MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator WHITEAKER (Western Australia) (15:52): 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.