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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Treasurer (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to taxation.

I have to say the gas cartel is laughing all the way to the bank, and the gas corporations are playing the major parties in this place like absolute fiddles. Not only have the gas corporations massively increased their profits in the last few years, but they have also done so while paying an absolute pittance in tax. They are helping cook the planet and they are making off like bandits. Having realised just how much these corporations have been taking the Australian people and taxpayers for a ride, the former government belatedly called a review into the broken petroleum resource rent tax, one of the biggest rorts that has ever been passed through this parliament.

After years of work, Treasury then came up with two options that would at least go some way towards making the big gas corporations pay their fair share of tax. Then, they put those two options to the gas cartel, and what did the cabal say? They said, 'Out of those two options, we will have option 3, thanks.' It's an entirely new option that Treasury hadn't come up with. It was written by the gas cartel, and we know that 15 gas corporations and peak bodies for the fossil fuel sector had to sign non-disclosure agreements to be part of the design process around this reform. How many community groups and environment groups and climate groups were invited in? That's right, a big fat zero. It's not the people that get to design the tax laws in this country; it's the gas cartel that gets to design its own tax laws.

It is as clear as day that the gas cartel thinks that it runs this government, and given its massive political donations it's not hard to understand why. The biggest fossil fuel donor in the country is Woodside. They deliver over $100,000 annually each and every year into the coffers of the Labor Party, and then the Labor Party rolls over and lets Woodside tickle its tummy, to the extent that the North West Shelf project is completely carved out and exempted from this proposal.

What the Greens have done is go to Senator Pocock, Senator Tyrrell and Senator Lambie and propose that they join with us in offering passage of the government's legislation with one key difference. To their credit, Senator Pocock, Senator Lambie and Senator Tyrrell have agreed to join with the Australian Greens, which means that the numbers are there in both houses of this parliament to pass the government's budget measure, as long as the government agrees to double the revenue take from this measure—that means to double the hit on the gas corporations.

We already know that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, has offered to pass the government's budget measure if the government agrees to weaken environmental protections for gas projects, so the choice for the government now is stark and abundantly clear. Is the government going to work with the Greens and the crossbench to double the revenues that it can hit up the gas corporations for, or is it going to do a dirty deal with Mr Dutton and the opposition at the behest of the gas cartel? It's an extremely clear choice that the government has.

I want the government to do the right thing by the Australian people and by the planet. I want them to work with the Greens and the crossbench and accept our constructive proposal, which will go some way towards making sure that the Australian people get a decent return for the gas which is being extracted from our sovereign country and mostly exported overseas to fatten the profits of the gas corporations. That's what we want the Labor Party to do. The choice the Labor Party has is abundantly clear: work with the Greens and the crossbench to make the gas corporations pay something approaching a fair share of tax, so we can help people through the cost-of-living crisis, or do a dirty deal with the LNP and the gas cartel to weaken environmental regulations on the gas industry.

Question agreed to.