Where the money went

Our share, then and now#

In 1990–91 the PRRT took 34% of project revenue. By 1999–2000 it was 21.6%. In recent years it has been about 4%.

Measured against export value it looks starker still. In 2000–01 PRRT collections equalled 22% of Australia’s oil and LNG exports. In 2023–24 it was 1.4%.

This isn’t because the industry shrank. Exports boomed. The tax simply stopped keeping up.

And company tax?#

Gas companies also pay ordinary company tax, and the ATO publishes what large companies pay. Across the oil and gas industry, from 2012–13 to 2021–22, companies reported $944 billion of total income and paid $15.5 billion of company tax.

Some of the largest paid none. Ichthys LNG reported $52.9 billion of total income over seven years and paid no company tax. Chevron Australia Holdings paid none for seven years in a row.

That isn’t necessarily illegal or improper. Total income isn’t profit, and companies can legitimately reduce their tax with depreciation on the plants they built, interest on the money they borrowed, and losses carried forward. But it does mean Australians are getting very little from either tax on some of the biggest projects drawing on our gas.

So where did the value go?#

Mostly to paying back the cost of building the projects, to the lenders who financed them, and to their shareholders, many of them overseas. That is how investment works. The question is whether the owners of the resource are getting their agreed share along the way.