STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (13:05): This is a very difficult time for our community. My office and I'm sure the offices of MPs across the country are hearing directly from people who, for the last six months, 12 months, one year, two years, three years, five years, 10 years, have been battling against the day-to-day reality of a cost-of-living crisis.
They're not able to afford their rent. They don't know where they're going to get money for their weekly shop. They don't know how they're going to pay for their healthcare bills.
These struggles are so much more than soundbites for politicians to wheel out or headlines for the media to repeat. These are daily struggles. Now, those same people who have already been stressed and struggling for so long are being confronted by massive increases in the cost of fuel and in the cost of everything affected by those increasing prices of petrol and of diesel.
And why? Because of a war started by Donald Trump, a war supported by the Albanese government. That is why they are facing these costs.
At the same time, they are witnessing the corporations who, for decades, have utilised their influence in this space not only to dodge their taxes but to write the rules across the board in their favour. Those corporate giants are once again looking at this crisis, looking at people who are struggling and thinking: 'How can we make money? How can we get a buck out of this?' They are sickened.
The Greens put forward anti-price-gouging legislation more than three or four sittings of parliament ago; earlier this year we put forward that legislation. The government didn't back it. They've coughed up some kind of bill today.
Does it have teeth? I've seen more teeth in a gummy shark. It's ridiculous.
We cannot continue to allow big corporate Australia to rip off the community in this moment of crisis. We have to make these corporations, these gas exporters, pay their fair share of tax. It is possible.
We could put in place right now a 25 per cent levee on gas exports and we could, with the billions that that would raise, provide direct support to the members of our community who right now are doing it tougher than ever. This is not a radical idea. Other countries have done this.
Norway did this in the nineties. They placed a 56 per cent tax on oil and gas companies and now have one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. What does that enable?
That enables universal health care and universal education systems that are so much more comprehensive than the systems people have to navigate here in Australia. If we had put this tax in place and made these corporations pay their fair share four years ago, already we would have raised $63 billion, claimed back for the community and able to be used to support our teachers and our nurses—to support those people supporting the community right now.
We need to make these companies pay their fair share. They cannot be allowed to continue to rip people off.