Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As my colleague Senator Pocock has just stated to the chamber, this proposal—the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023—goes in precisely the wrong direction at precisely the wrong time for all of the wrong reasons. Through the course of this debate, what you have heard from each and every Greens contributor is a factually based, impassioned and detailed critique of this legislation from MPs who were sent to this place to defend the planet and the environment from the clutches and maladministration of parties which have been captured by fossil fuel interests in this country.

Senator Pocock spoke of the way in which South Australia is so often used and proposed for the dumping of poisons and types of waste that politicians elsewhere don't want to have in their back garden. That's very much the case also for the state of Western Australia. The state of Western Australia also has a really good knowledge of the absolute con which is carbon capture and storage. The Chevron Gorgon experiment illustrates to the world the moribund nature of this technology. In some ways, I sit here as one of the younger members in this chamber, still attempting, at times, to grapple with the reality that folks far older than me have been able to be convinced that you should get on board with a technology that is the embodiment of a cautionary tale that is given to kindergartners and primary school children. Primary school children are told, 'Don't sweep your problems under the rug,' and yet, as a technology, that's exactly what carbon capture and storage is. It sweeps emissions—or attempts to sweep emissions—under the rug. But it can't even do that properly, and yet we have spent decades in Australia investing billions of dollars of public funds into these proposals.

People following along with this debate this afternoon would be wondering, I'm sure, why it is that we would do that. Why would we invest billions of dollars of public funds in a technology that doesn't work and basically flies in the face of a principle that we learn as children? Well, despite what it often may look like when you look into this space, I would put it to the community that the reason for that isn't actually that the vast majority of people in here are ignorant or unintelligent people. It certainly often appears that way, but that's not been my experience of talking and working with many of the people elected to this place. It's not a question of intelligence or access to information. What we see playing out before us is state capture. These decisions are made because the parties that make them in this place are bought by the corporations whom those decisions financially benefit. That is why we end up with these pieces of legislation. That is why we waste the precious time of the people and the planet on proposals like this. Then you might ask yourself, 'Well, what does it cost to buy an outcome like this from a legislative chamber like the Australian parliament? What is the price tag for the Labor and the Liberal parties in this place?' We do have some figures. We have some disclosed pieces of information around how much has been donated, so I'm able to share, as Senator Pocock has shared, as others have shared today, that in 2021-22 Santos, which stands to be the primary beneficiary of this project alongside the Japanese government, donated to the ALP some $83,000 then followed it up with $38,000 to the Liberal Party and $32,000 to the Nationals. It would be sad to be a National. I mean, you people come in here and you basically cosplay as rural Australians. You've never seen a gas project you didn't want to approve yet all you get is $32,000. You must feel robbed. The National party must feel absolutely robbed.

Santos—it is hilarious to observe this—paid no tax on its $68 million in taxable income off more than $4 billion in revenue in 2021. I wonder who writes the tax code that lets them do that? Who writes that? Is it the same politicians that take those donations? I think it might be. What a shock. What a stunning surprise. So you have, on one hand, this corporation able to make $4 billion worth of revenue, pay no tax, and, on the other hand, be able to go through a process of approval for a project based on worming its way around Australia's climate policies using a defunct technology. Well, you wonder why people think that this place is rigged. You wonder why people think that this place is bought. This is precisely why.

We are heading into a fire season, folks. We're already in one in WA. As I flew out of Western Australia to come here, our state was burning. Volunteer firefighters were fighting along multiple fire fronts. The climate crisis is a reality for the people of Western Australia, as it is a reality for the people of South Australia, as it is a reality for the people of Queensland and for the people of Tasmania. Yet what do we see? We see no declaration of climate emergency from this government, no opposition to projects like this. We see an environment minister who really loves to approve coalmines. We see legislation like this passing through this place to approve more dirty fossil-fuel-heavy projects, trying to game the system, putting hope in a technology that, in terms of emissions reduction, does not work, on the bidding of a company that will make so much money out of this project. And it will do so, by the way, via a tax system that allows it to make the primary profit off what should be treated, if it were ever extracted as sold, as a public resource. It's a joke yet it has such serious consequences for people.

Senator Pocock and Senator Hanson-Young see first-hand what the climate crisis is doing to South Australia, is doing to the koalas, is doing to the biodiversity of that great state. I see it first-hand in Western Australia. We are losing precious species that we will never get back. We are losing biodiversity that we will never get back on this precious, ancient continent that we are so lucky to inhabit and share together, gifted to us to guide, stewarded by First Nations people for tens of thousands of years, yet this government and the opposition are determined to oversee its destruction for the sake of a few donations. It makes you sick.