Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What we do know is that it is being touted by the fossil fuel industry and by government ministers themselves that this bill will facilitate and impact $30 billion of investment into the fossil fuel industry—the expansion of gas, in particular; $30 billion worth of investment: that's what the government and the coalition are hearing from their fossil fuel mates. You are risking $30 billion worth of expansion of the very toxic pollution that is driving the climate crisis.

What we saw last week and what we've seen again this morning is something we don't often see in this place. We're witnessing how the sausage is made. The pressure comes from the fossil fuel industry. They're not getting the bill through the Senate as quickly as they want. They call the minister. The minister writes a letter to her federal counterpart—Minister King, writing to her counterpart, Senator Susan McDonald—putting pressure on. Then we have the Leader of the Opposition standing up and saying, 'Well, if you want us to pass this piece of legislation, you need to give us an inquiry that is going to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry to destroy the renewables sector.' That's how the sausage is made, folks. And it's been nakedly described and exposed here in this chamber on this piece of legislation.

Then, just to chase it up, there were the news articles over the weekend describing the pressure that the fossil fuel companies are placing on members of the coalition, with the support of members of the government, to get this legislation through, because $30 billion of their profits and their will to expand the industry and keep cooking the planet is at risk. Well, I'm glad it's at risk, because we have to start taking the climate crisis seriously. Rather than coming into this place and debating how we're going to reduce pollution, what we're going to do to stop expanding coal and gas and what we're going to do to stop the climate fires from taking rage over summer, we've got the political games of who's best mates with who in the fossil fuel industry going on in here. That's what we saw from Senator Wong during question time on Friday: 'I'm better friends with them, not you!' That is effectively what Minister Wong said across the table to Senator Birmingham: 'They like us better. You can't sit with us at lunchtime unless you give us your sandwich!' It's pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

But let's be clear: this is how the sausage is made. And when political donations are at play, when the cash goes out from Santos or Woodside or the gas company, the gas cartel, they expect something. They were pretty annoyed last week they didn't get what they were told they would get. I come back to it: Is this the Senate chamber or the Santos chamber? Are we here to implement laws for the Australian people or laws for the gas and coal cartel? What about the influence and the pressure that are being put on our democracy, our chamber of democracy here in the Senate, by the Korean and the Japanese governments? Hang on a minute—why are we skipping and jumping and being expected to ram through pieces of legislation because a foreign government wants us to? We had the foreign minister stand in this place and say, 'Well, we should be getting this done now because Japan wants it. Korea wants it.' Well, I'm sorry, this is the Australian parliament and we are Australian senators, and this is about our environment and about the responsibilities we have to our own people and to the planet. Of course, this all happened with the backdrop of the Prime Minister at the Pacific islands forum last week, where Pacific island nations were asking the Australian government to do the exact opposite, to not expand fossil fuels, to not make the climate crisis worse, which is driving sea-level rise and putting their very lives, livelihoods and homes at risk. Well, we didn't see legislation being rammed through this place to help the Pacific island nations. No. It just happened to be that what Japan and Korea want is what Santos wants, what Woodside wants and what APIA—the gas cartel lobby group—wants.

This is the Australian Senate. Our job is to scrutinise legislation and to do what is in the best interests of Australians. I don't think anyone can mount an argument that facilitating the expansion of the gas industry to allow the dumping of toxic carbon pollution in the sea bed under the ocean is going to be good for the Australian people. It's not good for the environment and it's not good for our climate. You just have to read between the lines. It's not the environment minister writing to her counterpart, begging for this bill to be passed. It's the Minister for Resources who has been writing to the opposition asking for this bill to be passed.

However, this is a piece of legislation brought in under the name of the environment minister. It is a hoax to suggest that this has anything to do with protecting the environment. The environment minister herself knows it. The resources minister knows it. The foreign affairs minister knows it. Every member of the government front bench knows that this has nothing to do with taking action on climate change, nothing to do with protecting the environment and all to do with protecting the profits the Santos, Woodside and the gas cartel.