Factcheck: Is the PM being 'fair dinkum' on his answers to a gas tax? (no)

In an interview with ABC Perth, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended his decision not to tax gas exports, made claims about gas company tax payments and called on The Australia Institute to be “fair dinkum”:

Journalist: If you’ve changed your mind on [capital gains tax], why don’t you want to break your word to gas companies when it comes to introducing a 25 per cent tax on gas exports?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is something that’s just come from, you know, a social media campaign –

Journalist: The Australia Institute says it could raise $17 billion a year.

PRIME MINISTER: The Australia Institute have run this campaign. But they need to be fair dinkum about it as well. They need to be honest that gas companies paid $22 billion of tax last year, that they pay royalties, that they pay company tax as well as PRRT.

The Prime Minister is factually wrong on two points and misleading on two more.

Let’s have a look.

1. Does the call for a 25% tax on gas exports come from ‘a social media campaign run by The Australia Institute?’

Actually, the specific call for a 25% tax on gas export revenue comes originally from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

In August 2025, ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, urged the Albanese Government to consider “a 25% export levy on Liquified Natural Gas replacing the broken PRRT”, building on her years of calling out “oil and gas companies that pay no tax at all.”

The Australia Institute has called for reform of gas taxation and PRRT since at least 2017 in submissions, research papers, and events as well as social media.

2. Tax on gas exports vs tax paid by gas companies

The Prime Minister takes the question on taxing gas exports and gives an answer about gas companies. The switch is subtle, but important.

Companies that sell gas to Australians, like Origin Energy and AGL, pay tax in most years. Most PRRT has been paid by companies that operate in Bass Strait, sending gas ashore in Victoria into the domestic market.

The bigger concern is the huge, export-only projects that operate in waters controlled by Prime Minister Albanese’s government. Over the last four years, multinational companies made $170 billion exporting gas they got for free from the Commonwealth, without paying royalties, PRRT or, until recently, company tax.

3. Did gas companies pay $22 billion in tax last year?

No. This is not true. The entire oil and gas sector, including exporters and non-exporters, paid $10.2 billion in company tax in 2023-24, along with $1.4 billion in PRRT, according to the Australian Taxation Office, the latest official estimate available. Most of the PRRT and a significant amount of company tax is paid by domestic-focused oil and gas companies.

The Prime Minister is not quoting official data, but a forecast made by a gas industry lobby group, based on an unreleased survey of its members.

Even then, this forecast estimates $13.5 billion in company tax, $1.3 billion in PRRT, along with $6.6 billion in royalties that are mostly paid to the Queensland Government.

These royalties are not a tax, but a payment to the Queensland Government to compensate it for using the gas that Queenslanders own. Much as builders pay for bricks, bakers pay for flour, and farmers pay for water, gas companies in Queensland pay for gas. Prime Minister Albanese’s government is unusual in that it does not charge a royalty for gas, effectively giving it away for free.

4. Wars are driving recent gas tax payments

The Prime Minister gives the impression that multi-billion dollar tax payments from the gas industry are typical. They are not.

First Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the more recent war on Iran have seen gas exporters in Australia enjoy “windfall” profits of $112 billion. That is, even though gas exporters have sold the same amount of gas each year since 2022, they have gained an additional $112 billion purely due to war-driven price spikes.

It is these huge war-profits that have seen the entire oil and gas industry go from just $623 million in company tax in 2020-21 to $12 billion two years later, according to the Australian Taxation Office. This level of tax revenue is unusual and will fall unless the wars continue indefinitely, or unless Prime Minister Albanese taxes gas exports in the way that the trade union movement has proposed and so many others have supported.