A neet #FactChecking on the talking points of some politicians, #FossilFuelLobbyist and those who would seek to mislead us (#JoelFitzgibbon for one) about the #GasExport Industry. Just in case some of us forget…

“The gas industry is one of the biggest taxpayers already”

The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (or PRRT) has thus far not collected anything from the LNG industry, and all the LNG exported from Gladstone is exempt from PRRT. In fact, the PRRT is so ineffective at collecting tax from Australia’s natural resources that the Australian Government collected more from people repaying their HECS debts than from PRRT in the past few years.

Australia has a habit of giving gas away for free, over half of the gas exported in 2024 was tax-free.

“The gas industry is one of the biggest employers”

The oil and gas industry combined employs around 0.3% of the total workforce, less than 39,000 people in Australia. That’s fewer people than work at Bunnings. To put it in perspective, there are over 400,000 nurses and midwives and over 320,000 teachers.

“The gas industry is one of the biggest foreign exchange earners”

“One of the biggest foreign exchange earners” basically just means that gas is one of Australia’s biggest exports (companies buy Australian dollars to buy Australian gas). While this is technically true, whether it’s a good thing is debatable.

Australia Institute research has shown that Australia’s huge gas exports have led to higher gas and electricity prices for Australians. In terms of exchange rates, these exports strengthen the Australian dollar, which has mixed impacts; it does make imports cheaper, but at the cost of making other Australian exporters less competitive – and this is dire for our manufacturing industry (which employs 873,000 people).

“If you keep taxing gas, they will pivot out of Australia and go somewhere else”

The gas is in Australia and in Australian territorial waters. It is not possible to “pivot” somewhere else since this is where the gas is. Norway has high taxes on gas but that has not led to a complete exodus of the fossil fuel industry; instead it has facilitated the creation of a massive sovereign wealth fund.

This is a reminder to watch out for these old lines. People are only going to shout them more loudly as a 25% export tax on gas becomes more likely.” (Source: The Point—Live)