Government is fundamentally about priorities, and we’ve just seen a striking demonstration of where this government’s priorities lie. 160,000 participants are set to be removed from the national disability insurance scheme, presumably because we can’t afford it, while multinational gas companies are likely to continue being sheltered from paying a fair rate of tax.
In Canberra last week, two days of Senate hearings on the taxation of gas resources revealed that the people of Australians are getting a very raw deal. For example, the Japanese government, which has no gas of its own, is currently raising more revenue from taxing Australian gas than Australia itself.
With millions of dollars currently being spent on ads by this industry to convince us they are good corporate citizens, even the ATO has described export gas companies as ‘systemic nonpayers of tax’.
The existing petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) is an abject failure, and employment claims from the gas industry fail to stack up, with only about 20,000 local workers involved. As Dr Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute explained, the lost gas revenue amounts to $350 million per week, money which would go a long way towards helping with the current cost-of-living crisis.
Industry claims that companies would flee Australia if they were properly taxed aren’t borne out by the experience of other resource-rich countries with stable democracies, like Norway, which now has a $3 trillion sovereign wealth fund to assist its citizens as a result of fossil fuel corporations being forced to pay their fair share.
Why don’t they just fix it?
Invited to speak to the committee by Senator David Pocock was schoolteacher Konrad Michalski, of Punters Politics fame, who said, ‘A kid in my class put his hand up and asked… do politicians know the system is broken? Why don’t they just fix it?
‘I had to tell that kid: honestly, it’s not broken. This system is working perfectly for the foreign corporations who funded the lobbying campaigns who funded the political campaigns of many politicians in this room and gave their colleagues jobs – sweet lobbying gigs – as gas lobbyists.’
Appearing as a private citizen before the select committee, the eminent economist and long-time Secretary of the Treasury, Dr Ken Henry, was blunt when asked if gas exports should be taxed.
‘I could make this very short and simply say just do it in the national interest,’ he said. ‘Just do it and stop the crap that the Australian public have been putting up with, for decades now, in respect of the taxation of Australian’s finite natural resources.’
Dr Henry dismissed industry claims that company and other taxes paid by multinational gas exporters represented fair recompense for their exploitation of Australia’s natural resources. ‘Imagine if I were to come to you, look at your household balance sheet and put this proposition: I’ll sell your house and I’ll give you 30 per cent and I’ll keep the other 70 per cent, and you should be happy with that because I’ve just converted an asset into cash.
‘None of you would be stupid enough to do that, yet that is exactly what the Australian government does with respect to our gas reserves,’ he said. ‘It simply makes no sense.’
Representatives from groups including the ACF, ACOSS, Labor Environment Action Group and the Superpower Institute echoed these sentiments, while representatives from the gas industry veered dangerously close to contempt of parliament by refusing to answer senators’ questions.
NDIS
While all this was happening, just down the road at the National Press Club, Health Minister Mark Butler was flagging big changes to the national disability insurance scheme which he said were absolutely necessary for Australia’s budget bottom line, going forward. This is ‘unavoidable and urgent’, he said.
It seems clear that there’s quite a bit of rorting going on with the NDIS, which needs to be fixed, but there are concerns from the disability sector that new criteria will mean many people with low to moderate support needs will be abandoned, returning to the bad old days where only those with advanced and obvious functional incapacity were eligible for assistance.
Opaque digital algorithms are likely to determine who’s in or out, reviving the spectre of Robodebt, and there’s a concern that mental health-related conditions, including autism, will take a back seat. Much less will be spent on social and community participation, and it’s unclear whether people with a disability will have any role in the redesign of the NDIS. On the bright side, there will be more money to assist people with dementia.
Mark Butler says he wants to have an ‘honest conversation’ with people about how to rein in out of control spending, before the social license for the NDIS slips away.
For a bit of perspective, the national disability insurance scheme currently costs $48.5 billion. Without changes, at the current rate of growth it’s expected to cost $63.4 billion by 2028-29.
A simple 25 per cent gas export would raise $17 billion per year, comfortably accommodating such a shortfall, while leaving change left over to go towards an already flagged $53 billion of new defence spending, but PM Anthony Albanese and his Resources Minister Madeleine King are ruling out any new taxes on exporters.
‘In relation to gas, we know there’s no change in our position on the taxation of that commodity,’ said Minister King. Albo obediently repeated gas industry talking points, claiming the industry already paid $22 billion in tax, although this figure actually comes from an Australian Energy Producers document, not a government source, and represents a combination of various taxes and state royalties.
Unfortunately the advocates for Australia’s 5.5 million disabled people aren’t anywhere near as scary for Labor as the fossil fuel lobby, or as generous with their political donations, for that matter. Just another week in upside down world.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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