Japan makes more off Australian gas than Australia does.

The figure bundles together corporate income tax, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), state royalties, payroll tax, GST and other levies — including consumption taxes paid by ordinary Australians.^[1]

Underneath the headline, the ATO's own transparency data shows Santos paid $0 corporate income tax for ten consecutive years on $47 billion in sales (2013–14 to 2023–24). Ichthys LNG (Inpex) paid $0 corporate tax and $0 PRRT for six years on $43 billion in sales.^[2] Chevron paid its first PRRT instalment in August 2025 — decades after first extracting Australian gas.^[3]

Total PRRT collected in 2023–24 was A$1.5 billion — a three-year low.^[2]

ABS Labour Force data records ~25,000 people directly employed in oil-and-gas extraction in Australia (24,950 in February 2026) — about 0.15 % of the workforce.^[4]

The "215,000" figure comes from a KPMG report commissioned and paid for by the gas lobby itself, using input-output multipliers to count indirect and induced employment across the entire economy. The Productivity Commission and Treasury have repeatedly warned against using these multipliers for policy decisions.^[5]

The "17 %" figure averages the National Electricity Market with the small isolated WA and NT grids — where gas dominates because no major interconnector exists. In the NEM itself, where over 80 % of Australians get their electricity, gas supplied under 5 % in 2024–25 — down from 15 % a decade earlier.^[6]

AEMO's 2024 Integrated System Plan projects gas generation falls 69 % by 2030 and 96 % by 2050, with peakers running about 7 % of the time.^[7] In November 2025 batteries out-dispatched gas peakers in the NEM for the first time.^[8]

82 % of Australian gas is exported as LNG; only 1 % is used as manufacturing feedstock. The LNG export industry uses twelve times more gas than the entire manufacturing sector — see the manifest above.^[9]

IEEFA finds industrial heat pumps could replace 17 % of total gas use today by electrifying processes below 250 °C — most food, paper, textiles and low-temperature chemical processing.^[10] A genuinely hard-to-abate residue exists (ammonia, alumina, glass at >500 °C) but is a fraction of current consumption.

The IEA's Net Zero by 2050 roadmap states there is no need for investment in new oil and gas fields beyond those already approved, and that global gas demand must fall ~78 % by 2050 (4,150 → 900 bcm) on a 1.5 °C pathway.^[11]

Climate Integrity's investigation found the EY modelling underpinning AEP's net-zero claims cited 134 IPCC scenarios that do not exist. UTS analysis concluded the modelling was "more consistent with dangerous global warming of more than 2–3 °C" than with 1.5 °C pathways.^[5]

Eastern-Australian shortfalls are driven by export choices, not insufficient production. The ACCC's March 2026 forecast for Q2 2026 ranges from a 15 PJ surplus to an 8 PJ shortfall depending entirely on how much uncontracted gas Queensland LNG producers export.^[9]

The December 2025 Gas Market Review accordingly recommended a national domestic gas-reservation policy of 15–25 % — a tacit admission that current arrangements fail Australian users.^[5]