More of this, it is funny, topical and Australian focused which is the reason I subscribe and pay. Konrad is probably wrong about a bunch of stuff or at least not 100% right but he freely admits that. Get Alan Kohler on as well if he can squeeze you in with all the other stuff he does.
These LNG facilities and their upstream feedstock systems cost billions of dollars to build and there are countless points where Australian governments tax this investment, including but not limited to, taxing the wages of all the people on-site that are building and operating the facilities, the profits of all the suppliers to facilities etc.
So Australians might have been able to negotiate better terms (just wishing you had a sovereign wealth fund doesn’t really address this), but they’re certainly not getting “nothing”!
I’d bet there are hundreds of thousands of Australians who owe their jobs to these investments being made and these people pay a lot in taxes! And these are countless companies that service these facilities and they make money and pay taxes as well! Royalties are not the only form of government revenue on resource development.
I guess the question is are we milking the cow enough as a country, on the margin could we get more out of them before they stop investing? They’ll say they won’t invest if x happens but then they do anyway. They’ll have some pretty good negotiators because they have an incentive, what’s the government incentive to get a cracking good deal? I don’t know the answer but it’s a reasonable question. I work in the oil and gas industry as well just for full disclosure.
More of this, it is funny, topical and Australian focused which is the reason I subscribe and pay. Konrad is probably wrong about a bunch of stuff or at least not 100% right but he freely admits that. Get Alan Kohler on as well if he can squeeze you in with all the other stuff he does.
These LNG facilities and their upstream feedstock systems cost billions of dollars to build and there are countless points where Australian governments tax this investment, including but not limited to, taxing the wages of all the people on-site that are building and operating the facilities, the profits of all the suppliers to facilities etc.
So Australians might have been able to negotiate better terms (just wishing you had a sovereign wealth fund doesn’t really address this), but they’re certainly not getting “nothing”!
I’d bet there are hundreds of thousands of Australians who owe their jobs to these investments being made and these people pay a lot in taxes! And these are countless companies that service these facilities and they make money and pay taxes as well! Royalties are not the only form of government revenue on resource development.
I guess the question is are we milking the cow enough as a country, on the margin could we get more out of them before they stop investing? They’ll say they won’t invest if x happens but then they do anyway. They’ll have some pretty good negotiators because they have an incentive, what’s the government incentive to get a cracking good deal? I don’t know the answer but it’s a reasonable question. I work in the oil and gas industry as well just for full disclosure.