Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mackellar for raising the topic of taxing our gas exports. It is a matter of public importance and worthy of time in this place. I'm going to approach the topic from a slightly different angle to colleagues. I want to talk about it in the context of Australia's place in the geopolitical landscape that has ruptured; in the context of the new world order in which we find ourselves and how Australia should see itself, position itself in that new paradigm. In short, I want to talk about how it's time for Australia to embrace a level of sovereign bravery in relation to taxing exports but also in a much broader sense.

Australia has a lot more agency and influence in the world than what many of our leaders would have us believe and what many of our leaders have convinced the populace that we have. Our leaders should rethink the rhetoric. They should start to grasp that we are a middle power with influence; that we are the 15th-largest economy in the world by GDP, just below South Korea and above Indonesia; and that we have proven ourselves, generation after generation, to be a trusted, reliable actor on the international stage. And maybe then, when it comes to taxing our resources, we might properly understand that we have commodities that the rest of the world wants and needs, and that gives us a competitive strategic advantage.

Let's just break it down in the context of our ongoing failure to properly tax companies who profit from our natural resources. Two reasons are often written for why we don't and can't better tax the resources that we virtually give away. The first is that the mining companies will be less likely to invest here. The Australian Energy Producers, the peak body of energy producers, said just last week:

Imposing higher taxes on Australian gas producers would stop investment in new gas supply, leading to gas shortfalls, higher energy prices, and the closure of Australian industries that rely on reliable and affordable gas.

I'm going to call BS on the last part of that. One clue is in the definitive and hyperbolic rhetoric that they are prepared to use, without knowing any detail at all about the design of a new tax. Look, it's true that applying more tax to gas exports may reduce the profits of gas companies, but Australian gas producers pay some of the lowest taxes on gas in the world. Other major fossil-fuel-exporting countries typically share between 75 per cent and 90 per cent of fossil fuel profits. Australia shares only 27 per cent. With profit defined in cashflow terms as in Norway, Australia shares even less—just 18 per cent.

The second argument that comes up to counter the suggestion that gas exporters should pay more tax is the impact it will have on our relationships with our key trading partners, the countries who buy our gas, because it might increase the prices that they are required to pay. This kind of objection you're less likely to hear the government say out loud, but it is most definitely an argument they heed. Let's have a look at what actually happens with the gas that we export, for example, to Japan. It might surprise many people here that Japan onsells vast quantities of gas that it purchases from Australia at a considerable profit. Research from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has shown that Japanese companies are onselling about half as much Australian gas as they import from Australia. They are onselling it to markets we operate in. They have become our competitor with our gas. This is a lucrative side hustle for Japan, and it's a ludicrous embarrassment to Australia. The government's allowing the Australian taxpayer, the owners of the gas, to be played as absolute mugs.

A tax on gas exports would be a win for the Australian people. Either we raise significantly more revenue from the sale of our own resources or more gas stays onshore for sale to Australian consumers here at home, where we need it most. The world is changing significantly and quickly. Australia is in an incredible position to stand up and be counted. It will require us to reorient our sense of place in the world and to exercise our sovereign bravery. We need to decouple from our colonial past and from our sense of being the underdog and realise and behave as though we have influence as a middle power. Taxing gas exports, which is nothing more than demanding what we are entitled to, should be a really easy place to start.

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