The Australia Insitute’s Richard Denniss hit the nail on the head in his speech to the National Press Club:
“The Australian Government collects more money from HECS than it does from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
“Thank you, children. You’re the backbone of our economy, not the gas industry.”
Executive Director Richard Denniss at @PressClubAust@RDNS_TAI #auspol pic.twitter.com/osD3SWF4wF
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) January 31, 2024
In his speech, Denniss notes “that in Norway, they tax the fossil fuel industry and they give university education away for free”.
By contrast, “in Australia we subsidise the fossil fuel industry and we charge our kids a fortune to go to university”.
“The Australian Government collects more money from HECS than it does from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax”.
“Thank you, children. You’re the backbone of our economy, not the gas industry.”
The below charts from The Australia Institute tell the tale.
Australia collects a pittance in taxes from the enormous profits gouged by the petroleum industry:
Whereas Norway collects most of the revenue from oil and gas by the way of taxes:
This high taxation has enabled Norway to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which was worth a mighty $US1,428 billion dollars as at 30 June 2023:
That’s $US1,428 billion dollars shared among only 5.5 million people, equating to around $US260,000 per resident.
Despite Australia being the world’s third largest exporter of fossil fuels, our residents face exorbitant prices for petrol, gas, and electricity (the vast majority of which is still produced by burning our own coal and gas).
The notion that a leading energy exporter like Australia is struggling when the prices of its energy exports are sky high beggars belief and demonstrates just how dysfunctional and disconnected our political system has become.
Australia would not have had to worry about federal budget debt if policymakers had just taxed our resources appropriately, as Norway does.
We also wouldn’t need to import millions of migrant taxpayers to plug the federal budget and an ageing population if we taxed our resources properly.
