MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (16:04): Fossil fuel money flows through this country's cooked political donation system like gas through a pipeline. Labor, the Liberal Party and One Nation dance to the tune of the same corporations and the same billionaires. When the cheques aren't enough, there is always the revolving door.

We know Labor ministers walk out of cabinet and straight into gas industry boardrooms. They approve the projects in government and then collect the salary in industry. That is the business model.

That's why there is open access to the fossil fuel lobby. Ban these dirty donations, and lock the gates of parliaments to these climate wreckers. That's what needs to happen.

The Labor government approves gas project after gas project while families can't afford to put food on the table and gas companies rake in obscene and record profits. The Greens are fighting to tax gas exports properly to fund health care, housing, aged care and education. An overwhelming majority of Australians want a 25 per cent tax on gas exports.

There are billions of dollars sitting right here to be unlocked, but the government rejects it because the gas industry said no. And what they say goes for this Labor government. While the revolving door spins, the planet burns.

Every approval comes with more climate breakdown, more fires, more droughts, more floods, more extreme weather events. It's no wonder people are walking away in disgust from the two old big parties. The people of this country do not need governments at the beck and call of the gas industry, their executives and their lobbyists.

They deserve for power and wealth to be put back in the hands of the many, not hoarded by a few.