Why a gas tax is going viral
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It was a video that went viral and left viewers outraged. In it, it's revealed the government receives more money from a tax on beer than from the tax on the profits of massive oil and gas projects. Today, the ABC's chief digital political correspondent, Claire Armstrong, on the growing campaign for a new gas tax. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
Claire, let's start by discussing this social media video that, well, it had many, many views. Now, in it, independent Senator David Pocock is quizzing Treasury officials about tax. So just tell me what goes on.
Yeah, so this was your usual Senate estimates. Senator David Pogo comes up against this Treasury official and it essentially gets the Treasury official to confirm that the government makes more money from the excise on beer compared to what it collects in revenue from what's known as the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax.
Would it be accurate to say that the tax on offshore gas exports, PRT, is still giving us less revenue than the tax on beer?
Have a look. The 25, 26 in my info, taxes on beer, we're expecting 2.7 billion. Taxes from PRRT, 1.5, so yes.
The views that this one got for Pocock, I think about 9.3 million on Instagram alone last time I checked.
How do we live in a country, one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, and we're getting more tax from beer than PRT?
And then this is an idea that's sort of pushed along, Claire, by former teacher Conrad Benjamin, who's founded Hunter's Politics. Now, he actually appeared before a Senate inquiry the Greens had set up into a gas tax.
Thank you, senators and members, for having me. Honestly, it's not every day that a regular punter like me gets to sit at the table with so many politicians, which... So tell me what he was saying.
Yeah, so essentially this idea that, you know, the average person going to the pub is chipping in more to the government coffers than these multinational, often foreign-owned gas companies... has really taken off in the public. You've got people like Punter's Politics, which is a podcast, satirist kind of commentary outfit online. And Conrad, you know, it is interesting, I think, that shows the way this debate has gone, that he was invited to appear at one of the three days of this inquiry.
Genuinely, I shouldn't be here. Punter's Politics exists because I spoke about this issue and regular Aussies went, yeah, this doesn't only pass the pub test, this is outrageous and we've been sold out.
And essentially gets up to accuse or suggest that the government is giving away our gas and that that is not something that obviously he feels and many of his followers and readers and listeners feel is a fair deal for the taxpayer.
So the question we punters have is how is it that we are holding all of the cards yet still losing?
And Ken Henry, the former Treasury Secretary, well, he thinks it's a fabulous idea and he's really passionate about it, isn't he?
Yes, he had a bit of a viral moment himself in the inquiry.
Just do it. In the national interest, just do it and stop the crap that the Australian public have put up with for decades now.
He essentially just said we could be using this money in so many different ways to help so many people or to pay down the debt that obviously is about to reach a trillion dollars in the federal budget. There's a lot could be done with this money and it's time to get on with it was essentially his view. Yeah. Okay.
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