We need a strong, productive economy with a fair tax system that ensures intergenerational equality.
My priorities are:
- Create business and investor certainty in the transition to a renewable economy.
- Sensitive, evidence-based tax reform, lessening our reliance on income tax.
- Making multinationals pay their fair share of tax. The petroleum resources rent tax - our major federal tax on offshore oil and gas projects - sells us short.
- Creation of incentives for investment and innovation, to increase productivity and economic growth.
Energy transition and investor certainty
We need cheap, clean, reliable energy in the 2020s and 2030s, to be sure that we can keep the lights on, power industry, and strengthen our economy, while reducing our carbon emissions.
Australians face a cost-of-living crisis and climate emergency. Our polluting coal-fired power stations are outdated and unreliable. Gas accounts for a very small proportion of our energy mix—but a large part of its cost.
Renewable power is clean, safe, powerful, reliable—and already here. Today, more than 40% of our electricity comes from solar, wind and hydro. Our renewables capacity has doubled in the last six years; it’ll double again by 2030. The experts tell us that large-scale wind and solar, backed by batteries and hydro, can provide reliable 24/7 energy.
Our natural advantages—unlimited solar and wind power, abundant land, port access, resource industry expertise, and a stable trade and investment framework— mean we’re uniquely well placed to benefit from the net zero transition.
Our economic future is in clean commodities like green iron and steel, low-emissions fuels, fertiliser, and energy exports. Building more renewables will create jobs in regions of economic change.
As a member of the House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy, I’ve looked at the evidence and listened to the experts. Nuclear might have been an answer for Australia three decades ago—but it’s not the answer now. It would take at least two decades to come online. By then, we’ll have almost 100% renewable energy. The risk of cost and timeline blowouts, and unresolved questions regarding waste disposal, is too high.
Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan is not genuine policy—it’s an attempt to extend the life of gas and coal, and limit investment in renewables.
Economists, scientists, business and industry experts agree: committing to the net zero transition via renewables is the best way to guarantee the next generation reliable, clean energy, a strong economy, and a healthy future.
Tax reform
Economists and business leaders agree that we need tax reform to lift productivity, to ensure that we can fund essential social services and infrastructure, and to reduce intergenerational inequality.
The major parties lack the vision and courage to address the shortcomings of our tax system. They care more about their own political fortunes than the country’s best interests - more about the next election than the next generation.
With a generation of young Australians losing hope of ever owning their own homes, we must stop tinkering around the edges of tax reform.
In the 47th Parliament, independents have put tax reform back on the agenda, have advocated for indexing tax brackets, have offered legislation aimed at ending pork barrelling (which I’ve seconded in the House twice), and we’ve suggested ways to reduce red tape and regulatory burden for small businesses. I - and other independents - have also opposed the government’s worst economic ideas, like taxing unrealised gains on superannuation.
As the cost-of-living crisis worsened in 2022, I consulted with constituents and economists and called on the government to modify its planned Stage 3 tax cuts. Along with the leading economists, I believed that they were inflationary and would not help those most in need of support. Other crossbenchers joined me in pushing the government to act. It worked. In 2024, the government amended the stage 3 tax cuts to provide much-needed cost-of-living relief to income earners in all tax brackets, while simultaneously bringing down inflation.
Evidence-based, sensitive tax reform will future-proof our economy, while providing certainty to older Australians. It should:
- Decrease our dependence on income tax, to increase workforce participation and the long-term sustainability of our economy.
- Ensure fair returns for our fossil fuel and mineral resources and support the transition to a net zero economy.
- Increase housing affordability and availability.
- Creative Incentives for investment and innovation, to increase productivity and economic growth.
Ensuring multinationals pay fair taxes
The petroleum resources rent tax (PRRT)—our major federal tax on offshore oil and gas projects—sells us short.
If we taxed oil and gas producers as effectively as Norway, we’d make $66 billion more each year; that’s three times the cost of the Stage 3 tax cuts.
The government collects more from HECS and from taxing beer than from its superprofits tax on oil and gas.
While we’re facing domestic gas shortages and price hikes, more than 80% of our gas is exported by multinationals.
Successive Liberal and Labor governments have evaded their responsibilities to the economy and to the next generation.
If we reform the PRRT to make it a true windfall profits tax—with excess profits triggering a guaranteed rate of return— we can afford to properly fund health and aged care, dental care, and education.