Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Don't get me started on that, Senator Hanson; I've only got three minutes left! But I'll quickly detour and say the other problem is that these electric cars don't even help the environment. They create 70 per cent more carbon emissions than the construction of an internal combustion vehicle. Yes, over time, potentially they can become carbon neutral or carbon positive, but in our electricity system, being coal dominated, it would take an average Australian eight years to become carbon neutral—and then the battery would conk after that and you'd have to go get a new battery and start the process all over again. This is ridiculous. It certainly doesn't help the environment, but, more to the point, my major issue for Australians is that it doesn't help them with the cost of living.

The reason why your petrol prices are going up is because the rest of the developed world has taken a leave pass on developing their own energy resources. We now have given the control of our energy prices to the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia and Russia, and they are determining the world price. Over the past few months, they have pulled back on their production and—surprise, surprise—global oil prices are back over $90 a barrel, with some suggesting they will get back over the $100-a-barrel level. That's why you're paying more for petrol. As long as we do not develop our own resources, we will be dependent on others. As long as we do not encourage oil and gas production in this country, we will pay more for petrol because the other petrol produces, like Saudi Arabia and Russia, like the prices being high because they're massive exporters of oil and gas, and they will keep those prices high if we let them.

Once again, I applaud Senator Hanson for what she's brought forward here today, but the bigger issue is: are we going to gift our energy dependence to authoritarian regimes when we have so many resources here in this country ourselves? There is no reason we cannot become self-sufficient in oil and gas again. Just 20 years ago, we were. We had the Bass Strait going gangbusters. Senator Hanson is exactly right about the oil and gas resources in this country; there are enormous reserves. But we need to encourage people to invest in it. We need to support those businesses who risk billions of dollars of capital to do so. It would be nice to hear the government in their response to this bill say they do support oil and gas jobs, they do want to see Australia become energy-independent again and aren't going to obsessively put all our eggs in one basket and rely on Australians having to spend thousands of dollars on foreign-made electric cars.