QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (15:26): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to a gas export tax. The minister says Labor wants what is best for the Australian people. Apparently, what's best for Australians is giving away $17 billion a year in revenue while multinational gas corporations make billions exporting Australian gas!

It's a remarkable coincidence that what Labor says is best for Australians is always—always—what is best for those multinational gas corporations. What a coincidence! We're told that these corporations are paying a fair share, but who decides what a fair share is?

Under Labor, these corporations are marking their own homework. Then we got a lecture about global instability, conflict in the Middle East and uncertainty in energy markets. The minister even suggested that things may never return to normal.

Is that the most recent excuse? Is that the new reason that Australians can never expect a fair return on their gas resources? If we're waiting for the gas industry to tell us the conditions are right, the answer will always be the same: not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

We're told Labor's gas reservation policy is the answer, but that policy will not raise a single cent of revenue—not one extra dollar for housing, for energy costs, for cost-of-living relief or to fund the transition to clean, secure energy. The truth is there will always be another excuse, another delay and another reason to kick this can down the road. After four years in government, Labor has made it incredibly clear who they are working for in this place.

They are in here working for the gas industry, working for their donors. They are not working for the Australian people, and they have got to go. Senator Wong interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

Senator Shoebridge, you have three minutes.