To Sam McCulloch, Cecile Wake, and the entire AEP team:
Thank you for championing our critical gas and oil industry – gas and oil that’s vital for our economy and our prosperity.
To leaders and representatives here today:
Whatever part of the energy supply chain you work in – exploration, extraction, production, or distribution – thank you for helping make our nation tick.
To my colleagues here this morning, especially Susan McDonald the Shadow for Resources:
Thank you for your support and the robust policy work you’re doing.
And to Chris Uhlmann – who I’ll sit down with shortly:
Thank you for your outstanding journalism.
Chris’ writing and reverence for the truth are an invaluable service to Australia’s energy debate.
ENERGY SCARCITY UNDER LABOR
In many of Chris’ columns, he rightly points out that energy security is both national security and economic security.
These ideas were central to Australia’s first major policy paper on energy.
Energy 2000 – effectively a white paper – was published by the Hawke Labor Government in 1988.
That paper said:
“Satisfactory energy supplies are fundamental to achieving our national objectives of economic growth and security …
… if energy supplies are inadequate or supplied inefficiently, this will represent a serious constraint on economic growth and on community living standards.”
Ladies and gentlemen:
To read that paper today is to recognise how far the Albanese Government has drifted from common-sense energy policy and the iron laws of energy security.
Since coming to power, the Albanese Government has prioritised net zero ideology and emissions reduction above all else.
It has dismissed cheap, always-on power for expensive, sometimes-on, industrial-scale renewables – mainly sourced from offshore.
No wonder power prices have surged by 40 per cent since Labor came to office.
As you know, when energy costs more, everything costs more.
Farming costs more.
Building costs more.
Manufacturing costs more.
Transport costs more.
Powering a home, a business, and a factory costs more.
Indeed, soaring energy prices are one reason why Australia has experienced the worst collapse in living standards in the developed world.
Australia isn’t undergoing a rapid, pain-free energy transition – as Labor pretends.
Fossil fuels still deliver most of our energy needs.
In pursuing an energy policy grounded in ideology instead of common sense, Labor is consigning our country to energy scarcity.
Yet we know Australia will need much more energy in the future.
AEMO recently estimated that the energy consumed by data centres alone could rise from about 5 terawatt-hours today to 25 terawatt-hours over the decade.
That’s a 400 per cent increase.
Moreover, increasing electrification of homes and transport will also increase demand on our grid.
Energy scarcity is tantamount to economic suicide.
ENERGY ABUNDANCE UNDER THE COALITION
I’m determined to ensure Australia’s future is not one of energy scarcity.
That’s why, one week ago in my Budget Reply, I said that the Coalition’s goal is energy abundance.
More energy means cheaper energy.
Cheaper energy means we can bring down the cost-of-living.
Cheaper energy means we can innovate, make, and build things of ambition once again.
Cheaper energy means we can re-industrialise in key areas – not de-industrialise as is occurring in Australia today.
The Coalition’s relentless pursuit of energy abundance will see us back any technology that can deliver affordable and reliable energy.
That includes coal, hydro, nuclear, batteries, and renewables in the right places.
And it certainly includes much more gas and oil.
I want more Australian gas for Australians and more Australian oil for Australians.
THE FOLLY OF A GAS TAX
One way to ensure there’s higher costs and less gas for Australians is to put a 25 per cent tax on gas exports.
Energy analyst, Saul Kavonic, hit the nail on the head in a recent article.
The consequences of a gas tax would be harmful.
Trading relationships would be severely damaged.
Key partners would look to other markets.
There would be a flight of capital from Australia – an exit of critical investment.
And projects in the pipeline wouldn’t progress.
Indeed, Woodside has indicated that a 25 per cent gas tax would render uneconomic its proposed development of the Browse Basin in Western Australia.
Saul is right.
Any short-term revenue returned from a gas tax is outweighed by the longer-term detriments to investment.
As I always say, when you put a tax on something, you get less of it.
The principle is simple:
Bigger taxes mean less investment, fewer projects, fewer resources, and ultimately less tax revenue for Australians.
Whereas if we green-light new initiatives under the existing tax regime, that means more investment, more projects, more resources, and ultimately more tax revenue for Australians.
And that’s why I want more gas and oil fields open.
If we can get new projects up and running, the $22 billion in revenue generated by taxes on the gas and oil sector could double over the decade – according to independent estimates.
In short, we need to get busy digging and drilling.
REMOVING BARRIERS
To do that, the Coalition will remove obstacles that have been put in place by the Albanese Government.
Net zero is a major obstacle – and it will go.
We will scrap Labor’s net zero policies which are an impediment to businesses and industries – and a disaster for our economy.
That includes abolishing Labor’s great big carbon tax – the so-called Safeguard Mechanism.
And it includes abolishing Labor’s crippling carbon taxes wherever we find them.
On mining, manufacturing, electricity, vehicles, and imports.
Carbon taxes are a hindrance.
They make Australian industry less competitive.
They make it harder to invest here.
They push costs on to households and businesses.
And that’s why they will go.
We’re also going to fight the unfairness in Labor’s recent Budget.
Two years ago, Labor made changes to Capital Gains Tax rules for foreign investors.
Just as with their latest CGT changes, they failed to properly understand the impacts their changes would have.
In this Budget, Labor is offering a “transitional” 50 per cent CGT discount for foreign investors.
But only for those who want to invest in renewable energy projects.
The discount isn’t available to those who want to invest in gas and oil projects.
And isn’t it telling:
The Government has seen the fallout from the conflict in Iran and the risks of running a “just-in-time” economy.
The Government also knows that Australia must urgently develop its sovereign supply of critical liquid fuels for greater self-reliance.
And yet, the Government went ahead with this selective relief measure in the Budget.
This is yet another example of the Albanese Government’s discrimination against gas and oil.
Australia cannot afford this ideological bias any longer.
A Coalition government will also end Labor’s regime of corporate welfare.
The Future Made in Australia agenda with its National Reconstruction Fund has been wasteful and ineffective.
Handouts, bailouts, and carve-outs are being used to prop-up green energy rent seekers.
Legislation is another impediment to digging and drilling.
Last December, Labor passed changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act with support from the Greens.
The legislation is a disaster and lacks any balance.
It has been drafted not to protect the environment, but to weaponise an activist anti-development agenda.
The laws excluded oil and gas projects from streamlined approvals – another example of Labor’s hostility to the industry.
And ultimately, that means higher energy costs for Australians.
So, we will re-write these laws to ensure approvals for oil and gas projects are fast tracked.
I also want to reset the responsibilities of our regulators.
Too many regulators are focused on regulating for regulation’s sake.
And that includes NOPSEMA.
The Coalition will ensure our regulators act in a way that supports competition, investment, productivity, and economic growth.
DIGGING AND DRILLING
Of course, to achieve energy abundance, we must unlock gas and oil projects across the country.
A Coalition government will get the next generation of projects moving.
We will reinstate an incentive that was cancelled by Labor for smaller companies to undertake exploration.
When it was last in place, this incentive helped generate more than $1.1 billion in capital and $400 million in exploration spending.
We will allocate $100 million in incentives for smaller mining firms to undertake minerals exploration.
Of that, $50 million will be allocated specifically for oil and gas exploration to unlock the next wave of investment.
Most importantly, we will create, under law, National Strategic Priority Projects.
This will be a new designation in the EPBC Act.
Where these projects are in Commonwealth waters – or on Commonwealth land – we will fast-track approvals.
Where projects are subject to duplicative environmental assessment and approval, we will step back and hand decision-making to the relevant state or territory.
As I said in my Budget Reply, two projects will be immediately designated by a Coalition government:
The Browse Basin offshore gas field in Western Australia.
And the Taroom oil field in Queensland.
Of course, a Coalition government would be eager to designate further projects right here in South Australia where there’s a viable business case.
I think of how towns in Queensland’s Western Downs – like Dalby and Roma – have thrived off the back of the Coal Seam Gas boom in the early 2000s.
Exploration and extraction of the Surat and Bowen basins revitalised south-west regional Queensland.
These projects created new jobs, generated new businesses, and brought new life to old towns.
In the same way, there are projects of prosperity waiting to be tapped right here in South Australia.
That would help to bring down electricity costs for a state that has some of the highest costs per kilowatt hour across the nation.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen:
Australia needs energy abundance.
We must get busy digging and drilling.
But we have a government that isn’t interested in these things.
We have a government that’s hostile to your sectors and doesn’t appreciate the Australians who work in it – or what they do for our country.
The Coalition can’t take the fight up for your sectors alone.
You need to start making noise.
You need to use every campaign tool at your disposal – especially social media.
Push back against your detractors.
Show Australians what gas and oil does for our country.
An energy abundant future is necessary to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life.
Thank you.