How Labor Just Shut Down Punters Politics

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi, my name's Chris and I live in Australia. And in today's video, I want to talk about taxing gas. I want to talk about ways to do it. And I want to talk about what's stopping gas from being taxed in Australia right now. And I want to get this video out because uh, you know, in a day or so's time from releasing this, the budget's going to be out and I'll be looking through the budget for the year for like an entire week, understanding it, seeing what's going on. But I want to get this gas tax video out before the budget. That way I can I I guess get the awareness out there and then keep moving forward and then pulling to bits the rots and I I guess the mismanagement of funds that the government's doing cuz it all ties in together here. But I'll start this video with a simple question. Do you think that Australians are getting their fair share when it comes to gas? So currently Australia does have a tax in place for gas. It's called the PRRT or petroleum resources rent tax which pulled in about 1.4 4 billion last financial year. Now, when we look at the total amount of gas that Australia is producing when we include domestic and also export gas, well, it was about 79 billion worth. So, 1.42 billion verse 79.1 billion total. You can see there's a very small amount in tax being collected. Now, I'm going to give credit where credit's due, and that's to another YouTuber that some of you may know, Punters Politics. So Conrad, my hat off to you, sir.

[00:01:26]>> Like genuinely, I shouldn't be here.

[00:01:28]Punters politics exists cuz I spoke about this issue and regular Aussies went, "Yeah, this doesn't only pass the pub test. This is outrageous and we we've been sold out because we shouldn't have we shouldn't have issues with what we can afford. We should be we should be looking at how we can invest in future businesses, how we can supply basic medical and dental to sort of anyone who wants it. This is the kind of country how wealthy we are. Aussies know it. I know it. We know it. So when politicians tell us and they're about to tell us that we can't afford it, we know it's a lie. And this gas this gas issue is the perfect example of how it's a lie.

[00:02:08]>> You have done so well, dude. Uh you have raised awareness around gas taxing in the country. You've been uh you've got a lobbyist in place now. You've you've been down to CRA. You've been talking to politicians about it all. You've put up billboards around the world. Uh you were just recently in a Senate hearing about it all. And also, what else has you done? You're on KL Stephanovic. Dude, you're raising so much awareness around this stuff. And you're putting upwards pressure. I think that's what my channel's about a lot of the time, just putting upwards pressure on the government to do better for the people.

[00:02:35]So, once again, comrade, hat off to you, sir. Brilliant job. So, taxing gas, it's a great idea. 83% of it is being exported overseas. And as Australians from our limited resource that is being exported out there, we should be getting a decent cut or a chunk coming back in to better Australia. So I just want to be clear that taxing gas if we collected in $17 billion per year from an export tax, it only works if the government doesn't completely mismanage and blow the funds. Otherwise, it's all for nothing. And when we look at taxing gas at face value, it's not a check that Australian citizens get that goes into their pocket and they can spend it however they want. goes to the government pool of money. So when you hear rhetoric online saying tax the gas companies so Australians get the money.

[00:03:20]Uh it's not going into their pockets.

[00:03:22]This isn't Alaska. It's not where you know every citizen's getting like $1,000 a year into their pocket to spend. No.

[00:03:27]Our government has dug themselves a hole. They've got a trillion dollars in debt right now. And we we we don't have that luxury in the country anymore to be able to give back a dividend to the people. We've got too much debt. Our government has dug us a trench here.

[00:03:41]Now, if we had no debt and the government managed its funds correctly, we'd probably see tax rates start to drop. So, your tax that you pay on your income would start to drop off if this stuff was being managed properly cuz there's more money for the government to spend, which means it doesn't need to collect as much from us, the people.

[00:03:57]That's realistically how it would start to look. So, let's put aside the government squandering the money from the taxes, assume it gets spent responsibly and it's managed in the correct way. Now, the Liberal and the Labor Party, they do not want to change gas taxes right now. They have both gone against it. They say do not change the gas taxes. So Liberal and Labor, that's your big uni party in the center. That's the center of politics right now. And One Nation on the right side of politics, well, they want to tax gas.

[00:04:24]And then the Greens and the Teals and some of the independents on the left side of politics, they want to tax gas, too. So you have the right and the left both wanting to tax gas. And when the right and the left finally agree on something and the center doesn't, that means there's a problem in the middle.

[00:04:38]There's a problem with the center of politics. Now, for sake of this video, so I don't have to go down nuances and rabbit holes and explain every single angle. I'll be focusing most of the criticism on the Labor government here cuz they are the in power government.

[00:04:51]They're the government with the numbers and they're the government who can make changes right now if they wanted to. But they're not going to and they won't. And I'll explain why. So, Labor will not change the gas taxes. Now, just a few weeks ago, some of you may remember, we started a fuel crisis off and Elbow and crew, they went flying to countries all around our area. And they made promises to all these countries that they will not change the gas tax. That's what they promised these countries in order to keep fuel coming across to Australia.

[00:05:19]For the countries that produce fertilizer, they said, "We will not change our gas taxes." And they secured in more fertilizer coming to Australia.

[00:05:27]Even though the majority of Australian people are saying, "Hey, we want to tax gas more." Our government, the Labor Party, went overseas, promised all these other countries, we will not change our gas taxes. They ignored the people. And then you start to wonder why. Oh, why would Labor do that? Well, is it because over the last 10 years, they've received over $10 million in donations to their party from fossil fuel industries, a large chunk of it being natural gas companies and also gas lobbyists. in any other industry outside of Australian politics. This would be called a conflict of interest or even corruption.

[00:06:02]We give you money and then you give us favorable legislation for our industry.

[00:06:07]Is that corruption? Is that a conflict of interest? You let me know down below in the comments. $10 million over the last 10 years for the Labor Party. So, Labour is accepting money from industry saying we're not going to change any gas taxes. And they're cutting deals overseas saying Australia won't change any gas taxes. So that is not putting Australia first. That is elbow and crew being globalists supporting a globalist agenda. Because of these actions made by the Labor government and these promises that they've made to the gas companies, to the multinationals, and to other countries, there will be no gas changes.

[00:06:40]They've made promises just recently saying they will not change it.

[00:06:43]Therefore, that's what's blocking the changes to tax, getting appropriate taxation across on the natural resources in Australia. It is Albanesey's Labor government, Albanesey's regime. And if we want to see gas changes occur, we need to vote out Labor. So when it comes to gas taxes, what kind of gas taxes are there? What options do we have on the table? So the first one is the PR RT, petroleum resources, rent tax. I'll pop that up on the screen. And petroleum resources rent tax. I won't do that again. And that essentially uh is structured in a way that gas companies can depreciate or deduct their capital costs, ongoing costs, uh depreciation of their rigs, future exploration, anything against the cost or the tax uh that they have to pay the Australian government.

[00:07:32]So they can write off that entire tax uh and continue to expand their gas operations. In 2023, they changed it so only uh only 90% can be deducted again.

[00:07:43]So 10% has to be paid now and 90% can be deducted still. So it's a failure of a tax uh $79.1 billion uh in both domestic and uh exports.

[00:07:56]And then you look at the $1.42 billion in tax collected from that scheme. It's not working. That scheme's been there since 1989 put in place by the Labor government. To explain PRRT tax very simply and how the gas companies are getting away with murder on it, imagine that you are a gas company. you have $1 billion in tax to pay under this PRRT tax. You say, "Okay, I could give $1 billion across to the Australian government." Or I could go open up a new exploration, do a whole bunch of upgrades to existing machinery. I can expand our operations in this area and spend $1 billion doing that. And because I've spent a billion dollars doing that, I offset and deduct against that 1 billion I had to pay to the government.

[00:08:37]Uh which means I don't have to pay any tax. and I've invested all that money that I would have had to pay to tax uh into expanding our operations. So, the gas companies grow and the Australian people don't get anything for it until that change happened in 2023 and now they only get 10% of the total 100%. So, 90% is taxdeductible. Now, essentially the PRRT was lobbyed and crafted for gas companies to pretty much get away with murder, pretty much get away with not paying anything. And it's only in 2023 it's like, oh, you can only deduct 90% of it now. So it's it's not good for Australia. It's not good for the people of Australia. Great for gas companies and it look makes the government look like they're doing something when really they're not doing anything at all. So that's PR RT. That's rubbish. Throw it over there. Let's get rid of that one.

[00:09:22]Let's look at the next wage tax and that's an export tax. And that 25% export tax we've been hearing a lot over the media. U you know that's the stuff that uh Pundit politics is talking about, David Koko's talking about the Greens. The left side is talking about saying, "Hey, let's do a 25% export tax." That makes sense. 83% of Australia's gas is exported from the country. Only 17% is domestic use. So, if 83% of the tax from this country is largely getting away with not being taxed or very little being collected from it, maybe we should put a 25% tax on it. That's the that's the thought process around this. try and collect some money from the gas leaving Australia. Uh so we have a little bit left for the people of Australia to better Australia. Now the Australian Institute kind of predicts that this 25% export tax, it would collect in about $17 billion per year in tax revenue for the country. And $17 billion a year, that's a lot better than the 1.42 billion we're currently getting. So question to you as an Australian citizen where you compare PRT and the 25% export tax. Would you rather have $17 billion or $1.42 billion per year coming in to support the country? I'll let you decide. Let me know down below in the comments. Now this 25% export tax, it made quite a splash. In fact, it made such a big splash that Japan's prime minister Takahuchi came across to Australia to talk to Elbow and his mates and go, "Guys, do not change the gas taxes. Do not change it. We're hearing that you're looking at this incredibly unfavorable for us and is seen as an aggressive move. They do not want us to change gas taxes. So much so that Japan came across to Australia telling our government not to change taxes.

[00:11:04]>> We have consistently and actively contributed to the regional peace and stability as the region's stabilizing force. Australia and Japan signing a gas for fuel priority deal matching similar agreements in Singapore, Brunai and Malaysia.

[00:11:19]>> Our friendship has never been closer and in these uncertain times, friendships matter more than ever.

[00:11:25]>> Now, why is Japan so interested? Let's have a quick look at that. So, 36% of all natural gas produced in Australia is exported across to Japan. 36% of everything made here goes to Japan. So, just over a third. Now, Japan's prime minister was here because Japan has multi-deade contracts in place with Australia. Things like the Wheatstone and also the Gorgon projects. Their longunning legacy contracts are not set to expire until the mid 2030s. Now, these longunning legacy contracts with Japan has our gas going across to Japan at a third of the cost of what it is on the spot market and a third of the cost of what we in Australia pay for the gas.

[00:12:07]These contracts were set at such a low rate so many years ago hasn't factored inflation, hasn't factored changes to the global market and a third of the cost of what gas is currently worth.

[00:12:17]We're just drilling out sending across to Japan and they're making they're making a lot of money out of it. They're reselling the gas. You've probably heard that Japan's reselling the gas that we ship over. Yeah, of course they are.

[00:12:28]They're getting a third of the cost of what it's worth. They're taking what they want and then selling other stuff over to other countries and they're making a profit off of it. And these contracts, they're still in place until the mid 2030s. So another 10 years of our gas being sold at a third of what it's worth to Japan. Now, if we added in a 25% export tax, that's seen as incredibly aggressive by countries like Japan because they lose some of their profit. And they don't want to lose their profit. They want gas cheap. They want to be able to resell it. They want to be able to make as much money as possible. But this 25%, they would lose some of that profit. And these gas companies that have such low rates and they're like, "Oh, now there's an extra 25% on, they're like, "Ah, how are we going to make money here?" Well, you know, you shouldn't have signed these contracts. And the thing is, these are multinationals mostly owning these rigs, these these companies, multinationals, and they're complaining they're not making as much money as possible or they're still selling the gas at full rates to Australians. No, I don't think so. So, there's PRT, that's already out the window. Then you got the 25% export tax. So, that that's one way. Let's put that one on the table. That's an option.

[00:13:33]What's the other way to do it? And the other way to do taxation of gas in Australia is called a wellhead tax. And a wellhead tax or more simply a royalty is applied as the gas is extracted at point of production and you charge it on volume from your pedigogles coming out.

[00:13:49]Now, a lot of people don't know this, but when natural gas is super cooled down to become liquid natural gas or LNG, which is the product that we can export out on the ships to other countries, well, it takes energy to cool down that natural gas to liquid natural gas to convert it across. And that energy is they use natural gas as the energy to cool it down. So, there's a lot of natural gas used. There's no tax applied whatsoever to cool it down to the final product. and we get nothing for that process across. It's more of our natural gas being used by the gas companies where there's no tax, no incentives or anything like that. Uh but if you do a wellhead tax and you applied it not just to the finalized products as it's coming through the the general stem of natural gas but you apply that tax as well to the production cost for the gas that they're burning to cool it down or then it ensures that all the gas see this in my hands all the gas is getting taxed and not just the stuff that finally makes to export all the stuff that was used to cool it down gets taxed appropriately and that's where a wellhead tax can come in play. Now, not too long ago, there was a little bit of dirty politics of propaganda around One Nation voting against a 25% export tax.

[00:15:05]And the reason why they voted against that 25% export tax at the time was because they thought a wellhead tax was a better method to do it and a more acceptable method to do it. as time goes on in this political space. I mean, right now, one thing that I'm learning is that when a party votes no to something, it's either because they fundamentally don't agree with it or they have a different solution that they'd rather put forward instead. So, it's one of them two options that comes through. So, if we applied a 15% wellhead tax or 15% royalty for gas across the country, we'd collect in about $12 billion per year. Now, if we did a wellhead method, some of you be like, "Oh, you'd be taxing stuff that goes to the domestic market as well."

[00:15:44]Well, that's where you'd need a fuel reservation scheme put in place. Uh, funneling across 15 20% of the gas to the domestic market. And when you flood the market with that extra gas, what happens at that point is that the prices get pushed down. Now, when you set up a domestic reserve and you flood the market with excess gas to an area, it does a couple of double whmy effects with it. So, not only does it push the price down for us, the the people living in the country, but it also forces coal, solar, and other renewables to compete harder because as gas drops in price, becomes the preferred energy method because it's the cheapest. Uh, that means the other things need to compete as well to stay just underneath that value or around that value. So, it pushes down electricity costs across most of the country. You want capitalism, you want a free market, well, that's how it works. Something drops in price, other things have to compete. And competition in markets, that's a good thing. We want industries, we want companies to compete to get the price as low as possible for us, the consumer. Now, last election, Liberal put forward a gas reservation scheme.

[00:16:43]Uh, and it was contested at first, but now Labour's picked it up and they're putting through a gas reservation scheme in 2027 that's already on the bills that's already locked in. They're doing that. But now, the nuance to that gas reservation scheme is it's for the East Coast and all existing contracts, all these legacy contracts where it's all going overseas, it's all locked in for the next, you know, 10 years. these legacy contracts are exempt from it. So if these gas reservation schemes because of the legacy contracts in place, we're not going to see any real impact or the full fruition of this gas preservation until the mid 2030s when these legacy contracts come up for renewal. So for the next 10 years, there's still a free reign of export where everyone else is profiting except for us. So here's the options, here's the outcome. You have the PRRT, that's 1.2 billion per year.

[00:17:28]Let's throw it away. It's not working.

[00:17:29]It's not enough right now. Next option, the wellhead tax with a gas reservation and they'll pull in about $12 billion per year. It's seen less aggressive to the other countries around. Uh it's seen less aggressive because it's kind of the middle ground because the next one that comes up is the export tax of 25% which is $17 billion per year. So you have the options of $12 billion less aggressive.

[00:17:53]It's kind of like that middle ground for all the gas companies, all the other countries and stuff like that. Or you have the $17 billion one uh which is the export tax which is seen the most aggressive option. And now people say you can't change you can't change the existing contracts. You can't change the existing contracts as a a sovereign risk. Well the PRRT that came through and that applied to all existing contracts. That was no issue because the gas companies knew that I could just write it all off. Didn't impact them. So you can put these things across existing contracts. Existing contracts don't control or factor the taxes that a government or a nation puts across the industry. So it doesn't it doesn't control. You can't have a contract from 1980s saying uh you know we will not pay tax in Australia. You you can't do that.

[00:18:37]That's not how contracting works. So in my view there's two options. There's a wellhead tax with a gas reservation or alternatively there's a 25% export tax.

[00:18:46]But the issue with that 25% export tax right now is because the government's gone and put a gas reservation in place as well for 2027, these now conflict with each other even further. So you've got Labor, they've gone and made all these promises to countries around us, all these promises to the multinational companies, all these promises to the gas companies, you know, from the donations they're getting through, but they've made all these promises not to change the tax, and they put in a gas reservation, which conflicts with that one as well, cuz it becomes a double whammy effect of uh gas in the Australian market uh being preferred because they need to pay a 25% export tax and then additionally a reserve value is well put in there, which comes a double deduction.

[00:19:26]fantastic for us the consumers but now politically conflicts with each other.

[00:19:30]So they they've dug themselves a trench there. Labour's gone and deliberately done this in place to stop gas taxes being imposed across uh across the industry. So I don't care if it's a wellhead tax with a gas reservation or if it's a 25% export tax 12 billion 17 billion is all 10 to 15 times better than the 1.2 billion we're getting right now. Something needs to change. We need that extra revenue coming through. It's just an absolute mess the government's put us in right now. They've dug the trenches so deep with us with these these multi-deade legacy contracts, not putting the appropriate taxation in place right now to the point where it's like it's like what do we do? What can we do? Cuz we know we're getting ripped off. We're getting ripped off blind currently. And that money should be going across to us, the Australian people, the Australian citizens to benefit our country. And we need to make sure that if it does come through, the government doesn't mismanage it. The government doesn't squander it. The government doesn't rot it and waste it.

[00:20:22]Cuz if the government rots it and wastes it and blows it all away, it's all for nothing. What's the point of even having this conversation? So, what do you think? Do you think Australians deserve their fair share when it comes to gas?

[00:20:33]Do you want your energy bills lower? Do you think the multi-deade legacy contracts and the political donations to these politicians making the rules need to stop? What are your thoughts? Leave them down below in the comments and I'll see you in the next