Shadow Portfolio — 23 March 2026

Senator McDonald, Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, used a Senate debate on 23 March to mount a sustained attack on the government's gas taxation policy and what she characterised as activism-driven energy policy that has eroded Australia's domestic oil and gas industry. Her central argument was one of historical contrast: Australia once possessed genuine fuel security, sustained by domestic production that supported six or seven refineries, but activist pressure and successive policy decisions have pushed investment offshore and dismantled that self-sufficiency [TA-260323-senate-573d70b7987f:s096].

That framing — security lost through policy choice — underpins the Nationals' broader critique of the government's resources agenda.

The sharpest attack targeted the government's proposed tax on gas exports, which Senator McDonald argued would freeze new gas production and eliminate the investment appetite needed to bring additional supply online [TA-260323-senate-573d70b7987f:s096]. Notably, she drew on the government's own resources minister as a supporting witness, citing that minister's warnings that the tax would harm investment — a rhetorical device designed to expose internal government contradiction on the measure.

She rejected the revenue argument outright, contending that higher gas taxes would dry up investment and ultimately reduce both current and future tax receipts, making the policy self-defeating on its own fiscal terms.

Senator McDonald's alternative position was supply-side rather than fiscal: streamlined approvals and faster project processing to restore domestic production capacity. She also embedded her argument in an energy-transition frame, contending that new gas supply is necessary to support the transition to net zero — positioning the opposition not as opponents of decarbonisation but as critics of a policy mix they argue will undermine the transition itself by choking the bridging fuel it requires.

The Strait of Hormuz and Middle East supply risk featured in her remarks as evidence of the strategic exposure Australia has accepted by allowing domestic production to decline.

The session produced no comms-stream material for this Note window, so the parliamentary debate stands as the sole record of Senator McDonald's activity on 23 March. The opposition's strategic line is nonetheless clear: frame the gas export tax as economically self-defeating, internally contradicted by the government's own ministers, and strategically reckless given Australia's fuel security exposure.