David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I would maybe be tempted to believe you if the government were actually willing to rule out this legislation being used to expand the fossil fuel industry. I am so sick and tired of the major parties pointing at Independents and minor parties and saying, 'There are some in this chamber that may disagree with this, but in the real world ...' It's not us; it's climate scientists, it's experts and it's most people in the community. You wonder why the major parties' votes are tanking. It's because you've got a unity ticket on not taking climate action. You talk about futures, the Pacific and development. It's so disingenuous. You cannot talk about transition at the same time as having legislation that could potentially expand the fossil fuel industry—and you won't even rule that out.

You want to talk about all the other stuff—the experimental stuff, the London protocol, harmonisation, ratifying this or that protocol and all this stuff—but you won't rule out this being used to expand the fossil fuel industry. And you want to talk about the future.

There's our future up there: the young people up there in the gallery. And what are we doing in this place? We are debating legislation that will allow projects like Barossa to go ahead, the dirtiest offshore gas project in Australia's history. We've never considered exploiting gas with that much CO2 before, but ha! Here's a solution! Just allow Santos to pump this CO2 down, and hopefully they can collect enough of it, and she'll be right!

Look what happened with Gorgon. That project was approved on the basis that they would capture 80 per cent of their CO2, and they've just vented most of it. I'll find the figures, but maybe they sequestered 1.6 million tonnes and have vented 3.4 million tonnes. And this is what we're doing to young people's futures. We've got major parties in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. They'll forever deny it, but what other explanation are we meant go with when you're making decisions that aren't based on common sense, aren't based on what scientists are telling us, aren't based on what most Australians want, which is a liveable future, security for their family, being able to enjoy this incredible continent. We have ecosystems on the brink here in Australia. The Great Barrier Reef is struggling, yet you continue to dance around this legislation, talking about how this isn't really about expanding the fossil fuel industry, but you won't rule that out. It's extraordinary, and more Australians need to know what's going on here.

You've got the coalition who won't vote for anything—show me anything that they'll vote for—but legislation that potentially expands the fossil fuel industry is something that they'll get behind. They sit there quietly. I think Senator Duniam is maybe the only person to have spoken on this bill, as the shadow environment spokesperson. The coalition is quiet. Meanwhile, we have the Labor government trying to explain away this in nice terms, make it sound good. This bill stinks. You won't find too many people who know about where we are in terms of the climate crisis and what a transition actually looks like. A transition looks like moving away from fossil fuels, not expanding the fossil fuel industry.

For the young people up there, the government has this bill which does a whole bunch of things, and one of the things it could do is allow new gas projects to go ahead, because someone like Santos can pipe their CO2 under the ocean to a neighbouring country maybe, hopefully. That's off our books then. Santos can deal with their scope 1 and 2 emissions and send their gas overseas. One of the other things—and I know this is something that the entire crossbench is united on. Yesterday we heard the minister talk about the benefits of the gas industry to Australia. I would like to know—this is my question, and it's taken five minutes to get here: how much petroleum resource rent tax have Australians received from offshore LNG production to date?