Matters of Urgency — Gas Industry: Taxation

Slade Brockman

Senator McKim has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It is shown at item 12 of today's Order of Business:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to place a moratorium on meetings with representatives of the gas industry and their lobbyists for the duration of the public debate on the taxation of gas exports, revoke sponsored parliamentary passes held by such representatives, and immediately disclose all meetings held between Government Ministers and representatives of the gas industry or their lobbyists over the previous 12 months."

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Steph Hodgins-May

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to place a moratorium on meetings with representatives of the gas industry and their lobbyists for the duration of the public debate on the taxation of gas exports, revoke sponsored parliamentary passes held by such representatives, and immediately disclose all meetings held between Government Ministers and representatives of the gas industry or their lobbyists over the previous 12 months.

The corporate parties have given the gas lobby free run in this building for far too long, and the Greens are saying time is up. Australians have a simple message for the Albanese government: stop the great Australian gas rip-off and make corporations pay what they owe. During our Greens led gas tax inquiry, we heard it over and over again from Shell, INPEX, AEP, Woodside—different logos, same script: 'The PRRT is working. Now isn't the time for more taxes. Don't change the system.' Of course it's working for them. It is delivering exactly what it was designed to deliver: billions in profits for multinational gas corporations and next to nothing for the Australian people whose resources they are selling. Now, we have the receipts.

New analysis from InfluenceMap confirmed what we all suspected—every gas company and industry association that appeared before the inquiry opposed reform using the same talking points, the same scare campaigns and the same script: 'We can't tax gas properly because of energy security. We can't tax gas properly because of our trading partners. We can't tax gas properly because the sky might fall in.' The gas lobby came to parliament prepared with a script, and the government and Albanese repeated it word for word. Every time Australians demand reform, the gas lobby leans in and Labor rolls over.

What's perhaps most extraordinary is the access that these companies enjoy. While ordinary Australians struggle to get a meeting with their local rep, gas executives walk the halls of parliament like they own the place. Believe me, they do think they own this place. Freedom-of-information documents obtained by the Australian Conservation Foundation revealed almost 200 text messages between Woodside and senior government officials while conditions on the North West Shelf Project extension were being negotiated. One Woodside representative asked, 'Any chance we can see the final conditions as put to the minister?' Imagine the entitlement. It's not 'do the conditions protect the environment?', not 'do they protect cultural heritage?', just 'do they work for Woodside?' and 'do they protect our profit margins?'. Then, after months of negotiations, came the message from the government—'Thanks. We got there.' Those three words that tell Australians everything they need to know.

At budget estimates, I repeatedly asked about meetings between ministers and gas industry representatives during the gas tax debate. Nobody could tell me. Nobody could disclose to me whom met whom. Nobody could even tell Australians whether gas companies attended Labor's $5,500 a head budget night fundraiser.

All of this matters because another major decision is looming. Right now, Woodside lobbyists are roaming the halls of parliament trying to win support for the Browse Gas Project, a project we do not need for domestic supply, a project that only stacks up if those gas corporations keep getting Australia's gas for cheap. The Prime Minister dismisses the calls for a gas tax as a slogan. It is not a slogan, mate. It is a groundswell. Australians can see the billions of dollars of profit flowing offshore. They can see the corporations get rich, and they can see how little comes back when they're struggling with the cost of living.

That's why we need to ban gas lobbyists from this place. If you want to break the cosy relationship between Labor and the gas industry, we need to lock these bastards out. We need to ban the secret meetings. We need to revoke their sponsored parliamentary passes.

Slade Brockman

Senator Hodgins-May—

Steph Hodgins-May

I withdraw. Buggers. Revoke their sponsored parliamentary passes. Publish the ministerial diaries. Let Australians see who's really calling the shots in this place.

Today, Labor and the other corporate parties have a choice. Do they stand with the Australians demanding a fair share and a fair return for publicly owned resources, or do they keep taking orders from mates in the gas lobby? If Labor won't tell Australians who's influencing them, maybe they should save everyone the trouble and wear the logos of their gas industry sponsors around Parliament House. The Fremantle Dockers wear Woodside's logos, so why doesn't Labor? Honestly, wear the logos. Tell the Australian people who you're working for because it's sure as hell not us. People are outraged. We demand a ban on gas lobbyists in this place and their dirty influence because Australians deserve a tax on our gas exports and they deserve to reap the benefits of our resources and the sale of those.

Susan McDonald

I'm amazed that now the Greens greatest idea is stopping democracy, stopping letting people engage with the political process. I mean, what's next? Are we going to ban nurses and unions from engaging in political discussion? You cannot block a sector in the middle of a significant discussion about public policy. It is clear that years of intervention by the Labor government has created problems in the Australian gas market, but the solution from the Greens to stop engagement is, I think, extraordinary. What they now propose is that the market's problems should be left to bureaucrats, not to the people who are actually elected to make decisions. That is our very role in this place, to be listening but most importantly accountable to Australians. Every sector should have the ability to come to parliament to raise concerns about policy and about impact, with their local member or with their senator. But it is not up to any political party, particularly the Greens political party, to block one sector due to ideological reasons.

The interventions that Labor has made over the last few years have made our gas market more complex, more confusing and less secure. Instead, we're going to see the collapse of domestic gas producers, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales, in the places where we absolutely need this gas. But, instead, we have investors worried, we have the stock market for those companies very, very damaged, and we now have the spot market trading at $6 and less. That means that the result of Labor's policy will actually be to invest more power into LNG exporters and to cruel and cripple domestic players who are the ones who are most capable of solving this problem, particularly those in offshore Victorian waters who have the infrastructure that's necessary to supply. Labor has systematically undermined our gas market through repeated interventions, anti-gas rhetoric from senior cabinet ministers and its general disregard for the billions of dollars of capital needed for gas companies to make investment decisions in Australia. So, while Labor are claiming that they are pursuing cost-of-living relief, the reality is that taxpayers will be forced to come in and bail out investment in the gas industry after the payout of these policies comes to fruition.

Last week, I went to Norway because I wanted to see for myself what the impact of those tax policies is on the Norwegian gas market. People there were completely horrified to hear of the proposals of the Albanese Labor government for a domestic gas reservation or the Greens political party proposals for gas tax increases in the middle of an investment cycle. They were appalled and surprised that they were being held up as the example. We are seeing concerns from local businesses about the sugar hit that this gas reservation will provide to the domestic gas market and then the wasteland that we will see in Australia for gas in the places where we need it.

Of course, we need to be clear that this is an agenda being run by anti-gas and anti-fossil-fuel activists and lobbyists. Whilst the Greens would like to see the gas sector have their passes pulled, how about they pull the passes from their mates in the Australia Institute, Punter's Politics, IEFA and other people who shamelessly have an agenda to stop fossil fuel investments and new gas, coal and oil projects? How about they be honest with Australians about what they're really seeking to do, which is to keep us poor and to keep us in the dark? I think this is a shocking urgency motion, and I do not support it.

Ellie Whiteaker

Well, the Greens used to be far more interesting than this. They used to be a party that put forward genuine policy ideas for debate. Instead they just rely on online commentators and follow whatever Senator David Pocock is up to determine their priorities in the Senate. I understand it's all about a nice social media grab. It's all about a bit of profile building for Senator Hodgins-May, who likes to travel around the country and make pretty social media videos about how we should tax gas companies more.

As to getting up and saying that gas companies don't pay tax in this country, it sounds like a good line. It's a popular line, clearly. But what they forget to mention is the work that our government has done to make sure that gas companies pay their fair share of tax. In our first term of government, Labor made changes to the petroleum resource rent tax to ensure offshore gas companies pay more tax and pay it sooner. It increased the number of companies paying the PRRT, and in this budget it revised revenue from the PRRT up $1.6 billion. The government announced just in the last few months that we are introducing a gas reservation scheme modelled on the scheme that exists, and has existed for some time, in my home state of Western Australia, which is all about making sure that more Australian gas stays here in the country and provides reliable and secure energy for Australians who need it as we transition away from coal fired power.

The truth is this: in 2023-24, oil and gas companies paid almost $12 billion in tax. Seeing that some in this place like to use the beer excise as a measuring stick these days, I note that $2.6 billion was raised off the beer excise. Let me tell you those numbers again, because some in this place like to pick and choose the numbers they use. Oil and gas companies paid almost $12 billion in total tax in the 2023-24 financial year. The beer excise raised $2.6 billion. So, no, Aussies aren't paying more tax on beer. This is a government that is committed to making sure that oil and gas companies pay their fair share, and I know that voters, particularly in my home state of Western Australia—and in your home state, Deputy President—see through this kind of rubbish that they hear from some members of this chamber. They can see through the social media grabs. They can see through the one-liners, because they know how important the oil, gas and broader resources industries are to workers in my home state, to families in my home state and right across this country, and our government is committed to doing that.

I also wanted to talk about a new Parliament House access policy that has been announced in the last week or so by the presiding officers. I think Senator McDonald made a really good point that we shouldn't pick and choose who shouldn't be entitled to a pass, but what the presiding officers have done instead is made a commonsense change to the pass policy to make sure that there is more transparency in who has access to this building. I think it is important not only that we are clear about who has access to this building but that we don't make those decisions based on our own political ideologies.

The other work that our government has done on transparency in politics includes establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission, strengthening the ministerial code of conduct, strengthening protection for whistleblowers, increasing funding to the Australian National Audit Office, restoring transparency to AAT appointments, establishing the Administrative Review Tribunal, reinstating standalone privacy and freedom-of-information commissioners, implementing the recommendations of the Bell inquiry into former prime minister Morrison's multiple ministries, establishing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission and working to tackle the influence of big money in politics with reforms to our electoral system to lift transparency. Those are reforms that, I think, the Greens political party voted against, so if the Greens were serious about stopping the influence of big money in politics they would've voted for our electoral reforms, but what we're seeing here is that they are not committed to that work.

Long debate text truncated.