have no background or experience in business and in running a business. You wouldn't have a clue. You're absolutely brain dead when it comes to things like this where you can make money for this country. You know how to bloody spend it, but you have no idea how to make it. For years in this place I have been begging former prime ministers about what to do with the PRRT. Finally we've got it, and guess what? It's $2.4 billion, and we'll possibly end up with more than that, because you've actually listened to what I've had to say.

Start listening to the grassroots. Start caring about the grassroots Australian people. Start making them some money instead of spending it all the time. As far as I'm concerned it's an absolute bloody waste. Start learning how to make money. This would be a good start.