00:01Pauline Hanson told the energy industry she wants to make oil and gas exploration significantly
00:09easier in exchange for a blanket tax on all new projects.
00:15So she's proposed that the government would issue companies a 30 per cent tax rebate on
00:21their exploration costs in exchange for the option of the government taking a 30 per cent
00:27equity share in any production licences that are issued.
00:32And those proceeds would go towards a new Commonwealth investment vehicle she called the Australian
00:39National Wealth Investment Corporation or ANWIC which would then be able to direct its share
00:46of the oil and gas from new projects to priority areas whether that's in the domestic market
00:54or setting it aside for export needs.
00:57So she's also said that under a One Nation policy, the existing petroleum resource rent tax would
01:06be scrapped and replaced with a new Commonwealth royalty on wellhead value.
01:12So that is essentially taxing the volume of oil or gas coming out of the well.
01:17Critically, though, these changes would only apply to prospective projects.
01:22So existing PRRT arrangements that are already in place wouldn't be touched.
01:28She didn't nominate an exact tax amount, though it's been reported elsewhere.
01:33It could be somewhere around 10 per cent.
01:36So we're not really clear how much revenue this tax would raise.
01:42Certainly rejecting other suggestions that have come from the Greens and Senator David Pocock
01:48of a 25 per cent blanket tax on gas exports, saying that that would kill the industry.
01:56Here's a little bit of what Pauline Hanson had to say on her policy.
02:01One Nation would replace the PRRT with a simple Commonwealth royalty on wellhead value.
02:08This will give the Australian people a consistent tax take, help preserve the industry's social licence
02:15and provide industry with predictable costs based on production.
02:20This change will only apply to prospective projects, grandfathering current PRRT arrangements
02:32under which billions were invested.
02:36So despite telling the room that the oil and gas industry had lost their social licence,
02:42that the public was feeling frustrated that Australia wasn't getting its fair share of tax revenue
02:48from the natural resources here, there was no specific detail about how much tax revenue
02:56such a proposal would raise.
02:58And also the fact that this is prospective does raise questions about how the treatment
03:05of existing projects would differ under this proposal.
03:10For example, I think most of the gas projects in Queensland are all onshore.
03:15So whether they would be impacted or not, we're not exactly clear on those details.
03:19And so what's Labor and the Coalition's perspective on this?
03:22Yeah, well, both major parties speaking before One Nation had unveiled the bulk of these policies
03:30at this conference.
03:31But the resources Minister Madeleine King said that the Labor government's priority really
03:36is securing more supply through the establishment of an East Coast gas reservation.
03:42She said gas tax proposals that are based on models, for example, in Norway, which is a country
03:51that Pauline Hanson cited as being part of her inspiration for this policy, simply wouldn't
03:57work in an Australian context.
03:59Here's what she had to say.
04:00For One Nation to cherry-pick parts of a system of another country, and they're not the only ones,
04:07to be fair, the Australian Institute does it, many others do it as well, just speaks to
04:11their lack of knowledge of our gas system and, by the sounds of it, our political system
04:16as well.
04:17Now, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says he does want to see more oil and gas exploration
04:24and drilling.
04:26He said that a coalition government would amend Labor's environmental protection laws to allow
04:31coal and gas projects to be fast-tracked.
04:34But asked about whether any new tax should be paid, he said that the gas industry already
04:40paid $22 billion in tax last financial year.
04:45He said he wants that to grow, but not through additional taxes on exports.
04:52I want that number to go up.
04:55I want that number to go up.
04:56But let me tell you how I want it to go up.
04:58I want it to go up because there's more investment and more production of oil and gas in this country.
05:05More investment, more jobs, more opportunities for Australians.
05:09That's how we do it.
05:12So, while the major parties are on a somewhat unity ticket on the concept of further taxes
05:20on the gas industry, there's obviously significant divergences.
05:25The coalition wants more exploration and has said that it's not committed to net zero,
05:32something Pauline Hanson has also said she would scrap if One Nation were to ever form government
05:38or enter a coalition with the Liberal and National parties.
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