In the 2023-24 financial year, the gas company Santos Limited had its tenth straight year of making zero corporate tax payments. Over the ten years to 2023-24, Australian nurses paid $52 billion in tax.
Sat 9 May 2026 01.00 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
On the Australia Institute’s Follow The Money podcast, Queensland Senator and Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters claimed:
“And I think for ordinary people when they understand that a nurse pays more on their income tax than a gas giant like Santos does on tax, something’s got to change.”
Is that right?
In the 2023-24 financial year, the gas company Santos Limited had its tenth straight year of making zero corporate tax payments, despite having a total of nearly $47 billion in sales.
Over the ten years to 2023-24, Australian nurses paid $52 billion in tax, an average of $5.2 billion per year.
Even looking at the entire oil and gas industry and not just Santos, they paid an average of just $4.5 billion per year in company tax.
So, as Larissa Waters said, nurses pay more tax than a gas giant like Santos.
Verdict: True
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