The Nine newspapers series of reports on “Blood Oil” on petrol that has been reportedly refined from Russian Oil being imported to Australia should horrify Australians. Australians should not be delivering profits to Putin, or indeed any regime conducting an illegal war or genocide.
However, it should serve to remind people that ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Australian gas companies, and those fearing ones operating in Australia have effectively been garnering massive profits due to the illegal war.
No, they have not been supplying gas to Russia, but Russia’s invasion caused world gas prices to soar – including in the Japanese market, which determines the price of much of LNG from Australia. In the nine months from January 2022 to September that year, the price of LNG in Japan rose 61%. And with it went Australia’s exports of LNG – up 70% in the same period.
Did this boom in exports and prices lead to a boom in tax revenue? Nope.
It was the purest example of “windfall profits” you could get. Nothing the gas companies did caused this to happen. There was no special marketing going on or new way of refining or exclusive development that saw gas prices and their profits rise.
And yet that windfall did not lead to one for Australian taxpayers.
Australia’s notional tax on the super profits of gas companies is the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax (PRRT). And yet as the exports of LNG from Australia boomed, PRRT revenue actually fell:
I guess the gas companies would boast about how much they pay in royalties. Well sorry, but over in WA the small amount the gas companies pay is so pathetic that they now contribute less to the WA budget than do gamblers in the state
That’s pretty amazing given WA, unlike every other state, does not have pokies in pubs.
That’s be real – gas companies in Australia have made massive profits purely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nothing they did caused gas prices to rise – Putin committing and illegal act did that.
But those same gas companies have taken the money and also shouted loudly that they should not have to pay anymore tax.
Profiteering off of a war used to be condemned, we should not let these gas companies off the hook now.
It’s why the government should introduce a 25% tax of LNG exports that would raise around $17bn a year and no longer let gas companies take the absolute piss.
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Every single time anyone curses their energy bill, they should remember that it was the Lying Rodent who gave away our gas for bugger-all in return.
Intelligent countries - such as Norway and Saudi Arabia, FFS - are rolling in dosh from the sale of their natural resources. While we just roll on with the standard crap from both sides of the House supporting Drill, Baby, Drill subservience to the huge multinationals.
Perhaps it's Time to have billboards everywhere stating just how much revenue is lost to Australians for each breath they take.
Which will stop, it seems, only when there is no more air left to breathe.