Senate votes down Greens' proposal for 25% gas export tax

Last week, the Greens forced a vote in the Senate on its proposal for a 25 per cent tax on gas exports. Senator Steph Hodgins-May made an amendment to a motion relating to domestic gas reserves that called on the government to subject all gas production to a 15 per cent minimum domestic reserve. The amendment was voted down eight to 43.

Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May said while the government had voted against her amendment for a 25 per cent export tax on gas, the Greens would "keep pushing for a tax system that ensures that nurses aren’t paying more tax than the corporations shipping off [Australia's] gas".

"Households are under pressure while gas companies rake in billions exporting our resources," Hodgins-May said.

In a statement last week, Hodgins-May said that with the war in the Middle East likely to see gas prices surge again, it was critical that the government ensure Australians were fairly compensated through a tax on exports.

“Because our gas system is still rigged in favour of massive exporters, increases in the global market price are also dumped straight onto households back home,” she said.

“Australia doesn’t have a gas shortage. We have an export problem.”

“We export such enormous volumes of gas that if the government had implemented a 25 per cent export tax when it was first proposed at the end of last year, Australians would already have collected billions in extra revenue,” the senator continued.

A tax on exports would help decouple Australia’s domestic market from volatile global prices, Hodgins-May said.

“A 25 per cent tax is a step towards fair compensation. Gas companies have pillaged Australia’s resources for decades and now stand to make billions more in blood money from war-driven price spikes."

The Senate also voted last week on Senator David Pocock's motion to establish a select committee to examine the amount of petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) currently paid on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and how it compares with other jurisdictions such as Norway and Qatar.

The motion to establish the committee was also voted down by the Senate.

In a previous statement on the proposed committee, Pocock said that Australians had had enough of multinational gas companies profiting off Australia's resources without providing a fair return.

“We get one chance to capture the benefits of the LNG boom and invest in the things Australians need most: housing, health, education,” Pocock said.

"Currently, we are squandering what Norway has turned into a $3 trillion sovereign wealth fund."