Plibersek can’t say why Woodside gets a free pass to dodge petroleum tax

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has dodged a question about the Greens’ claim that one of Australia’s dirtiest companies will be excused from paying Labor’s proposed hiked petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT).

On Wednesday morning, Plibersek was asked by Hamish Macdonald, interim host on the ABC’s RN Breakfast, why Western Australia’s Woodside-led North West Shelf would be excluded from the tax, which is forecasted to raise $2.35 billion over the next four years. She said the government was “working really hard to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050”.

When Macdonald asked a second time, a frustrated Plibersek said: “If you want to talk about specific decisions made in the budget made about the tax regime, you might want to get the treasurer on the program.”

When pressed a third time about whether she thought Woodside’s exemption was “right”, Plibersek responded: “What I think is right is that we get Australia to net-zero carbon emissions, and we’re on a path to do that.”

Macdonald moved on.

Labor’s proposed PRRT rise, where deductions would be capped at 90% of revenues while PRRT would be paid on the 10%, was warmly welcomed by oil and gas giants, with the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association backing the Albanese government’s May budget proposal.

It would be an improvement upon the zero dollars and zero cents in revenue raised by the PRRT to date — the 40% tax includes generous concessions for the expense of exploring and developing gas fields, which can then be carried forward and deducted as tax credits against future liabilities.

But the proposed reform says the cap would not be applicable to three types of deductible expenses — closing-down expenditure, starting base expenditure and resource tax expenditure — criteria that the Greens say means Woodside’s $34 billion North West Shelf project would not be eligible.

In a statement, Greens Leader Adam Bandt slammed the Albanese government for “giving sweetheart deals to its corporate gas donors”, pointing out the Commonwealth raked in just $345 million in 2021-22 from Woodside, Australia’s biggest liquid natural gas producer. Its net profit after tax was A$2.4 billion.

“By excluding Woodside’s biggest project from the gas tax, Labor is weakening the gas tax to benefit their donors,” Bandt said.

Bandt, who told Guardian Australia this week that his powerbroking party would be unlikely to support the paltry PRRT hike, said Treasurer Jim Chalmers would be forced to negotiate with the Coalition because the policy benefited “gas corporations, not the people”.

On the same day, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who spoke to The Australian, said his party would be “happy to engage constructively” with Labor on the PRRT reform as long as the opposition secured “reduced regulation [and] condensed timelines for approvals” in return.

During Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill’s pre-budget speech to the National Press Club, which critics slammed for containing “misleading nonsense”, the CEO ominously warned the government about “overreaching” on fossil fuel tax.

“Opportunities that we might pursue to bring new projects to bear will be under pressure,” O’Neill said. “Our message to government is what’s important for us is hold the course, stay with the framework we have. It’s delivering very well for Australians.”

It appeared to be a warning Labor heeded, despite Parliamentary Budget Office analysis for the Greens showing alternative changes to the PRRT could net up to $94.5 billion over the next decade as the country stares down years of forecasted deficits.