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

There is no doubt that the PRRT is one of the great tax rorts of Australia's history. The PRRT is what happens when Labor and Liberal governments over many decades allow fossil fuel corporations to write their own tax codes. That's what happens. They make out like bandits, and all the while they are cooking our planet, rendering this planet uninhabitable for human life and destroying the ecological systems that ultimately sustain all life on this planet, including human life.

What has happened today is an absolute win for the planet, an absolute win for First Nations people, an absolute win for the environment movement, an absolute win for the climate movement and an absolute win for all Australians who support First Nations rights, protecting the environment and taking real climate action. The big losers are the gas cartels. I will tell you why. Today the Greens have killed off Labor's fast-tracking gas bill.

Let's be clear about what has happened. Santos, the big gas corporations, Labor and the Liberals wanted to collude to bypass First Nations voices and environmental protections so that they could fast-track more gas mines in the middle of a climate crisis and in the middle of ecological collapse. First Nations people, the environment movement and the climate movement, supported by the Greens in this place, fought back, and today we have had a great victory, because Labor's fast-tracked gas bill is now dead. It has been killed off by the Greens working together with so many Australians who do not support gas corporations having so much influence in this place and who do not support gas and other fossil fuel corporations—who are obscenely profiting while they are cooking the planet—being able to write their own laws in this parliament.

Labor's fast-tracked gas laws were designed by the gas corporations for the gas corporations. They gave the resources minister the power to approve more gas mines with the flick of a pen—right in the middle of a climate crisis. Labor not only tried to deliver that; they tried to hide that provision in the middle of laws that are otherwise very beneficial to workers in fossil fuel corporations.

The major parties may be able to be bought by their massive donors, bought by the highest bidder, but the Greens are not for sale. Our message today to the big gas corporations is we see you, we know what you're up to and you are on notice. You might control the Labor and Liberal parties, but you do not control the Australian Greens, you do not control First Nations people in Australia and you do not control the millions of Australians who form part of the environment movement and the conservation movement and who want to see genuine and real action on climate change.

Today we have used our leverage, our power, in this parliament. This is what happens when you put the Greens in the balance of power. When you elect Greens MPs into the House of Representatives, into lower house seats, and when you elect Greens into the Senate, we will fight for you. We will fight for the environment, we will fight for climate action and we will fight the big corporations who are cooking the planet and rampantly profiteering and price gouging. We will fight for you by creating leverage, like we did by blocking Labor's PRRT legislation right up until today, and using the leverage to kill off Labor's fast-tracked gas bill. We make no apology for using our power in this place. We make no apology for using the leverage that the Australian people gave to us when they elected us into the Senate and the House of Representatives. We make no apology for using that leverage provided to us by the millions of Australians who voted Green to deliver outcomes like the one we have today, which has killed off Labor's fast-track gas bill.