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

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the division of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill 2023, as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended that would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the division of a bill.

As all of us in this place know, Australians are getting totally dudded when it comes to the export of our gas. We're a gas powerhouse, exporting 75 per cent of the gas that we produce. In 2022 export revenue for LNG was close to $93 billion. That's more than double the federal government education budget for the same period. Yet not a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax was collected. Four major foreign gas producers—Exxon, Shell, INPEX and Chevron—have not paid a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax on the combined income of the nearly $300 billion that they've received from exporting our gas over the nine years to 2021-22.

The cost of this failure in our tax system is huge. Every dollar of tax avoided by the gas industry is a dollar not available to fund our understaffed and underpaid frontline services. It's a dollar that we can't put into having more GPs for Australians to access through Medicare. It's a dollar that doesn't go to nurses and teachers. Every dollar of tax avoided is a dollar not available to invest in decarbonising the economy with the urgency that is required. Every dollar of tax avoided is a dollar not available to adapt our homes, our food systems and our ecosystems, in a budget that had nothing for nature—absolutely nothing for the places that Australians love and want to see protected. We're told that the budget is tight and that we can't afford to look after the environment, yet we're willing to let these multinationals export our gas for free. It makes no sense, and I think most Australians would ask: What are our politicians doing about it? How do they change this? And then they find out that we've got this petroleum resource rent tax bill before the Senate. They think, 'Maybe that could get us more tax, as we've seen other countries do.'

Qatar exports about the same amount of gas as we do but collects 20 times more tax on gas than Australia. Norway has a taxation rate on gas of 78 per cent, nearly double the petroleum resource rent tax. The result is that they're now sitting on a sovereign wealth fund of $2.4 trillion. In 2023 the fund made a profit of $320 billion. We could be doing that for our resources; we could be getting a fair return for them. But we've got the major parties and now the Greens stitching up a deal to just move on with things: 'We don't care.'

The 90 per cent cap in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill does not even bring in additional revenue. It just brings forward payments that would have happened anyway. And it will bring forward only around $500 million a year. In 2022 that would have been around half a percent of the revenue earned on Australian gas. That seems really pitiful to me. That seems inadequate. I'm certainly hearing from the people I represent in the ACT that they want a better deal. We have huge challenges in front of us as a country, and this is revenue we could put to work to make Australians' lives better and set us up for the future.

PRRT receipts since the policy was announced have been revised down by $500 million. So you basically wipe out these really weak changes that are being proposed by the government. We in this place should have a duty of care for young people and future generations. We should be making decisions that are good for young people and future generations. And this change to the petroleum resource rent tax bill is not that. It doesn't uphold that duty to ensure that we are benefiting young people from our resources and from the burning of gas that we know will saddle them with many challenges through their lifetime.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is just a ridiculous motion. I'm sorry to say, Senator, that you have been wildly misled and are misleading in your comments, because, in the 2022-23 year, $1.85 billion was paid in PRRT. That's with a 'b', not an 'm'—$1.85 billion. That's still at a time when that is a lot of money. That's from the PRRT around the country. That's because the PRRT, if you understand it, is a delayed depreciation mechanism. If you don't explain the full tax system, then you are potentially leaving Australians not fully informed, and that has got to be one of our singular roles in this place.

We have seen a dirty deal between Labor and the Greens this afternoon, with their terrible guillotine measures, that is managing to throw the car industry and the gas industry under the bus. It is the lack of proper examination of legislation in this place that leads to senators not understanding the way the PRRT works and not understanding how the LNG system works.

This is a complete backflip on Labor's own strategy, because it was only a week ago that they announced a key tenet of the Future Gas Strategy, yet here we are, a week later—showing that you can't trust their word. You can't follow through on what Labor will say on gas last week and what they will say on gas today. The government is all talk on future manufacturing, future energy supply and future energy prices, but no action.

Today the Prime Minister and his cabinet have capitulated to noisy backbenchers and to the Greens. And it seems there is no Labor Minister for Resources any more. The deals that we're seeing this afternoon just confirm that Albanese has actually appointed Adam Bandt into the Labor cabinet as the resources minister. This is new news, I think, to most of Australia, handing the keys—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ciccone?

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy President, I'm always reluctant to interrupt senators' contributions in this place, but I do ask that you ask the good senator to address members of the other place, as well as members in this place, by their correct titles.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please be mindful of that, Senator McDonald.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much for that reminder. What has happened is that Prime Minister Albanese has appointed Mr Bandt, from the other house, into the Labor cabinet as the resources minister. Just to clarify that again, Minister King is no longer the Labor Minister for Resources. It is Mr Adam Bandt, a member of the other place, the Greens political party leader, who is now the Labor cabinet Minister for Resources, it seems. This is terrible for the gas industry, it is terrible for energy policy and it is terrible for the cost of living for Australians, because what Labor are doing today, by the dirty deal they have done with the Greens political party, means they will be voting for higher taxes, for more red tape, for slower approvals and for gas shortfalls.

This notion that Australia can just claw back the gas that it's exporting to its allies is shocking. Imagine the moment that we say to our close allies, 'Good news: we're going to turn your lights off because we can't keep ours on. Good news: those contracts that you were relying on are now not worth the paper they're written on.' Won't that be fantastic for our relationships in this geopolitical region that relies on Australia being a reliable source of gas, energy and minerals more broadly.

It's just one more nail in the coffin for investor confidence in this country. Over the last two years we've seen interventions in the gas market, price caps, the introduction of unreliable renewables with no firming plans, additional green tape, cultural heritage expansion and the introduction of a new EPA. We're seeing further delays on the very things that will see Australians have lower electricity prices, more jobs in this country—to keep some manufacturing jobs. You know when Sorbent, when toilet paper manufacturers, leave Australia, as they have—they have moved to Indonesia—that it is a bad day for Australians. That is exactly what is happening right now, unless we wake up and take control of our resources and bring more gas to the market.

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

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg, are you contributing on this? The minister has the priority, unfortunately for you.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did you say 'unfortunately'?

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No; it's unfortunate for him. You take the call.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought you meant, 'Unfortunately, the minister has priority.' I certainly won't take up the Senate's time, so Senator Bragg can make his contribution. I did want to stand and briefly put the government's position, which is that we don't support the suspension of standing orders and don't support the motion as a whole, which is being moved by Senator David Pocock. The Senate has already determined its program for this afternoon, with a number of votes having been held. I would say to Senator Pocock that, if he wants to see money come to the budget sooner than it otherwise would have, he should support the sensible and modest changes to the PRRT that are being brought forward. I accept there's a difference in view about whether it's too much or not enough and whether the arrangements are right, but the passage of this bill is a better way of raising more revenue to come to the budget to assist with budget repair and all the priorities that Senator Pocock outlined.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take the opportunity to speak to the bizarre situation we have, where this PRRT measure is bundled in with significant corporate governance reforms that have been flagged after the PwC scandal. This is a very consistent pattern. Minister Jones, who is notionally the minister for corporate governance in the government, seems to have some role in this particular bill. Often his bills, which are tax bills or bills on matters related to corporate governance, are introduced by Dr Leigh, though sometimes they are not. It is a bizarre way to treat a very serious reform package that I think everyone accepts is important.

There's been good work done on the PwC matter by Senators Pocock, O'Neill and Colbeck. To bundle it up with a PRRT measure seems very strange and is quite poor governance in and of itself. But the Labor government's commitment here to parliamentary scrutiny and governance of all these matters is strange. Either there is a deliberate judgement made in the executive to have a covering-up of information that should be publicly available, or there is a Treasury official drafting all the bills and the ministers are not paying any attention to detail. This is another of three or four attempts in the past few months in which corporate governance and financial services bills have had major deficiencies. We know this because of the detailed scrutiny that the Senate Standing Committees on Economics undertake, where the non-government senators work to look at the government's efforts on legislation. I have to say that it's been pretty ordinary. Only in the last few weeks the coalition and the Greens had to issue dissenting reports to tell the government its judgement to remove the parliamentary scrutiny in proposed changes to ASX ownership are to be rejected. That's because we believe that parliamentary oversight is a good thing. If there is to be a change in the ownership of something like the Australian Securities Exchange, then it should be subject to a disallowance. Similarly, the government is proposing to issue the Reserve Bank with enormous payments powers. I believe that, from a geopolitical and an economic perspective, payments policies will be very significant judgements in the coming years. The government's view is: 'We're not going to give any of these things to the parliament. This is all going to be outsourced and delegated to the central bank.' The central bank can effectively make laws without any parliamentary oversight or any capacity for the parliament to disallow an instrument.

All you have to do is read the Economist from the last few weeks and you'll see there is a massive proliferation of payments systems around the globe. The Labor government's position is: 'That is not a matter for us. That is going to be a matter for the central bank.' It is the delegation of authority to agencies which is fundamentally undemocratic. That's why I want to put on the record the work that the coalition has done with the Greens, particularly Senator McKim, to highlight the government's commitment to covering up and neutering this parliament from having its proper role as a house of review.

The ASX ownership, this bizarre meshing of issues in this bill and the payments policy matter are all instances of poor governance and either appalling drafting or a deliberate judgement made by the Treasury ministers. We imagine it's Minister Jones; we're not sure what he's doing. It is to be called out, and I appreciate the opportunity to put these remarks on the record.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the suspension order moved by Senator David Pocock be agreed to.