Additional Comments from Senator David Pocock
'[J]ust do it and stop the crap that the Australian public have been putting up with, for decades now' – Dr Ken Henry
1.1This Committee was set up to examine one of the most consequential public policy failures in our recent history: the systematic under-taxation of Australia's gas exports. In three days of hearings and from more than 200 submissions, the Committee received evidence that the case for reform has never been clearer. The conflict in the Middle East has triggered the second major energy price shock in five years. Australian gas exporters are again looking at huge windfall profits from a global crisis. Australian households and businesses are likely soon to be forced to again pay more for gas, electricity, and almost everything else, while being dudded on the sale of a finite resource that belongs to us.
1.2The core recommendation of this report is that the Parliament introduce a 25 per cent tax on gas export revenue. The evidence presented to the Committee in support of reform was substantial. The arguments against it, advanced almost exclusively by the gas industry and its representatives, do not survive scrutiny.
1.3As Dr Ken Henry, former Secretary of the Treasury and the head of the 2010 review of Australia's tax system, put it in his submission to this committee:
'The energy resources generating windfall gains belong to the people of Australia, yet the people of Australia are big losers, forced to pay higher energy prices. The sole beneficiaries of higher energy prices are shareholders in multinational energy companies'.[1]
1.4Australia is one of the three largest exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world.[2] The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) was originally designed to return roughly 8 per cent of export revenue to Australians. For most of the past decade it has returned less than 2 per cent.[3] Qatar, which exports a similar volume of LNG to Australia, collects roughly five times as much Government revenue.[4] These outcomes are the product of policy choices, not of geology or geography. Successive Australian Governments have chosen to sell huge quantities of gas without royalty, and without an effective taxation system as a substitute.
1.5Australia is one of the world's largest LNG exporters, but Australians do not receive a fair share on the incredibly lucrative sale and export of a valuable resource. The Superpower Institute provided the committee with a comparative analysis covering more than a dozen fossil-fuel-producing countries. On a cash-flow basis, Australia's average return of around 18 per cent of gas-sector profits sits well below a global norm of between 75 and 90 per cent, a category that includes the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Qatar, Norway, Mexico, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.[5]
1.6Norway, as a stable western democracy, is perhaps the most striking comparison. The Norges Bank Investment Management Fund is worth around 20,784,305,269,137 Norwegian Krone, or more than $3 trillion Australian dollars.[6] Norway taxes gas extraction at a rate of 78 per cent, from a combination of the company tax rate liabilities (at 22 per cent) and the petroleum extraction tax (at 56 per cent).[7]
1.7In Australia, by contrast, gas companies are banking huge profits and paying very little tax. For example, Market Forces analysed the disclosures of Santos, one of the largest Australian-headquartered LNG companies, and found that over the decade to 2025 Santos paid just $33 million in Australian income tax on more than $41 billion in sales revenue. Including royalties, Santos has returned just 3.1 per cent of its Australian sales revenue to Australians over the past ten years.[8]
1.8Santos is not exceptional. INPEX, which exports more gas each year than is consumed in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia combined, paid no royalties, no PRRT, and just $484 million in company tax on $81.3 billion of income over the same period. ConocoPhillips paid zero company tax and zero PRRT on $17 billion in sales over the past decade.[9] The Australia Institute estimates that 56 per cent of the LNG exported from Australia is royalty-free, the result of decisions made decades ago to forgo royalties on gas extracted from Commonwealth waters in favour of the PRRT.[10]
1.9The consequences for Australian gas consumers are also stark. Asked about the trajectory of domestic gas prices since east coast gas was linked to the export market, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources acknowledged that domestic prices had risen in the order of 200 to 300 per cent over that period, an increase well above inflation and far outpacing equivalent movements on the west coast, where gas reservation has been in place for decades.[11]
1.10The gas industry pays some corporate tax, as any business operating in Australia would. The relevant question is not whether it pays tax, but whether the figures it cites in defence of the current arrangements can be verified, and whether the total contribution it makes is commensurate with the value of the resource it extracts.
1.11On the first question, the figures put to the committee by Australian Energy Producers (AEP), the industry's peak lobby group, do not withstand scrutiny. AEP's submission claims the industry 'paid a record $21.9 billion in taxes and royalties in 2024-25', citing its own 'Financial Survey 2025'.[12] The cited source links not to any survey findings or methodology, but to a separate AEP media release.
1.12Analysis prepared by the Parliamentary Library, drawing on most recently available Australian Taxation Office data, federal budget papers and reported state royalties, indicates that the gas industry paid $15.165 billion in tax, excise and royalties in 2023-24. In the media release linked to in the AEP submission, the industry claims to have paid $21.5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year. The discrepancy of approximately $6 billion between AEP's claim and the Parliamentary Library's reconciliation of publicly available data is grounds for real concern. The figures the industry has put before the Parliament lack transparency, lack proper sourcing, and appear to be inflated.
1.13More concerning is that the Prime Minister and elements within the media have been recycling unverified claims from an industry with a clear vested interest. Independent verification before accepting the talking points of an industry that has previously been labelled as a systemic non-payer of tax by the ATO should be the bare minimum for politicians and journalists.[13]
1.14As the examples set out above demonstrate, the gas industry excels at minimising tax. The most pressing issue, however, as the next section makes clear, is the failure of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax to deliver Australians a fair return on the sale of their gas.
1.15As Dr Ken Henry pointed out:
'Imagine if I were to come to you, sit down with you, look at your personal or household balance sheet and put this proposition to you: I'll sell your house and I'll give you 30 per cent and I'll keep the other 70 per cent, 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, yet that is what the Australian Government and the Australian parliament does with respect to our gas reserves'.[14]
1.16The 2023 changes to the PRRT, which introduced a 90 per cent deductions cap on assessable receipts, were the option the gas industry itself supported, and the industry was quick to congratulate the Government on their passage.[15] Since their introduction, projected PRRT revenue has been revised down rather than up.
1.17The Australian Taxation Office confirmed to the committee that, as at 2023-24, total carry-forward expenditure across all PRRT-liable entities stood at $282 629 billion. As Dr Mark Zirnsak, Spokesperson for Tax Justice Network Australia, noted, the 90 per cent cap introduced in 2023 does not eliminate this stock of credits, it merely spreads their use over a longer period.[16]
1.18The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) submission describes the deeper architectural problem that remains despite the 2023 reforms. The PRRT is profit-based and self-reported. Companies carry losses forward, transfer costs across projects, and rely on transfer pricing arrangements that are vulnerable to minimisation. Construction risk, which should sit with project proponents, is in practice transferred to the Australian public, because cost blow-outs and delays simply increase the deductions available to offset future revenue.[17]
1.19 The Superpower Institute identified the same structural flaw, noting that the PRRT was originally designed for offshore oil rather than LNG. Mr Baethan Mullen, the Institute's Chief Executive Officer, told the committee that the upfront capital costs characteristic of LNG projects, carried forward and uplifted at the bond rate plus a premium, create 'an effective shield on the amount of tax paid under the PRRT'.[18]
1.20As a result of these structural failings, the PRRT is not delivering revenue. Analysis by EEFA shows that PRRT payments per gigajoule of gas extraction have ranged from approximately 21 cents to 41 cents over the period from 2018-19 to 2023-24. Royalties on gas extracted in Queensland over the same period ranged from 19 cents to $1.57 per gigajoule. In absolute terms, Queensland's state royalty revenue exceeded total Commonwealth PRRT revenue in both 2022-23 and 2023-24, despite gas production from Commonwealth waters being nearly three times larger than Queensland's production over the same period.[19]
1.21That comparison should give the Parliament pause. A state Government, applying a relatively modest royalty regime, has been collecting more revenue from a thrice-smaller volume of gas than the Commonwealth has collected from the bulk of the country's LNG production.
1.22As is now well known, Australians pay more tax through the beer excise than multinational gas companies pay in PRRT. But the scale of the problem was confirmed in evidence from the Australian Taxation Office. In the 2023-24 financial year, total assessable receipts across all PRRT-liable projects were $46.18 billion. Total PRRT collected was $1.5 billion.[20]
1.23Decommissioning is the next serious structural problem. The PRRT permits future closing-down expenditure to be claimed on an uncapped basis when calculating PRRT liability.[21] Independent analysis prepared for the offshore industry projects that decommissioning costs for Australia's offshore oil and gas industry will reach $66.8 billion by 2063, not counting assets installed after July 2024.[22] Under current settings, the gas industry's clean-up bill will become the Australian taxpayer's problem. Every dollar a company spends decommissioning a depleted field reduces its PRRT liability.
1.24The Government may be tempted to revisit the options canvassed in Treasury's 2023 Review of Gas Transfer Pricing Arrangements, including the adoption of a netback-only approach to determining the gas transfer price. The Australian Conservation Foundation cautioned the committee directly against pursuing that path, arguing that such measures 'would strengthen the PRRT but are insufficient to capture a fair price for exported gas'.[23] Transfer pricing is one of the principal mechanisms gas companies use to minimise their PRRT and corporate tax liabilities. Tightening the rules around it is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
1.25The PRRT was designed for a different industry, in a different era, with different assumptions about who would pay and what they would pay it on. It cannot be saved. Continuing to tinker with its rate, its deductions, or its uplift factors will produce another decade of legalised avoidance. A clean break is required. Dr Henry's assessment of the PRRT was unequivocal. Asked whether further reform was preferable to replacement, he answered: 'Honestly, I'd tear it up and start again'.[24]
1.26The Centre for Policy Development put the same point to the committee in different terms. Asked why simplicity in design is so critical, Mr Miles Prosser, Energy Transition Lead, told the committee that the complexity required to design a tax for 'economic purity' creates 'internal rules and accounting treatment that enable that tax to be minimised over time'.[25]
1.27But the PRRT is not the only tax that requires reform. The North West Shelf operates under a legacy royalty regime that the Australian National Audit Office found in 2016 contained 'significant shortcomings in the framework for calculating' royalties payable, with opaque administration and limited public visibility.[26] A decade later, the calculation and assurance framework remains opaque. The community has no way of knowing whether the royalties it is owed are being collected.
1.28Modelling commissioned by Future Group from consultants Arthur D. Little estimates that a 25 per cent tax applied to all LNG export revenue would generate as much as $17 billion per year at current forward prices, with a 10-year cumulative total of approximately $80 to $120 billion.[27] That estimate is consistent with separate analysis by the Australia Institute, which has put the annual revenue figure at $17 billion.[28] Foregone revenue from the Albanese Government's decision not to act in July 2022 has been estimated at $70 billion to date.[29]
1.29What that revenue could fund is a matter of political choice. The Climate Council's submission notes that $17 billion per year would be enough to pay for 1.3 million household solar and battery installations annually, or to replace every heavy bus in Victoria, or to fund more than half a million new electric vehicles each year.[30] Other submitters identified bringing dental into Medicare, expanding renewable energy generation, repairing the federal budget, and investment in housing and care services as plausible uses. I believe that at least some of the additional revenue should be invested in a sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of young Australians and future generations. The choice between these options is not the difficult part. The difficult part is that under current arrangements the choice does not exist, because the revenue does not exist.
1.30The Centre for Policy Development emphasised three design principles for any export levy: it should be simple, applied to the value of exports rather than profits, and not vulnerable to minimisation through accounting treatment. Their submission stated directly: 'Previous attempts (e.g., PRRT changes) have not raised as much revenue as expected because the complexity allowed minimisation - including through carry forward of capital expenditure and transfer pricing'.[31]
1.31Ms Christina Hobbs, the Future Group's General Manager, Policy, told the committee that a 25 per cent export tax was preferred not on grounds of conceptual purity but on grounds of deliverability: 'It's easy to implement and difficult to game'.[32]
1.32Another benefit of an export revenue tax is that it would reduce the cost of gas and as a result electricity for Australian businesses and households. Dr Richard Denniss, Co-Chief Executive Officer of the Australia Institute, gave evidence that exporters seeking to avoid the tax would compete to sell into the Australian domestic market: 'The wholesale price of gas will fall by 24.99 per cent because all of the gas companies will be competing to sell a molecule to anyone they can, tax free.'[33] In his summary to the committee, Dr Denniss put it more bluntly still: 'Economics never got better for parliament than an export tax'.[34]
1.33The case for a 25 per cent gas export tax has never been stronger. It is clear that the PRRT is broken, designed for a bygone era, and that tinkers and tweaks will not deliver the return that Australians deserve. It will not increase the price of gas for Australian consumers, in fact will do the reverse. In an era marked by rising intergenerational inequity across all sectors of Australian society.
1.34The gas industry has responded to the prospect of reform in the way it always responds, with hyperbolic warnings of catastrophe: investment will dry up, trade relationships will be ruptured, sovereign risk will be elevated. None of these claims withstand scrutiny.
1.35Chevron's General Manager Finance revealed that the real concern behind the industry's submission was reduced profit: 'Yes, changes to tax settings would reduce our profits.'[35] The arguments about investment, sovereign risk and trade relationships that follow are all in service of that single interest.
1.36Mr Greg Bourne, a Climate Council Councillor and former Regional President of BP Australasia, told the committee that the industry responds to threats of reform by 'fight[ing] like a rat in a corner because it's an existential crisis for them'.[36]
1.37Shell's Executive Vice President and Country Chair, Ms Cecile Wake, confirmed that Shell had contributed approximately $1 million to AEP's current advertising campaign against the gas export revenue tax proposal, and that a further six or seven major producers had contributed at a similar level.[37] Ms Wake undertook to provide further detail on notice, but failed to do so satisfactorily. Worse, ConocoPhillips, Origin Energy, Woodside and Chevron responded to the same question on notice with a refusal to provide details of their contributions, many claiming 'commercial-in-confidence' and redirecting questions to AEP.[38]
1.38The response on notice from AEP was equally dismissive of the committee, and by extension, the Senate. No details were provided of the funding quantum for the campaign, with AEP brushing off the question and saying '[AEP] does not disclose commercial-in-confidence information regarding operational expenditure'.
1.39From the evidence that was provided to the committee, we can infer that between $7 and $8 million has been contributed by large producers to a campaign designed only to maximise profits of the gas industry. We can infer that including smaller members of AEP, the cost of the campaign is likely to be more than $10 million. That is astounding.
1.40The most rigorous independent modelling presented to the committee was prepared by Arthur D. Little for Future Group. It found that a 25 per cent broad-based levy reduces the internal rate of return on existing legacy LNG projects from approximately 15 per cent to 13.35 per cent.[39] That is comfortably above the industry's own stated commercial threshold of 12 per cent put forward by Wood Mackenzie.[40] Existing projects remain comfortably profitable. Claims that the levy would push effective tax burdens to 90 per cent or more relate to marginal greenfield and brownfield projects that already fail to meet the industry's own hurdle rates before any policy change is contemplated. These projects are unviable in the first place; their failure to proceed reflects structural pressures in global gas markets, not any prospective Australian tax.
1.41The robustness of the industry's modelling was tested directly by the committee. The Business Council of Australia's (BCA) submission relied on analysis by Wood Mackenzie to argue that the current PRRT regime already captures 53 to 58 per cent of offshore project profits. The Wood Mackenzie modelling used by many of the industry witnesses excludes spot-market sales, which represent approximately 25 per cent of Australian LNG exports and the primary driver of windfall profits during price spikes, and assumed a sustained oil price of $120 per barrel, a level reached on less than one per cent of days in the past decade.
1.42Ms Hobbs's evidence was that returns on existing projects 'would likely diminish by between 1½ and two per cent', with any further impact concentrated on a small number of marginal projects that 'wouldn't get off the ground anyway'.[41]
1.43A tax applied to export revenue does not restrict export volumes, cancel contracts, or affect the price set on international LNG markets. Approximately 24.2 per cent of Australian LNG exports are sold on the spot market, where exporters are by definition price-takers and cannot pass through a domestic tax.[42] Buyers in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere will continue to receive the gas they have contracted for. Future Group's modelling further notes that global supply available to Asian LNG buyers from non-Australian sources already exceeds the entirety of Australia's LNG exports, meaning Australian exporters have no realistic capacity to pass a domestic tax through to international customers as buyers will simply go elsewhere.[43] The claim that a 25 per cent tax would damage trade relationships is therefore not supported by the evidence.
1.44On sovereign risk, Dr Henry was emphatic. He told the committee, 'If the sovereign risk is, rather, that the Australian Parliament might from time to time, and quite unexpectedly, make laws that are in the national interest, then this is obviously a risk premium worth paying. Avoiding reforms that are in the national interest merely in the hope of securing a lower risk premium on foreign sourced capital makes no sense'.[44]
1.45Dr Henry returned to this point in his oral evidence: 'the Australian public are getting increasingly fed up with hearing those things… I think the Australian public can see through this stuff.'[45] On the related claim that an export tax would damage Australia's trading relationships, Dr Henry's assessment was that the impact 'would be negligible', and that, even if a particular trading partner were to take offence, we could 'write them a cheque. This stuff—I mean, honestly. We're going to design our taxation system on the basis of the possibility that we're going to upset somebody outside of Australia? For heaven's sake. There is more than one means of a Government dealing with foreign relations'.[46]
1.46Asked whether a gas export revenue tax would fall on producers or be passed through to Australia's LNG customers in Asia, Treasury noted that the majority of exports are sold either under long-term fixed-price contracts or at global spot prices, both of which would make it difficult for producers to pass a domestic tax through to customers. The economic burden of any such change, Treasury told the committee, 'would be more likely to fall on the producers'.[47]
1.47The industry's own witnesses confirmed this. Chevron's General Manager for Asset Development, Mr Kynan Scarr, acknowledged to the committee that his company produced 'into a global market where global supply and demand patterns dictate the price', and that Chevron was, in his own words, 'effectively price takers'.[48] INPEX's Vice President Finance, Mr Mike Gardiner, was more direct still. Asked whether a gas export revenue tax would change the price paid by customers in Asia, he told the committee: 'I wouldn't anticipate that it would impact the global hydrocarbon prices, no.' His conclusion followed directly: a 25 per cent tax 'will immediately flow to the profit before tax of the producer'.[49]
1.48The gas industry is engaged in a well-resourced scare campaign, which should be ignored.
1.49Australia gets to sell its gas only once. Each cargo that leaves untaxed represents revenue we will never recover and every week without a 25 per cent tax on gas export revenue costs Australians around $350 million.[50] The assumption that the gas will keep flowing on present terms forever, and that we therefore have time to delay reform, is false.
1.50The International Energy Agency's mainstream scenarios all project that Asia-Pacific LNG demand will plateau or peak before 2035.[51] Market Forces presented the committee with detailed evidence of demand destruction in the markets Australian exporters have for years described as their growth markets. Pakistan has pivoted decisively from imported LNG to domestic solar and batteries, cancelling 21 LNG cargoes from Italian company Eni and 24 from Qatar for 2026 alone. Vietnam has cancelled 3.6 times more LNG import capacity than it has constructed, and 6.6 times more LNG-to-power capacity than is currently operating or under construction. Pakistan's Petroleum Minister has stated publicly that the shift away from LNG is 'not a temporary blip'.[52]
1.51The Australian Government's own Net Zero Plan, modelled by Treasury, expects a 27 per cent reduction in gas and LNG production by 2035, and a 67 per cent reduction by 2050.[53] The Centre for Policy Development put the matter directly: continuing exports at current levels is incompatible with the achievement of global climate targets, and 'a reduction in fossil fuel exports is inevitable'.[54]
1.52If the government fails to capture a fair share now, while the resource still has commercial value, it never will. Some part of any revenue raised should be invested in a sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of future generations, the same straightforward step Norway took, and one that becomes more urgent, not less, as the window narrows.
1.53It is worth asking, plainly, why a reform that is supported by independent economists, by the former Treasury Secretary, by major investors, by social services peak bodies, by environmental and climate organisations, by trade unions, and by a majority of the Australian public,[55] has nevertheless been ruled out in the coming federal budget. As outlined above, the gas industry has invested heavily in a scare campaign. But there are also structural issues in our democracy that empower vested interests and make reform difficult.
1.54The committee's work cannot be separated from the political environment in which gas reform takes place. That environment is shaped by the structural advantages enjoyed by the gas industry in its relentless and effective lobbying of the Government.
1.55Australia's federal lobbying laws are inadequate, ineffective, and no longer fit for purpose. The current federal lobbying framework allows vast swathes of influence to operate in the shadows, undermining transparency, accountability, and public trust. The definition of 'lobbyist' under the Commonwealth regime is so narrow that it excludes in-house corporate lobbyists, industry associations, and many of the most powerful actors seeking to shape public policy. The result is a system where, as has been widely acknowledged, approximately 80 per cent of lobbying activity occurs outside any formal transparency framework. This means that gas corporations can engage directly with ministers, parliamentarians and senior officials without disclosure, without scrutiny, and without accountability. In the context of climate and energy policy, where disinformation is often driven by vested interests, this lack of transparency creates a permissive environment for misleading narratives to influence decision-making.
1.56Transparency around lobbying and influence is foundational to addressing misinformation and restoring trust in democratic institutions. Without visibility over who is shaping policy, and on whose behalf, efforts to combat the oversized influence of the gas industry will continue to fail. Our lobbying system is deliberately narrow, structurally opaque, and incapable of delivering the transparency that the public expects. In short, it is a system in urgent need of a complete overhaul.
1.57The sponsored pass system in Parliament House permits unaccredited representatives of vested interests to enter the building, attend events, and meet with parliamentarians and their staff, with no requirement that the names of pass holders, the organisations they represent, or the parliamentarians who sponsor them be made public. Major political parties continue to receive what are functionally corporate donations through the membership fees of bodies such as the Labor Business Forum and the Australian Business Network, a structure that exists precisely to evade the disclosure obligations that apply to direct political donations.
1.58These arrangements are not gas-specific, but Australians are entitled to know who is lobbying their elected representatives and on whose behalf, and to know who is funding them. Until those structures are reformed, the prospects of meaningful reform to gas taxation will continue to be undermined by the same forces that have undermined them for the past fifteen years.
1.59Under questioning, representatives of Shell, Origin Energy, AEP, Woodside, Santos, and ConocoPhillips Australia each confirmed that they, or colleagues within their organisations, held sponsored passes to Parliament House while declining to disclose which parliamentarian had issued the pass.
1.60Mr Bourne, drawing again on his experience as a former Regional President of BP Australasia, offered the committee a first-person account of the industry's behaviour during the last major review of the PRRT, around the turn of the century: 'the industry worked like mad to try and make sure that PRRT was going to be as useless as possible to the Government and most beneficial to them'.[56] The committee can be in no doubt that the same campaign is underway today.
1.61As Dr Ken Henry told the committee: 'I think that this committee can play a very useful role in putting some steel in the spine and in the legs of those who will have to take this rather important decision in the national interest'.[57] It is disappointing that the majority report does not outline the evidence in more depth, including a recognition that there is huge public support for a fair return on the export of Australian gas.
1.62The evidence presented to this committee makes a compelling case for substantial reform of the taxation of Australian gas resources. The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax has failed. The 2023 reforms have failed. The community is being short-changed at a scale that, if attempted by an individual taxpayer, would attract the full attention of the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Federal Police.
1.63Australians deserve a fair return on the sale of their resources. They deserve a tax system that does not allow some of the most profitable companies on earth to pay less in royalties and income tax than the cost of running a single suburban high school. They deserve a Parliament willing to make decisions in the national interest, especially when those decisions are opposed by powerful interests.
1.64The recommendations below are advanced in that spirit.
Recommendation 1
1.65That the Australian Government introduce a 25 per cent tax on the value of gas exports in the upcoming budget. The tax should be simple, permanent, based on export revenue rather than profit, and should not contain a sunset clause.
Recommendation 2
1.66That the Australian Government substantially tighten deduction rules, including the introduction of a cap on decommissioning cost deductions, which are currently uncapped and represent a significant and growing risk to future Commonwealth revenue.
Recommendation 3
1.67That the Australian Government establish an east coast domestic gas reservation mechanism alongside the gas export revenue tax, to place downward pressure on domestic gas and electricity prices and improve the competitiveness of Australian commercial and industrial users.
Recommendation 4
1.68That the Australian Government strengthen transparency and public reporting requirements for the taxation of Australian gas exports, including independent verification of company-reported figures and the publication of project-level royalty and tax outcomes for legacy regimes such as that applying to the North West Shelf.
Recommendation 5
1.69That the Presiding Officers of the Australian Parliament reform the sponsored pass system to require public disclosure of the names of pass holders, the organisations they represent, and the parliamentarian who sponsors them.
Recommendation 6
1.70That the Australian Government urgently legislate a comprehensive overhaul of the federal lobbying regime to ensure full transparency of influence over public policy, including by:
Replacing the Lobbying Code of Conduct with a legislative regime that provides transparency, integrity, and equality
Expanding the definition of 'lobbyist' to capture all individuals and entities engaged in influencing public policy, including in-house corporate lobbyists, industry associations, peak bodies, and consultants;
Establishing a single, comprehensive, and publicly accessible register of all lobbying activity, including the identity of lobbyists, their clients or employers, and the policy issues on which they are lobbying;
Requiring timely disclosure of all lobbying interactions with ministers and senior public officials, including the subject matter and purpose of those interactions;
Mandating regular, standardised reporting of lobbying activities, including expenditure, campaigns, and advocacy efforts related to public policy;
Broadening mandatory cooling-off periods to include senior advisors and officials; broadening the scope of cooling-off periods to include lobbying on any subject matter or advising or consulting on lobbying;
Extending cooling-off periods to align with the duration of a standard parliamentary term; and
Establishing an independent statutory authority to regulate lobbying at a federal level with powers to monitor, investigate and enforce lobbying laws, including the ability to audit disclosures and impose sanctions.
1.71I would like to thank the committee secretariat for all of the work put into this inquiry, and to all of the submitters and those who gave evidence to the committee. A large number of Australians made constructive submissions in the short time available. Your expertise and experience is gratefully received.
Senator David Pocock
Independent Senator for the Australian Capital Territory
Footnotes
[1]Dr Ken Henry, Submission 8, p. 1.
[2]Geoscience Australia, Australia's Energy Commodity Resources 2025, Production and trade.
[3]Future Group, Submission 71, p. 3, referencing Arthur D. Little (ADL) analysis prepared for Future Group, April 2026.
[4]Australian Conservation Foundation, Submission 43, p. 6; The Australia Institute, Government revenue from LNG exports: Australia vs Qatar, 1 May 2025.
[5]The Superpower Institute, Submission 29, Figure 1, p. 2; Mr Baethan Mullen, Chief Executive Officer, The Superpower Institute, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 24.
[6]Norges Bank Investment Management, About the fund.
[7]Australian Conservation Foundation, Submission 43, p. 6.
[8]Market Forces, Submission 5, pp. 2-3; Santos, Tax Contribution Disclosures 2016-2024; Santos, 2025 Sustainability Data Book.
[9]The Australia Institute, Submission 21, p. 11.
[10]The Australia Institute, Submission 21, p. 4; The Australia Institute, Australia's great gas giveaway, July 2024.
[11]Ms Crystal Ossolinski, General Manager, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Committee Hansard, 22 April 2026, p. 69.
[12]Australian Energy Producers, Submission 69, p. 1.
[13]Tom McIlroy, 'Oil, gas 'systemic non-payers' of tax', The Australian Financial Review, 11 December 2019.
[14]Dr Ken Henry, Personal capacity, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 55.
[15]Australian Energy Producers, APPEA statement on changes to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), Media Release, 5 May 2023.
[16]Dr Mark Zirnsak, Spokesperson for Tax Justice Network Australia, Committee Hansard, 22 April 2026, p. 52.
[17]IEEFA, Submission 19, pp. 3-7.
[18]Mr Baethan Mullen, Chief Executive Officer of Superpower Institute, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 21.
[19]Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Submission 19, p. 3.
[20]Ms Suzie Emery, Assistant Commissioner, Public Groups Engagement, Australian Tax Office, Committee Hansard, 22 April 2026, p. 63.
[21]Australian Conservation Foundation, Submission 43, p. 5; Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 (Cth), s. 2D, 27 and 39.
[22]Xodus, Australian Offshore Oil & Gas Decommissioning Liability Estimate 2025, April 2025, cited in Australian Conservation Foundation, Submission 43, p. 5.
[23]Australian Conservation Foundation, Submission 43, p. 6.
[24]Dr Ken Henry, Personal Capacity, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 61.
[25]Mr Miles Prosser, Energy Transition Lead, Centre for Policy Development, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 29.
[26]Australian National Audit Office, Collection of North West Shelf Royalty Revenue, Auditor-General Report No. 28 of 2016-17, November 2016.
[27]Future Group, Submission 71, p. 7, drawing on Arthur D. Little analysis.
[28]The Australia Institute, Submission 21, p. 5.
[29]The Australia Institute, Australia's Gas Giveaway.
[30]Climate Council of Australia, Submission 27, p. 4.
[31]Centre for Policy Development, Submission 49, p. 3.
[32]Ms Christina Hobbs, Future Group General Manager, Policy, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p.50.
[33]Dr Richard Denniss, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Australia Institute, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 8.
[34]Dr Richard Denniss, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Australia Institute, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 8.
[35]Ms Margaret McCourt, General Manager, Finance, Chevron Australia Pty Ltd, Committee Hansard, 24 April 2026, p. 34.
[36]Mr Greg Bourne, Councillor Climate Council, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 34.
[37]Ms Cecile Wake, Shell Executive Vice President and Country Chair, Committee Hansard, 22 April 2026, pp. 21-22.
[38]Responses to Questions on Notice from Senator David Pocock.
[39]Future Group, Submission 71, p. 8.
[40]Australian Energy Producers, Submission 69, p. 1.
[41]Ms Christina Hobbs, Future Group General Manager, Policy, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 49-50.
[42]Future Group, Submission 71, pp. 10, drawing on ADL analysis.
[43]Future Group, Submission 71, pp. 9-10.
[44]Dr Ken Henry, Submission 8, p. 4.
[45]Dr Ken Henry, Personal Capacity, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 62.
[46]Dr Ken Henry, Personal Capacity, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, pp. 56-57.
[47]Mr Marty Robinson, First Assistant Secretary, Corporate and International Tax Division, Department of the Treasury, Committee Hansard, 22 April 2026, p. 63.
[48]Mr Kynan Scarr, Chevron General Manager for Asset Development, Committee Hansard, 24 April 2026, p. 31.
[49]Mr Mike Gardiner, INPEX Vice President Finance, Committee Hansard, 24 April 2026, p. 47.
[50]The Australia Institute, Australia's Gas Giveaway.
[51]International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2024, cited in Future Group, Submission 71, p. 5.
[52]Market Forces, Submission 5, pp. 3-6.
[53]Australian Government, Net Zero Plan, Treasury, 2025, cited in Climate Council of Australia, Submission 27, p. 3.
[54]Centre for Policy Development, Submission 49, p. 5.
[55]Josh Butler, 'Guardian Essential poll: Australians want higher tax on gas exports and extension of petrol excise cut', TheGuardian, 30 April 2026.
[56]Mr Greg Bourne, Councillor, Climate Council, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 36.
[57]Dr Ken Henry, Personal capacity, Committee Hansard, 21 April 2026, p. 58.
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