Gas Giants in the Crosshairs as War Profits Debate Heats Up

Mark Anning

20 hours ago

No More War Profits: Gas Giants Face Tax Push

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing mounting pressure to tax the extraordinary profits of Australia’s gas exporters, as environmental groups line up behind reports the government is actively considering a new levy in response to global energy shocks driven by conflict in the Middle East.

The Australia Institute, Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Australian Conservation Foundation have thrown their support behind the move, framing it as a necessary intervention in a market distorted by war, corporate windfalls and rising living costs at home.

A “circuit-breaker” for cost-of-living pressure

Greenpeace Australia Pacific CEO David Ritter described the proposal as overdue, arguing that gas corporations have repeatedly capitalised on global instability while Australians shoulder the consequences.

“The Albanese Government deserves due credit for standing up to gas corporations like Woodside Energy and Santos Limited as Australia faces a cost-of-living crisis,” Ritter said.

He warned that for years, gas companies have leveraged geopolitical shocks to push for subsidies and expansion, often while paying minimal tax. A properly structured levy, he argued, could act as a “vital circuit-breaker,” redirecting windfall profits into community support and energy transition efforts.

Greenpeace also cautioned against repeating the perceived failures of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, urging the government to close loopholes and ensure any new system genuinely captures excess profits.

Calls for a 25% super profits levy

The pressure intensified with the Australian Conservation Foundation calling for a clear benchmark: a 25% windfall tax on all Australian gas exports.

ACF CEO Adam Bandt, former leader of the Australians Greens, said the case was straightforward.

“It’s time to stop big gas greed,” Bandt said.
“It’s disgraceful that oil and gas corporations are profiteering from human and environmental destruction by hiking their prices.”

According to ACF figures, the global energy crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine War enabled gas exporters to more than double profits from Australian operations, generating $92.8 billion in 2022 alone. A 25% levy, the organisation said, could have redirected roughly $23 billion back into public revenue.

War, energy, and windfalls

Both groups point to a pattern: from Ukraine to escalating tensions involving Iran, each conflict has tightened energy markets and inflated prices, delivering outsized returns to fossil fuel producers.

For critics, this raises a broader moral question. As Ritter put it, the issue is not just economic imbalance but the optics of corporations profiting while households face soaring fuel and electricity bills.

Bandt echoed that sentiment, linking the climate crisis and cost-of-living pressures as two sides of the same coin—both driven, he argues, by fossil fuel dependence.

Renewables as the long game

Beyond taxation, both organisations are pushing a longer-term shift away from gas altogether.

Greenpeace highlighted the potential for regions like Western Australia to pivot toward renewable-powered industries—hydrogen, green metals and clean manufacturing—while ACF pointed to wind and solar as inherently more stable energy sources, immune to geopolitical shocks.

“Governments don’t go to war over the sun and the wind,” Bandt said, underscoring the argument that renewables offer not just environmental benefits but strategic and economic resilience.

The $64 billion dollar question

New analysis from The Australia Institute finds Australia could have raised more than $63.8 billion if a 25% gas export tax had been introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when LNG prices more than doubled.

The report argues that acting from July 1, 2022, would have captured billions in windfall profits, with similar revenues today potentially funding major policies like free university, TAFE, or childcare.

“While Australia obviously can’t go back in time and implement an efficient gas export tax, these figures show how incredibly expensive delaying the introduction of a gas export tax is. Australia only gets one chance to get a fair price for each ship full of our gas exports and we have missed too many of those chances in the last decade,” said Richard Denniss.

The analysis also highlights that multinational gas companies are benefiting from war-driven price spikes, while Australian consumers continue to face rising fuel costs.

New Gas Export Project

The Albanese Government has just approved a new gas export project, leaving Australians highly exposed to volatile international markets and rising costs of living.

The project is approved until 2081 – more than three decades after Australia plans to finish its switch to clean energy – and brings the Albanese Government’s tally of new climate-polluting projects to 36 coal, oil and gas projects approved since 2022.

“Digging up and exporting more gas directly exposes Australians to price hikes driven by global conflict, as we’re seeing play out right now. Since fossil fuel corporations began exporting gas from the east coast of Australia, domestic gas prices have surged, leaving Aussies to foot increasingly high power bills,” Climate Councillor Greg Bourne said.

Political test ahead

With the federal budget looming, the debate is shaping into a defining test for the Albanese government: whether it can translate political intent into a tax regime that meaningfully captures gas profits without being diluted by industry pressure.

For now, the message from environmental groups is blunt—tax the windfalls, close the loopholes, and use the proceeds to ease household pressure and accelerate the transition to cleaner energy.

Because if war keeps driving up gas prices, someone’s going to profit. The question is whether it’s shareholders—or the public footing the bill.