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Deal between Greens and Labor fails to get a fair return for Australians

There have been some really disappointing recent developments on issues regarding climate change and Nature that I know we share a deep concern about.

Firstly, on 16 May 2024, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Environment Minister does not have to consider emissions when approving coal and gas projects.

This shows again how deeply broken our federal environment laws are and - really concerningly - the signals we are picking up are that Labor won’t be fixing them before the next election.

That’s why my Duty of Care Bill is so important. If you haven’t already signed and shared the petition, can I ask that you please take a moment to do so now at www.adutyofcare.com 

Secondly, on the same day, the Greens made a deal with Labor to pass the awful Treasury Omnibus bill that bundles together welcome reforms in response to the PWC scandal with totally inadequate tweaks to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) that only brings forward revenue, rather than generating any additional return for the sale of Australian gas. Noting that to date we haven’t received a single cent of PRRT from offshore LNG, despite exporting hundreds of billions worth.

I tried to stop this, moving a second reading amendment as well as a motion to try and split the bill.

Labor and the Greens voted against both.

After everything the Greens have said criticising the PRRT and the bundling up of the bills, it was very disappointing to see them backflip. 

This means we will continue to get completely dudded on the return we get from the sale of our resources. Australians pay more HECS-HELP than gas companies pay in PRRT and now this will continue to be the case.

The Labor-Greens deal also included an agreement to push through the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard Bill 2024 which introduces fuel efficiency standards in Australia for the first time.

While setting these standards is obviously very welcome, the gagging of debate and the absolute perversion of parliamentary process by ramming legislation through the house and senate in a single day with no opportunity to even put forward amendments to improve the bill should concern everyone.

House and senate crossbenchers joined together this afternoon to condemn these actions.

As the Member for Indi Helen Haines said, “We are here to represent the constituents who sent us here. Every member of parliament has the right to speak on a bill.” But not today. 

Silencing the voices of the communities we have been elected to represent is appalling.

In return for all of this, the Government agreed to remove a schedule from the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024.

The schedule was an appalling change and would have removed oversight from the Environment Minister on approvals for offshore oil and gas. It would give regulation of approvals to the Resources Minister.

But, the problem is, our existing approvals process has approved hundreds of fossil fuel projects and Labor is captured by the gas industry – within hours of the deal being announced they had already confirmed they would still go ahead with legislating these changes at a later date.

So in the end, the opportunity to reform the way we tax gas corporations was lost, while we have retained status quo on a broken approvals framework that has led to hundreds of fossil fuel projects being given the green light.

While it is welcome to see approvals remain with the Environment Minister, I refused to be part of this deal because I don’t believe it squares with what our community expects – both in terms of PRRT and parliamentary process.

I will keep pushing hard for more ambition and stronger action to protect the people and places we love. Thank you for your support.

 

David

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