Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Australia's offshore oil and gas is being given away for free, earning the federal government the wooden spoon, for its collection of revenue from oil and gas production.

The 150% exploration rebate introduced by the Howard government in 2004 and the 18% uplift on expenses has delivered a handful of companies $325 billion dollars in tax credits ensuring Australia will never be paid for oil and gas taken from the north west shelf.

Not only will these multinational companies have enough tax credits to never pay any income tax in Australia, but minimum wage workers will pay for all the government services on which these companies rely on to operate.

Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips are integrated oil and gas companies which means they engage in exploration, production, refinement and distribution of oil and gas. These companies started new businesses in Australia and consequently their investments have never been subject to government approval under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 or FATA.

Public servants and government Ministers have been comprehensively outwitted by foreign owned multinational oil and gas companies. These companies are like chess players who that play often, and usually win against opponents who have never played.

The government will not admit we have a problem. Well I am here to tell you there is a problem, when a handful of foreign companies can export $50 billion dollars of gas a year and we get $200 million.

The legal theft of our oil and gas needs to stop.

Today I am proposing the first step of what will be many steps towards Australian's benefitting from their vast reserves of offshore oil and gas. It is a baby step, but it is a move in the right direction.

If the government cannot support this Bill, then the people of Australia will know that the government has lost the will to collect payment for our offshore oil and gas taken from the north-west shelf off the coast of Western Australia.

If this Bill fails to gain government support the people of Australia should vote this government out at the next election and vote for a party willing to act in their interests.

My Bill proposes to add an object clause to section 3 of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 or OPGGS, to ensure every part of this very important law is interpreted with the good of the Australian community in mind.

OPGGS establishes the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator or NOPTA, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority NOPSEMA and the Joint Authorities.

This new object clause I propose is a statement of the obvious, but what is obvious to most Australians' is not obvious to NOPTA and NOPSEMA or the Minister for Resources. We need all decisions to be made with the good of the Australian community in mind.

If this object clause passes into legislation, then 30-year-old oil and gas leases with proven and probable status currently being hoarded by multinational gas giants will become available for development.

If this object clause passes into legislation then the next floating liquefied natural gas platform (FLNG), like Shell's FLNG Prelude will have a domestic gas reserve condition placed on it, because the choice of an offshore rather than onshore processing and storing facility avoids the domestic gas policy in Western Australia.

It is a tragedy that the government and Labor have not reached a bipartisan position on dealing with multinational oil and gas companies in Australia.

Who would have thought it could be so hard? These foreign companies do not vote, they do not pay corporate income- tax and they employ small numbers of people over the life of the fields. The two big parties have the same policy on immigration, climate change, free trade agreements and funding the United Nations so what stops them uniting to get payment for our oil and gas?

I hope in the debate to follow the two big parties can justify the gift of billions of dollars to multinationals, money that should have gone to education, hospitals and raising the pension.

I now want to turn back the clock to the 23rd of April 2001 when Peter Costello, then Treasurer, announced he would block Royal Dutch Shell's bid to increase its shareholding in Woodside Petroleum Ltd from 34% to 56%. All the commentators said the decision by the Treasurer would reduce future foreign investment, but they were dead wrong.

They were wrong, because Australia has abundant conventional gas close to the markets, the most ineffective gas laws in the world and a foreign investment regime which did not capture integrated oil and gas companies.

Following the decision to block Royal Dutch Shell's bid, multinational gas giants invested $200 billion dollars in integrated oil and gas projects, which were not subject to foreign investment review.

Today these integrated oil and gas projects earn foreign owned multinationals $50 billion dollars a year in export earnings. I understand these export dollars are not profit, but these exports are profitable, because gas giants do not pay for the gas taken from Commonwealth waters. They also do not pay income tax on the profits made selling the gas.

These same companies are sitting on known gas reserve licenses so they can stop others from using them.

Shortly after I became a Senator, I asked the Reserve Bank 'how Australia benefits from the dominance of foreign owned multinational oil and gas companies.' They told me integrated gas projects had done a lot for the measures of investment, and GDP but little for jobs.

Chevron is the largest single investor in Australia, having spent about $80 billion dollars on developing its Gorgon and Wheatstone project. Most of this money was not actually spent in Australia because it involved undersea substructures made off-shore. Once the construction phase ended, very few people were employed in the following 40 years in oil and gas production. In the case of the Gorgon Project, about 350 people are employed directly or indirectly.

Helpfully the Reserve Bank suggested the way Australians could benefit from trillions of dollars of Australian owned natural gas off the coast of Western Australia was to either find a job in the sector or buy shares in these companies. If Australians must buy shares in Chevron to benefit from Australian oil and gas, then the government has comprehensively failed Australians.

Australia is now the only large gas producer in the world, where the international price of gas is lower than the domestic price. How did this happen? It is the result of the weakest gas laws in the world and a failure to implement a domestic gas reserve policy.

The government established an Inquiry into the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax in 2016, but none of the recommendations made by the Callaghan PRRT Review have been implemented. Why?

The government agreed to investor-state dispute resolution provisions in free trade agreements and now fears being dragged to an international tribunal by one or more of the gas giants claiming a change to the law is cause for compensation to be paid to them.

It is very frustrating the government lacks the spine to stand up for Australians.

If this modest object clause finds its way into law, then the gas cartel will hot foot it to their lawyers.

In 2011 Philip Morris took the government to a foreign tribunal claiming compensation in connection with tobacco plain packaging laws but we cannot live in fear of multinationals if we are to determine our own future.

The Productivity Commission told the government to avoid investor-state dispute settlement provisions in free trade agreements(1) but the government rejected the advice accepting ISDS provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP-11. Foolishly the government did not follow New Zealand and exclude these provisions by way of side letters.

In 2018, One Nation voted against the enabling legislation for TPP-11, but our votes made no difference because Labor voted with the government

Instead of fixing weak laws which damage the Australian economy, the government finds itself pinned to the ground by multinationals, whose knees are pressed on the government's neck.

In this position of weakness, the government has decided not to take on the West Coast gas cartel, but instead divert attention by proposing a gas led strategy based on new gas production in Queensland.

This strategy involves the government sponsored mining in prime agricultural land, guaranteeing new production through take or pay multi-year contracts and lumping East Coast gas users with high prices.

With gas demand falling since 2014 it is inevitable taxpayers of the future will pay for gas, whether it is or is not needed- just , as the Northern Territory pays for gas it does not need from the Blacktip project.

One Nation's Senators are frustrated they cannot remove ISDS provisions from trade agreements nor can we introduce legislation to change gas tax laws, because all tax Bills must be introduced in the House of Representatives.

What we can do is propose the first step in the path to fair payment for our oil and gas reserves.

Failure to support this Bill will mean both the government and Labor have sold out future generations while saddling them with paying off the COVID debts.

I recommend the Bill to the Senate.

(1)Productivity Commission Trade and Assistance Review 2014-15. Box 4.1 p.49

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.