Gas export levy needed to fund social services, say NFP leaders

Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie is leading the way, saying a permanent 25 per cent levy on gas exports would generate up to $17 billion per year, allowing the government to invest in energy affordability and renewables and to direct funds to income support payments, health, housing and community services.

It’s a measure that the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has asked Treasury to model in advance of the federal budget. Opposition frontbencher Andrew Hastie on Sunday voiced his support for the levy.

Goldie said exporters were making huge profits from Australian gas while paying very little tax, at a time when many families were struggling to make ends meet.

The Australia Institute has created a live tracker, Australia’s Gas Giveaway, to measure the revenue it claims has been lost by the Australian government’s failure to implement a 25 per cent tax on gas exports since July 2022. At the time of writing, it was closing in on $70 billion, or $577 lost every second, $2.08 million per hour, or $348.9 million per week.

“People on low and modest incomes are already doing it tough,” Goldie said. “They’re facing the potential of further rises in fuel, energy bills, rents, and intense cost-of-living pressures driven by economic uncertainty as a result of global conflict. They’re desperate and terrified that things are only going to get worse.

“Meanwhile, multinational gas corporations continue to make enormous profits from exporting our natural resources while paying little tax,” she said. “Australia and Qatar exported similar volumes of LNG in 2023 and Qatar saw $56 billion in tax revenue compared to Australia’s $11 billion. More and more people can see that big gas corporations are taking Australia for a ride.”

Goldie is not alone among third sector leaders in ramping up pressure on the government to introduce the levy. Three leading community-based climate organisations have banded together to push for “action on the soaring profits being made by gas corporations during another energy crisis.”

Doctors for the Environment Australia, Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, and Parents for Climate combined to ask that revenue from the potential tax be directed to communities on the frontline of climate-fuelled disasters, relief for households facing rising energy and insurance costs, and the acceleration of Australia’s transition away from fossil fuels.

According to a statement released by those three groups, the gas exporter Santos reported 10 consecutive years of zero corporate tax payments to 2024–25, while recording $47 billion in sales.

Category four cyclone Narelle, which hammered the northern West Australian coast over the weekend, caused multiple shutdowns at the Gorgon, North West Shelf and Wheatstone gas export plants, emphasising the fragility of Australia’s gas export industry, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation’s climate and energy exports campaigner, Piper Rollins.

The Australia Institute estimates that federal and state governments provide approximately $14.9 billion in spending and tax breaks annually to fossil fuel producers, and a record $67 billion in subsidies, a figure more than 14 times the nation’s $4.75 billion disaster response fund.

Meanwhile, fires, floods and cyclones cost Australia $38 billion per year – equivalent to $3,800 per household – and that figure is projected to rise to to $73 billion annually by 2060, the Institute said. It said coal, oil and gas corporations were responsible for three-quarters of Australia’s climate pollution.

“Parents across Australia are struggling with soaring energy bills while gas corporations pocket billions,” said Parents for Climate CEO Nic Seton. “Our kids are already living in a more dangerous world because of climate pollution from the fossil fuel industry. Gas companies should pay their fair share of tax on these enormous profits, and that money should be used to help families with energy bills now and to build the clean, affordable, Australian-made energy system that will protect our kids’ future.”

Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action CEO Serena Joyner said, “Australians are losing homes, livelihoods and loved ones to the worsening disasters that are being driven by the pollution from gas and coal corporations. We have watched these corporations take our resources for next to nothing, post record profits while communities like ours are left to pick up the pieces, with little or no support. Enough is enough. It’s time they paid their fair share, and it’s time that money went back to our communities to help pay for the damage and the much-needed investment into being better prepared for climate disasters.”

Doctors for the Environment Australia executive director Kate Wylie said she felt deeply for those suffering in the “health and human rights disaster” unfolding in the Middle East while also being concerned about the ramifications for Australian families.

“Here in Australia, we are seeing the economic shockwaves of our dangerous dependence on global oil and gas: food prices are rising, fuel costs are soaring, and the mental health and financial strain are landing hardest on everyday communities,” she said.

“As doctors, we see this harm directly. It is not fair that our communities bear this burden while gas corporations pocket immense profits and pay little to no tax on the gas they export. Making them pay their fair share – and using that money to ease cost-of-living pressures and move Australia toward genuine energy independence – is not just good economics, it’s the ethical thing to do.”

ACOSS boss Goldie said the 25 per cent levy on gas exports was needed to guarantee fair public returns now and into the future. “It would generate up to $17 billion per year to invest in energy affordability and renewables, adequate income support payments, health, housing and community services,” she said. “It’s time for gas companies to pay their fair share and use the funds to help the people doing it toughest.

“We urge all parliamentarians to listen to the people of Australia and back a 25 per cent levy on gas exports.”

The ACF said it was time gas companies like Chevron and Woodside learned that their business comes back to bite them in the form of extreme weather.

Speaking as Cyclone Narelle raged, Piper Rollins said, “The current situation paints a bleak picture. Extreme weather combined with global insecurity shows how risky and vulnerable the Australian gas export industry is. These problems aren’t going away. Weather or war, Australia needs to break its addiction to fossil fuels.

“The irony is these gas export plants are having to shut because they’re getting smashed by yet another climate-fuelled cyclone, which are being made worse and more frequent by gas pollution,” she said. “It's a tough reality for northern WA residents who are sheltering, again, from a catastrophic storm front and will have to cop the economic and environmental costs of these gas-fuelled climate disasters.

“Australia is now the second largest exporter of gas overseas. No matter where in the world Australian gas is burnt, it returns home in the form of extreme weather – cyclones, bushfires, heatwaves and floods.”