Gas exporters in the NT, Inpex and Santos, pay no royalties, pay little tax, receive taxpayer subsidies, and employ few people. They are also significant polluters.
The NT’s Great Give-Away
Gas exports worth $37 billion went out of Darwin over the last four years. $0 was paid to NT or Australian public, who owned most of this gas. The Commonwealth’s Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) raises $0 tax yearly from NT gas exporters, due to its widely acknowledged flaws.
All the gas exported from NT was given away for free as the Commonwealth Government did not charge royalties or PRRT on it. It’s time for the community interest to be put ahead of gas companies.
Territorians get virtually no revenue from gas. In fact, NT drivers pay 32 times more in vehicle registration than the gas industry pays in royalties.
Four things you need to know
1. The gas industry are ‘systemic non-payers of tax
The ATO has gone as far as describing the gas industry as “systemic nonpayers of tax“. Ordinary Australian workers including teachers, nurses and retail workers all pay more tax than the gas industry. Young Australians pay more in HECS than the oil and gas industry pays in PRRT.
2. Fossil fuel subsidies – over $2 billion in subsidies to the gas industry in NT
The Australian and NT governments provide over $2 billion in subsidies to the gas industry in the NT including the Middle Arm Petrochemical Hub and hundreds of millions into roads expressly for fracking companies. Money that could have been spent on hospitals, schools, roads and real solutions to social problems.
The NT Government has recently signed purchase commitments with two fracking companies that will subsidise their projects. These costs are unknown, but the arrangements resemble the $4 billion commitment made to the troubled Blacktip project off Wadeye. So much public money has gone into gas purchases that the NT Government describes renewable energy as a “risk to its ability to sell gas at a price higher than the cost of gas and transport”.
3. Jobs – the gas industry employs less than 1% of the NT workforce
20X more Territorians work in health, 15X more work in education than oil and gas extraction, yet the health and education industries never advertise how many jobs they provide.
4. Water and climate – NT has the highest emissions in the world
Fracking threatens our health, climate, rivers, hot springs and other water resources. The greenhouse emissions created by Inpex and Santos gas export terminals double the NT’s emissions and give the NT the highest per-person emissions in the world, worse than Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Beetaloo Basin fracking projects could double these emissions again.
Why would we allow new gas mega-projects?
The NT and Australian Governments need to put the community and environment first:
- Stop fracking in the NT
- Stop gas export corporations taking our gas for free
- Make the industry pay a fair share.