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

The Future Gas Strategy is nothing more than reheated Morrison government policy. It is so embarrassing that the Labor government would put this forward in 2024. It is a betrayal of Australians—a betrayal of young people and their futures—and it builds on the myths that we hear about gas. The first myth is that we're running out of gas. We're not. We export around 75 per cent of our gas. To liquify that gas takes twice as much gas as every household in the country consumes. If the major parties are serious about avoiding a gas shortage, let's legislate a domestic reservation policy. Let's do that tomorrow. This is the political will that's been missing. This is what happens when you have state capture by the gas industry of the Labor Party and the Liberal and National parties.

The second myth is that gas is important because gas companies make a large contribution to revenue. This is wrong again. In 2022, export revenue for LNG was close to A$93 billion. That's more than double the federal government education budget for the same period, and yet not a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax was paid. 'Company tax,' you hear them say. Australian nurses paid three times as much tax as the gas industry in that year, and the government knows that. They know this. That is why the Treasurer, despite the Future Gas Strategy, didn't mention gas once in the budget. They know this is a betrayal. They know this is betrayal of Australians and of the Great Barrier Reef. At two degrees, the Great Barrier Reef dies—99 per cent of it according to the government. More fossil fuels leads to two degrees. We need to stop this.