David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It turns out it is so cheap to buy the Labor Party. It is so cheap to put the Labor Party in the pocket of a fossil fuel industry that half a million dollars in donations from Santos is what it's taken for the Labor Party to mortgage the future of our kids. For half a million dollars delivered between 2015 and now, directly into the coffers of the Australian Labor Party, Santos have literally bought the future of our kids and bought the future of our natural ecosystems. It is so cheap to buy Labor, it turns out, if you're a fossil fuel company. It's despicably cheap, to literally sell out the future for half a million dollars in donations from a fossil fuel company, because, let's be clear, that's what Santos have got. They've been planning this for a while, going to the Labor Party fundraisers, delivering $10,000 here and $20,000 there. They've been doing the same with the coalition. Let's be clear: they play both sides. They're not investing in democracy when they're buying the Labor Party; they're investing in their obscene fossil fuel profits to be delivered by a future Labor government. They were paying that money in 2015, when they weren't sure Labor would get into office, and putting a saver on the coalition, and half a million dollars later what do we get? The Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023, a bill whose label was drafted by George Orwell—the 'Environment Protection Fighting Climate Change Bill'. It's an 'Environment Destruction Aggravating Climate Change Bill'. That's what this bill is. It's a naked attempt by Labor, paid for by their donors in Santos and the fossil fuel industry, to facilitate more oil and gas development in our oceans. It's particularly aimed at facilitating the Barossa project and other related projects off Australia's northern coastlines. And let's remember that the Barossa project is the project that a proud, strong, brave group of Tiwi Islands traditional owners managed finally to get an injunction against, because Santos, with their mates in the federal government, just ran roughshod over decent consultation, just ran roughshod over their rights for native title and to be respected. If this bill goes through it's a critical step to ramming through that 260-odd-kilometre pipeline, right through Tiwi Islands traditional land.

Again, imagine delivering that destruction to the Tiwi Islands people's culture and their land. Imagine delivering this destruction to the planet, all because Santos slipped half a million bucks into the ALP coffers. How obscene it is to watch our parliament literally being bought and sold and to watch the Albanese government being literally purchased by the fossil fuel industry like this.

This bill, which it looks like is going to be rammed through by Labor and the coalition, the planet-cooking parties, has come only after repeated pushes not only from Santos but also from large overseas fossil fuel corporations. Some of those overseas investors were deeply worried about the extra billion dollars in capital costs that the Greens managed to impose on this offshore gas development before they could get it started. So, they've been looking for ways to claw it back, to claw back some extra profitability from this offshore gas. And what have they got? They've got this Orwellian 'environment protection fighting climate change' bill, which actually is just a sea dumping bill—a sea dumping, sea destroying, ecosystem destroying bill.

We know there's been a strong diplomatic push, particularly from the Japanese government, to try to reverse some of the protections the Greens managed to put into what was otherwise a hopelessly weak climate bill from Labor in its first year of this government. They've been pushing and pushing, and donating and donating, and then they get their sea dumping bill, which is a public relations and delaying tactic for the coal and gas industry to pretend it's doing something other than just cooking the future of our planet.

And to think, at a time when we had a federal government saying they cared about Voice and cared about First Nations rights, that they're pushing through this bill, a result of which will be the destruction of tangible and intangible cultural heritage for the Tiwi Islands and for First Nations people across the north of this country. Within a month of losing the Voice referendum, they're ramming through legislation to literally tear up those spiritual connections to significant sites—to songlines, to totems and to ancient burial grounds. This is the same government, the Albanese government, that said they cared about a Voice, that they cared about First Nations peoples, and literally within a month they are ramming through destructive legislation to tear apart those songlines, those totems, and to destroy ancient burial grounds—all for $½ million in donations from Santos, and no doubt for the jobs that senior Labor staffers and broken, tired Labor ministers will get in the fossil fuel industry when they leave this place: $½ million for a board here, $200,000 for a board there, a $1 million exec job in the fossil fuel industry.

That's what we're facing here—the extended corrupting of democracy through the direct donations and through offers of jobs for broken Labor ministers, for failed backbenchers, for senior staffers, who'll get their cushy jobs in the fossil fuel industry, take the cash and hopefully retire and shuffle off before the fossil fuel industry totally fucks the planet. That's the plan here, from Labor. That's what they're proposing to ram through with their mates in the coalition today.

In '21-22 Santos drops $83,360 to the ALP. They'd seen a change in government, and they only put a $38,000 saving bet on the Nationals, with another 38 grand off to the Liberals. That's just in '21-22, and while they're handing this loose change from the fossil fuel industry off to the political parties, what are they giving the public? While Santos had more than $4 billion in revenue in '20-21, they paid not one cent in corporate tax—not one cent. Even when they cooked their investment figures and they skewed their capital expenditure and did every possible write-off that's been given to them under tax law—given to them by Labor, given to them by the coalition—no doubt to their horror, despite all of those write-offs they somehow had a $68 million profit. But they still managed to pay no tax, even on that: $4 billion in revenue, $68 million in profit, not one cent in tax. It's no doubt how they could afford to buy the Labor Party and buy the coalition. Of course, when it comes to carbon capture and storage, this is the long-term bullshit program of the fossil fuel industry.