In a surprising revelation that has electrified Australian political discourse, a senior treasury official confirmed during a February Senate hearing that Australia generates more annual government revenue from beer excise taxes than it does from levies on its multibillion-dollar offshore gas exports. The exchange, captured on video and shared widely across social media, has amassed nearly 10 million views on Instagram alone, catapulting a long-simmering debate over resource taxation into the national spotlight.
Independent Senator David Pocock, who pressed the official for clarity, summed up widespread public frustration in his question: “How do we live in a country, one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, and we’re getting more tax from beer?” The viral moment has reignited a grassroots campaign led by Pocock, political commentator Konrad Benjamin, and other advocates to implement a 25% tax on Australian gas exports, a policy that has drawn fierce pushback from multinational energy companies operating in the country.
As Australia grapples with skyrocketing cost-of-living pressures and soaring domestic gas prices, exacerbated by the global fuel crisis triggered by the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran, the debate has dominated front pages just one week ahead of the release of the country’s annual federal budget. Despite broad public support for the policy, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already ruled out its inclusion in next week’s budget, but the issue shows no signs of fading from the political agenda.
Former Australian Treasury Secretary Dr Ken Ken Henry, who first proposed a broad mining tax 16 years ago that was ultimately defeated after a massive industry lobbying campaign, has thrown his weight behind the current push. He argued that if the earlier mining tax had been implemented, Australia would have collected tens of billions of dollars in extra revenue that could have been seeded into a intergenerational sovereign wealth fund to fund long-term public services. Henry drew a blunt analogy to explain the current unfairness of Australia’s gas taxation regime: “Imagine if I were to come to you … and put this proposition to you: I’ll sell your house and I’ll give you 30% and I’ll keep the other 70%, and you should be happy with that because I’ve just converted an asset into cash. None of you would be stupid enough to do that.”
The Australia Institute, a progressive public policy think tank, has further underscored the scope of the revenue gap, noting that Japan generates more tax revenue from importing Australian gas than Australia collects from exporting the resource. The institute estimates that a 25% gas export tax would add around A$17 billion (£9 billion, US$12 billion) to annual government revenue.
Polling data released last week confirms the policy’s broad popularity with Australian voters, with 57% of respondents backing the proposed gas export tax and just 12% voicing opposition. Many supporters have pointed to Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, built from the country’s oil and gas revenues, as a model for Australia. For comparison, Australia’s existing sovereign wealth fund held just A$267 billion as of December 2025 – less than 10% of Norway’s total, despite Australia having a population five times the size of Norway’s. Supporters argue that increased gas tax revenue could fund popular public programs including more generous parental leave, free tertiary education, and expanded healthcare.
Benjamin, a former high school teacher turned political YouTuber who testified on the proposal at the recent Senate hearing, has built a large social media following for his videos calling for reform, regularly earning hundreds of thousands of views. “My year 10 business students understand: if something is profitable and we’re holding all the levers of power – look around. How many stable democracies have the many resources that we have? How are we getting such a dud deal?” he told senators.
The scale of the current revenue gap is hard to overstate. While Australian gas exports hit a record peak of A$90 billion in 2023 amid market turmoil following the Ukraine war, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), the primary levy on offshore oil and gas producers, is projected to raise just A$1.5 billion in the 2025-26 financial year. By contrast, beer excise taxes are expected to generate A$2.7 billion in the same period. Even at the country’s flagship Gorgon gas project, majority-owned by Chevron, multinational Shell paid just A$109 million in PRRT last year – its first PRRT payment in a decade – on A$2.5 billion in project revenue.
Samantha Hepburn, a natural resource law professor at Deakin University, explained that Australia’s tax code includes unusually generous provisions for energy companies that allow them to deduct large upfront infrastructure and development costs from their tax bills, and carry forward unused tax credits to offset future profits for years. “Gas is in a particularly favourable position because of the significant upfront costs associated with construction and drilling and the other infrastructure,” Hepburn said. “And that means that they can keep uplifting those expenses against future profits in a way that other resource or mining resource sector companies haven’t necessarily been able to do.” While gas companies pay standard corporate and payroll taxes like other businesses, Hepburn noted that they exploit a publicly owned natural resource, and existing royalty payments for onshore projects are far smaller than profit-based tax revenue would be. This structure has led to widespread claims that Australia is effectively giving its natural gas away to foreign companies for below market value.
Energy companies have pushed back hard against the proposed tax, defending their current tax contributions and warning of negative economic consequences. Shell said it has invested US$60 billion in Australia since 2010 and paid A$12 billion in total Australian taxes over the past decade. The company also argued that Norway’s resource model is fundamentally different, as the Norwegian state takes direct equity stakes in energy projects and shares development risk, a structure not used in Australia. Chevron, which holds the majority stake in Gorgon, argued that Australia needs stable regulatory frameworks to attract investment across all sectors, claiming that a new export tax would undermine that stability and threaten domestic gas supply. Energy firm Santos added that the proposal itself has already damaged Australia’s reputation as a reliable investment destination.
Prime Minister Albanese has rejected comparisons between beer and gas tax revenue as “complete fantasy”, noting that the broader gas sector paid A$22 billion in total taxes last year. Speaking to a gathering of mining and energy executives, he reaffirmed that the government would not impose a new gas export tax in the upcoming budget, saying “the middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them.” Albanese, who recently completed a tour of Asian nations to secure long-term fuel supply agreements, added that gas exports are “directly linked to our national fuel security” and that Australia depends on billions in foreign investment from North American, Japanese and other international partners to develop gas resources.
However, critics of the government’s position argue that the prime minister’s objections do not hold up to scrutiny. University of Queensland economics professor John Quiggin noted that imposing a new export tax would not violate existing contracts, as no commercial agreement can bind future governments to permanent tax policy. He also pushed back on claims that the tax would drive away foreign investment, asking “Where are they going to go?” Quiggin added that the old argument that foreign investors must be treated with extreme leniency or they will abandon the market is outdated, pointing to shifting global norms including former US President Donald Trump’s unilateral imposition of global tariffs in recent years. Hepburn further noted that fears of deterring new gas investment conflict with Australia’s own climate targets, which require the country to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, meaning new large-scale gas development should not be prioritized anyway.
While the gas export tax is all but certain to be left out of next week’s budget, most political analysts agree that reform is ultimately inevitable, given the policy’s broad cross-partisan popularity, ranging from the left-wing Greens to the right-wing One Nation. Pocock and his supporters have vowed to continue their campaign, and Pocock tweeted earlier this week that “The pressure on government to act is growing and, at some point, the prime minister has to put Australia first.”