2026-04-24
Reports this morning that the Prime Minister wants to continue to allow offshore gas corporations to get Australian gas for free and pay pocket change in PRRT, despite the extraordinary evidence presented to the senate inquiry, indicate that this Prime Minister is more concerned with keeping big corporations happy than he is with representing the interests of the Australian people.
On the matter of trading LNG for fuel:
Australian gas corporations can’t unilaterally pass on a gas export tax to customers in Asia. Approximately 80% of Australian gas is in long term contracts with prices tied to the global oil price, and 20% on a fluctuating spot market. Producers aren’t unilateral price setters and would overwhelmingly absorb the impact of an export levy in their healthy profit margins.
This has been established clearly by the Senate Inquiry, including evidence from Treasury, Ken Henry and gas companies themselves, who confirmed that the impact of a gas export tax would be felt by gas corporations, not our trading partners.
Lines attributable to leader of the Australian Greens, Larissa Waters:
“The Prime Minister has a choice in this budget: deliver for the greedy gas corporations, or deliver for the people. If he has picked the wrong side today that will be his legacy,” said the Greens Leader on Friday.
“In the same week that his government announced the largest ever cut to a government program this century in the NDIS, a devastating cut that will result in at least 160,000 people losing critical supports, the Prime Minister is sending signals that he’s going to let the greedy gas corporations continue to make obscene war time profits.
“This is corporate capture of the Australian government by the fossil fuel industry and we need to call it out. Under Labor, gas corporations are skipping out on their tax bill while everyone else suffers.
“On the matter of fuel security, the Prime Minister is reading from the script of the gas industry’s talking points and deceiving the public saying gas export taxes are a threat to our trading relationships. It’s simply not true, as the inquiry has heard from Treasury representatives this week.
“This is nothing but the gas corporations fighting a haircut to their obscene profit margins, and the Prime Minister is falling for it.
“The Prime Minister is at a fork in the road. He can be brave and tax big corporations to support millions of Australians who are struggling to make ends meet, or he can be a mouthpiece for the gas industry. He can’t do both.”
Lines attributable to Senator Steph Hodgins-May, Chair of the Select Committee on the taxation of gas resources:
“Labor would rather slash 160,000 people from the NDIS than take on the gas giants and tax 10 gas export projects.
“Right now, more than $2 million is slipping through our fingers each and every hour because we refuse to put a minimum 25 per cent export tax on these global gas corporations.
“This week the gas cartel has rolled out the same tired scare campaign to protect their wartime profits while the major parties dutifully repeat their talking points .
“Premier Cook is head of a captured state auditioning for a future at the board table of Woodside, and the Prime Minister is taking his cues all the way to Canberra.
“A minimum 25 per cent gas export tax would raise at least $17 billion a year. That’s money to ease cost-of-living pressure, properly fund public services, and accelerate the transition to clean energy.”