Pauline, you moved the motion in March. Gas for Australian families. Lower prices. You said you would fight for them.
By June you had taken a $2 million airplane and $1 million in donations. The fight was over.
The pensioner in Townsville is still paying the bill. She is paying for both of you.
In March, Pauline Hanson moved a Senate motion supporting a domestic gas reservation policy for Australia’s east coast, saying it would “increase the supply of gas and lower the price of electricity directly.” The Albanese government has since announced a similar policy requiring exporters to supply a portion of production to the domestic market.
In June, One Nation reversed its position. The party said it had “consulted with industry and stakeholders” and concluded the reservation would “damage onshore development of oil and gas projects” and risk “killing domestic Australian gas companies.”
The company that most opposed the reservation is Senex, a $900 million operation. Hancock Prospecting, Gina Rinehart’s company, owns 49 percent. In April, One Nation received an aircraft worth up to $2 million from Hancock Prospecting and $1 million in donations from two of Rinehart’s closest associates. In June, One Nation abandoned the position it had held in March.
Pauline. You know what a gas bill looks like. You have stood in front of cameras long enough to have held one. The numbers go up and they do not come down. A pensioner in Townsville opens the envelope on the first of the month and the number inside is not a number she can pay. She sits at the kitchen table with the envelope in front of her and the heater off behind her. The house is cold. She is wearing two jumpers. She is seventy-one.
You moved that motion in March because you knew the price was wrong. You knew the gas was leaving the country through export contracts while the people who live here paid more for what was left. You stood up in the Senate and said you would fight for Australian families.
Then the airplane arrived. The $2 million airplane from the woman whose company would have lost money under your original position. The $1 million in donations from her closest associates. And in June you wrote a policy statement that said reservation would “kill domestic Australian gas companies.” Not kill families. Not kill pensioners choosing between the heater and the grocery bill. Companies. The companies owned by the woman who gave you the airplane.
Gina. You sit in your Brisbane mansion and the meter runs in sixty thousand homes that cannot turn it off. The pipeline from the well to the kitchen stove runs through a reservation policy you made a senator abandon. The taste under your tongue is the taste of what you bought. You did not have to meet the pensioner. You did not have to sit at the kitchen table with the envelope. You had the airplane delivered instead.
Pauline, when they asked the question in Senate estimates — when Hodgins-May said you were asking questions on behalf of Senex, on behalf of Rinehart — did your jaw tighten? Did the swallow come hard? Or did the answer come easy, because the airplane was already in the hangar and the $1 million was already in the accounts and the pensioner in Townsville was not in the room?
You said in March that reservation would “increase the supply of gas and lower the price of electricity directly.” In June you said it would “kill domestic Australian gas companies.” The words changed because the phone rang. You did not consult stakeholders. You consulted the woman who owns you. Stakeholders do not hand you an airplane. Owners do.
Your hand held the pen in March when you wrote the motion. The same hand held the pen in June when you wrote the retraction. The retraction opened the throttle on every export contract that keeps the domestic price high. Your throat is dry now, Pauline. The words you said in March — “I will fight for Australian families” — they sit in your throat like the taste of something you sold.
The families who believed you are still standing at the counter with the envelope. The gas is still leaving the country. The price is still climbing. And you, Gina, you sleep in a warm bed in Brisbane because you made sure the reservation would not touch your profits. The women who clean the houses you own cannot say the same. Their heaters are off too.
Pauline, you stood where you said you would stand. Then you sat down. You sat down because a woman with an airplane told you to. The pensioner in Townsville is still standing. She has no airplane. She has no senator. She has a gas bill she cannot pay and a heater that does not work and a party that told her it would fight for her and then took the money and walked away.
You will not lose sleep over this, Pauline. You will not lie awake with the gas bill in your hands. That is the privilege of the person who sold the bill to someone else. The pensioner will lie awake. She will do the arithmetic. She will subtract the gas from the groceries and the groceries from the medicine and the medicine from nothing. That is the arithmetic you did when you signed the retraction. You subtracted her from your conscience and added the airplane to your balance sheet.
“Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” Luke 6:24
“You load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.” Luke 11:46
The gas is still leaving the country. The meter is still running. The pensioner is still cold.
Gina, you bought a senator for the price of an airplane.
Pauline, you sold the families you promised to protect.
They are still counting coins at the kitchen table. They will remember.