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

Australians want the extraordinary places and species that make this continent so unique to be protected and looked after. They want a government that makes decisions as if we are here for a long time—decisions that will protect the climate and environment that we're handing on to our children and future generations of Australians. They want a government that actually recognises that we're part of nature and that, if nature goes down, we're going down with her.

Burrup Hub is an opportunity for the government to show young people that it cares enough to avoid doing damage to the world in which they will grow up. If approved, the Burrup Hub gas project would be the largest fossil fuel project in Australia. Let's just think about that for a moment. It's 2024. We're being warned about the climate that we are moving into. It is unprecedented territory for humans. Yet we have the Labor government not acting in line with the science, and then we have the coalition continuing with this mantra of more fossil fuels at any expense. We're talking about 6.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, roughly 13 times Australia's annual emissions. That's 30 times the total savings made by the safeguard mechanism that Labor love pointing to as their signature climate policy, and it poses unacceptable risks to the incredible Kimberley Coast and the more than 1,500 species that call it home, including many endangered species that we've heard about during this debate.

This project would be nothing short of a gas led destruction of pristine ecosystems. And for what? We're not even getting a fair return on our gas. The major parties are happy just to ship this overseas: 'Don't worry about paying royalties or petroleum resource rent tax. Here's our gas for free. Ship it off and make record profits.' For what? What are we doing? This is total insanity. Around half of our gas is sold without royalties, and, last time I checked with Treasury, there was yet to be a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax paid on LNG exports. As a result, over the last four years, multinational companies made $149 billion exporting gas they got for free, with no royalties and no petroleum resource rent tax. We should all hang our heads in shame. It is outrageous.

This is what state capture looks like. You don't have to look it up in the dictionary; just look at the major parties in Australia selling our futures away basically for nothing, for a few political donations, or because of a few threats of a campaign if they dare to tax gas companies and get a return on our gas. The Minister for the Environment and Water should be standing up and putting an end to the disastrous proposal before the next election. Australians deserve to know what Labor's position is on this. We've seen them kicking any hard thing beyond the next election. 'Small target' may have got you elected, but I don't think it's going to get you re-elected in a majority. Australians want to see some courage. They want to see you stand up for our future and stand up to the gas companies that have been totally dudding us.

Not long after I was elected to the Senate, a Western Australian sent me a book in the mail: Trillion Dollar Baby: How Norway Beat the Oil Giants and Won a Lasting Fortune by Paul Cleary. It would be fascinating reading for any parliamentarian interested in what you could actually do with our resources, our wealth. It belongs to Australians, but we currently have major parties who not only are willing to approve fossil fuel projects in a climate crisis and sell our future away but are willing to give our gas away basically for free. We can do so much better than this. I would urge the major parties to have a think about what they're actually doing. Who are you here to represent, people or gas companies? (Time expired)