Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have circulated an amendment to the motion before the Senate, and I move that amendment:

At the end of the motion, add: "and:

(a) the provisions of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 May 2024; and

(b) the Financial Framework (Supplementary Powers) Amendment Bill 2024 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 14 March 2024".

I want to speak very briefly to part (a) of the Greens' amendment, as to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024. That is an extremely benign-sounding piece of legislation, but what that legislation does is anything but benign. This is a desperate last-minute attempt by Labor to allow the minister to bypass environmental law when approving new offshore gas projects.

And why is Labor doing this? It's because they are run by the gas cartel in this country, and this is the big corporate gas giants of Australia reaching their power and influence into the heart of our democracy. I predict, very confidently, that the Labor and Liberal parties in this place will collude to vote down the Greens' amendment, and that is, of course, because the gas cartel donates massively to both the Labor and Liberal parties, and we all know that corporations do not give political donations for nothing. This is the institutionalised bribery of Australia's politics. Corporations don't give those massive multimillion-dollar donations for nothing. They expect outcomes. And you know what? Outcomes are exactly what they're going to get today, because the Greens' attempt to have this dangerous bill that erodes environmental protection for offshore gas projects in this country subject to a proper and rigorous scrutiny by a Senate inquiry is going to be voted down by the Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics today.

The changes contained in this legislation are undemocratic and they are dangerous. The planet is literally cooking, folks, and it is nothing short of a disgrace that the major parties in this place, in the middle of the climate of the earth breaking down around us, are still doing the bidding of the psychopaths who run the gas corporations in this country that are cooking the planet. It is an utter disgrace and shows that our democratic system is completely and utterly broken, and one of the things that is breaking our democratic system every day is the use of institutionalised bribery of political donations.

The changes in this legislation effectively hand the resources minister broad-ranging powers to reduce environmental protection and reduce consultation obligations, with no oversight from the environment minister. Now, the pro-gas expansion amendments to this largely unrelated bill about protecting workers' rights have been delivered by the Labor Party operating on behalf of the gas cartel. This, of course, sets Minister King on a collision course with environment minister Plibersek, who has promised to fix Australia's broken environment protection laws. Where are those reforms? We are entitled to ask—they are well overdue, and it's about time we started putting on the record that we are heading towards a massive broken promise from environment minister Plibersek and the Labor Party, who went to the last election pledging to fix EPBC and to date have done precisely nothing to do that.

Of course, this is all about the gas cartel. This is all about the Liberal Party and the Labor Party delivering for their political donors. This is all about the giant gas corporations who are cooking this planet, breaking our democratic system and getting outcomes for the political donations that they made. Senator Chisholm knows that, because he has come from the gas sector. Senator Duniam knows that. We all know what's going on here. The fix is in, ladies and gentlemen, and in a minute, after my colleague Senator Cox makes a contribution to this debate, we are going to see proof positive that it is actually the gas cartel that runs this chamber, not the Labor or Liberal parties.