WE don’t agree with all the positions of The Australia Institute, but it’s hard to deny they have a case against the Federal Government in the matter of the Great Australian Gas Giveaway scandal.
The institute says more than half of Australia’s gas exports are given away, without payment of royalties or Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
“Over the last four years, multinational companies made $170 billion exporting gas they got for free. Based on Federal Government forecasts, to 2030 another $170 billion of liquified natural gas will be exported based on free gas.
“Previous Australia Institute research estimated that 56.2% of Australia’s gas exports pay no royalty, while Federal Treasury has stated that “To date, not a single LNG project has paid any Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and many are not expected to pay significant amounts of PRRT until the 2030s,” the institute reports.
“This meant that over the four years to 2023-24, gas companies exported $149 billion worth of liquified natural gas (LNG) based on Australian gas that they obtained without royalty or PRRT payment.
“This briefing note updates these calculations based on the latest commodity forecasts by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER). These forecasts were published in Resources and Energy Quarterly (March 2025). This briefing note focuses on LNG volumes and dollar figures.”
There are now 23 offshore gas and oil platforms and installations in Bass Strait, including the new Marlin B platform and Kipper subsea wells, which feed a network of 600km of underwater pipelines and keep the oil and gas flowing, 24 hours a day – mostly offshore while the idiotic Victorian government pushes to “electrify” the state on a solar, wind and battery network.
The Federal Government has also approved an extension and doubling of the North West Shelf gas project, but again the multinational gas and oil giants somehow manage to strong-arm weak Australian politicians on both sides of the aisle into giving the gas away.
Is it these same multinationals who are financing the global campaign for the “transition away from fossil fuels” while at the same time making hundreds of billions of dollars selling the gas to countries like India, China and Japan who are smart enough to know an energy deal when they see it?
We, of course, strongly disagee with The Australia Institute’s claim that “it is important to remember that gas is a fossil fuel and its extraction and use are driving climate change”. The institute should abandon that silly narrative and whole-heartedly support so-called “fossil fuel” use like the Trump administration.
The institute, while attacking the giving away of gas, is also stupidly calling for fossil fuel use in Australia to be phased out and kept in the ground. It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face or what we might also call schizoid economics.
Fossil fuel use is inextricably linked to standard of living, which is why some parts of Africa and South and Central America are still dealing with mass poverty issues (see map above).
It’s not rocket science to work out that if you don’t have internal combustion or electric engine technology readily available in your nation, then you are going to have all sorts of issues in terms of public health, food production and transport and access to goods and services.
But living standards are increasing worldwide which correlates to the chart showing the steadily rising use of coal, gas and oil worldwide. Note also the chart showing the per capita fossil fuel use and see how that correlates to wealthy nations like the US and Australia with food and energy to export.
But Australia could take a lesson from Norway, where the government reaps massive revenues from oil and gas tax revenue – except the part where Norway pushes renewables. Norway is sixth in global per capital wealth and Australia is 16th. We could do much better.
* We use the term “fossil fuel” with reservation as it is increasingly believed that petroleum is the result of subterranean processes, otherwise known as the abiogenic theory of petroleum.
