Recent ‘economic modelling’ commissioned by Energy Producers Australia (EPA), undertaken by Wood Mackenzie on the impacts of a 25% gas export tax has been quickly and fully embraced by the fossil-fuel companies, and other lobby groups like the Business Council of Australia (BCA). These groups have used the ‘modelling’ to claim that a 25% gas export tax would cause all sorts of problems for Australia, from higher gas and energy prices, gas and petrol shortages, a flight of foreign investment to other countries, and harm to diplomatic relations with Australia’s trading partners.

But analysis of the Wood Mackenzie report shows that rather than modelling the impacts of a 25% gas export tax on the Australian gas industry and the wider economy, they modelled something very, very different.

Instead, they modelled:

1. A natural gas project that does not exist.
2. A tax proposal no one is asking for.
3. To suggest Australia is a country no one would invest in.

Quite simply, the Wood Mackenzie modelling is close to completely irrelevant to the Australian gas industry and the current policy debate. It is a theoretical exercise vastly removed from the reality of the Australian and global natural gas industries.