Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we approach the end of the parliamentary year, we have seen this week a government willing to do dodgy backroom deals to ram legislation through this place—legislation that is not in the best interests of the Australian people. In fact, there have been so many dodgy deals done this week that I suspect some of them have slipped under the radar of the Australian people, and so I'm going to highlight one of those today: the dodgy deal around the water trigger. Let's see what the major industry association in the gas space says about the water trigger. The Australian Energy Producers CEO, Samantha McCulloch, said:

The Australian government's rushed deal with the Greens to expand the water trigger creates unnecessary duplication and another barrier to unlocking new gas supply.

That's the trouble with this government. They are completely two faced on this issue. In Western Australia, the minister says, 'We love gas. Gas is good. We need new gas supplies. We need gas as part of our energy transition.' And then, over here, the Labor government does a dodgy deal with the Greens to put in more red tape and more barriers to onshore gas development to ensure that jurisdictions already under pressure with their energy systems face a higher risk of running out of gas.

So, on the one hand, in my home state of Western Australia, the minister says, 'The Labor government's in favour of gas.' But then, over here in Canberra, the dodgy deals get done. We all remember the Gillard government—33 bills guillotined in one day. I think this government is aspiring to do even better, and that's bad for the Australian public. (Time expired)