Petition

Australia sells its gas cheap, and the rest of us cover the shortfall.

Add your name below. We're collecting signatures across Sturt and passing the numbers to the national campaign, so that what this electorate thinks about it is on the record.

Gas is a resource the country owns collectively, and it is being exported at a rate of return that most comparable countries would find embarrassing. Norway built a sovereign wealth fund out of its petroleum resources. Australia has largely watched its own go past.

The Our Gas campaign, which is backed by the ACTU, ACOSS and the Australia Institute, puts the numbers this way: roughly 56 per cent of Australia's gas exports currently attract no royalties at all, Australians pay around 24 times more in income tax than the gas industry pays in company tax, and something in the order of $69 billion in revenue has been forgone since July 2022 by not taxing gas exports properly.

Whether you accept every one of those figures or not, the underlying question is a fair one. If we are going to lean this heavily on wage earners to fund hospitals, schools and aged care, it is reasonable to ask why one of our largest export industries contributes so little by comparison.

What you're signing

We call on the Australian Government to introduce a 25 per cent tax on gas export revenue, and to close the loopholes in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, so that Australians receive a fair return on a resource we all own.

What happens with your details

We ask for your address so we can confirm how much of this support is coming from within Sturt, which is the part that carries weight with a federal member. We'll add you to our supporter list and you can leave it at any time. We don't sell or share your details, and you'll hear from us occasionally rather than constantly.