"Tax gas now, while we can": Environmental groups call for gas tax at Senate inquiry

A former BP executive has urged Australia to stand up to gas industry threats to shift investment offshore, telling a Senate inquiry that fossil fuel companies will “fight like a rat in the corner” to protect their profits.

Appearing before the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, Climate Council councillor Mr Greg Bourne said the industry was facing an “existential crisis” as the global transition to clean energy accelerates.

“They will fight you tooth and nail,” he said.

Mr Bourne argued the industry’s pushback was “self-serving and a desperate attempt to project their super profits.”

“They have a very good playbook in terms of advertising and working the corridors of power,” he said.

The first public hearing saw environmental and community groups argue Australia is failing to secure a fair return from its gas exports, with a proposal for a 25 per cent export tax gaining traction.

Mr Bourne said Australia was “almost uniquely positioned as the country that has taken the least share of the profitability of our resources”.

“It is absolutely extraordinary,” he added. “And year after year, decade after decade, each of the governments of both colours have been faced down by the oil and gas companies.”

The former Regional President of BP Australasia said there was an opportunity to set a strong export tax to raise revenue for reinvestment in renewable energy.

“That’s why I say the key that so many governments have done is they have not embraced the future. They just hugged the past. And that’s what I am hearing from you.”

The remark appeared to strike a nerve with Nationals Senator Susan McDonald.

“I’m so sorry you don’t think I embrace the future,” she said.

“I’m a big fan of us embracing the future when it is real and not far off into the distance, and certainly not taking up additional prime agricultural land.”

Senator McDonald argued additional taxes could force smaller operators out of the market, potentially impacting regional communities and businesses reliant on gas.

However, Mr Bourne said existing projects would continue operating and that reduced investment in new fossil fuel development was consistent with the country’s climate goals.

Former Greens leader Adam Bandt returned to Parliament to give evidence in his new role as CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

He said the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) – which is meant to tax super profits – was “clearly broken”.

He urged the government to “tax gas now, while we can.”

“It’s a finite resource,” he argued. “We won’t be extracting gas for much longer if we want to stop the climate crisis and have something to sell the rest of the world that won’t kill us.”

Mr Bandt also called for an end to fossil fuel industry sponsorship of sporting events.

“I think that gas and coal are the next asbestos and tobacco, and over time, people will look back on the Woodside sponsorship of the Dockers and the Nippers and shake their heads and consign it to the dustbin of history in the same way that we did with Benson and Hedges,” he said.

“Corporations are fuelling the climate crisis and hurting people while paying little or no tax.”

“It’s the Australian people’s gas, but the corporations make the profits, and we pay the price.”

Mr Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the global crisis sparked by conflict in the Middle East “is not an energy crisis, per se, but a fossil fuel dependency crisis”.

“The US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran has laid bare the vulnerabilities and flaws of a system built on fossil fuel extraction, geopolitical power plays, and greed,” he said.

“March 2026 will be a defining moment for how the world thinks about energy security and reckons with the dangers of fossil fuel dependence.”