Federal election 2022: Greens to gain balance of power in Senate

The Greens are on track to win 12 seats in the Senate, giving them the balance of power needed to ban all live exports, strip water off irrigators and cut fuel tax credits.

The Greens are on track to gain the balance of power in the Senate, where they foreshadowed using their numbers to push Labor into banning all live exports, cutting fuel tax credits and stripping 450 gigalitres of water from irrigation communities for the environment.

Adam Bandt and his Green team are set to gain 12 of the 76 seats in the Senate, with Labor likely to hold just 25 seats against the Coalition’s 30, plus three held by minor parties.

In the lead-up to the weekend’s federal election South Australian Greens Senator and water spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young stated “it’s clear the only way to ensure the 450GL is delivered in full and on time to SA is with the Greens in the Senate.

“The 450GL promised to SA cannot be delivered without restoring voluntary water buybacks. In Senate balance of power, the Greens will push to ensure this is included in the next government’s plan.”

Labor has so far remained silent on whether it would enter the water market.

The Greens have also taken aim at the fuel tax credit, which farmers, timber harvesters, fishers, miners and even tourism operators claim back on off road fuel used in tractors, pumps, excavators, boats and other equipment.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt said his party would put a “stop (to) the massive subsidies to big coal, oil and gas corporations – over $10b each year – and reinvest the money into the clean energy transition”.

That $10b is based on The Australia Institute’s fossil fuel subsidies report, which states “the largest subsidy is the federal fuel tax credit scheme (which) … cost the Federal Government $7.8b in 2020-21”.

The latest Australian Taxation Office breakdown shows that of the $7.38b fuel tax credits claimed in 2019-20, $891m was paid to farmers, $3.3b to miners and $493m to the construction sector.

Cutting the FTC would free up desperately needed funds for Labor to deliver its $20b election promise to upgrade the power transmission network to feed regional renewable energy into the nation’s capitals.

But National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson has warned scrapping or restricting the FTC scheme would effectively impose a levy on industries, such as agriculture, that are reliant on diesel fuel to generate power and operate vehicles and other machinery off-road.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said the “FTC was not a subsidy and removing the scheme would in fact create a new tax for many of Australia’s industries … which are Australia’s largest export earners.”