MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (15:47): 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.