It is a persistent and lazy myth that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is a party of protest without policy. For many years, while the ‘Uni-party’ of Labor and the Liberals (in their decline after the Howard and Abbott governments) presided over the squandering of our natural wealth, One Nation has stood almost alone in demanding that Australia stop giving its gas away for a pittance.
The outstanding exception to this political complacency was the WA Labor Premier Alan Carpenter, who not only imposed direct royalties which consistently deliver over half a billion dollars to the state annually, but also ensured WA consumers would always be able to buy gas at prices among the lowest in the OECD.
The records show that One Nation’s advocacy for a fundamental restructure of gas taxation gained its modern, technical teeth in 2016, following the election of Senator Malcolm Roberts. As the party’s ‘Great Proponent’ of resource sovereignty, Senator Roberts has consistently used his platform to warn that the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) is a failed experiment – a ‘farce’ that has actually allowed multi-billion dollar corporations to pay less in this tax lawfully than the average nurse or teacher.
One Nation’s proposed reform, highlighted in the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill, 2026, rests on three non-negotiable points:
Taxation at the Wellhead
The centrepiece of the policy is shifting the tax point from ‘profit’ to the wellhead. Currently, the federal government struggles to collect significant revenue as the PRRT is levied on profits that often evaporate due to ‘transfer pricing’ – where multinational producers sell gas to their own subsidiaries at a loss. By levying a tax at the wellhead based on the physical volume extracted, the tax becomes inescapable. As Senator Roberts argues, you can hide profits in a ledger, but you cannot hide a gigajoule of energy leaving the ground.
The 15 per cent Domestic Gas Reserve (The ‘Carpenter Precedent’)
The second pillar is a mandate that 15 per cent of all Australian gas be reserved for the domestic market. This is a proven success. In 2006, Premier Carpenter successfully faced down the multinational gas giants to secure a 15 per cent domestic reservation for the Gorgon and Pluto projects.
Despite industry threats to walk away and claims that the projects would be scrapped, the producers eventually relented. Because Carpenter stood his ground, WA now enjoys energy security and prices that remain a fraction of those paid in the Eastern States. One Nation proposes taking this successful ‘Carpenter Model’ and applying it nationally to end the absurdity of Australians paying international prices for their own resources.
A Minimum $10 Billion Annual Revenue Return
Finally, the policy is designed to deliver a reliable return to the Australian taxpayer – estimated at a value of at least $10 billion per year. This is not a new tax on Australians, but a more efficient collection of royalties. While the federal government remains entangled in a system that gas giants easily bypass, a simplified volume-based tax would provide the fiscal headroom to fund critical relief, such as halving the fuel excise, ensuring that the wealth of our geology benefits the citizens who own it.
Putting Australians First
Since 2016, these warnings have been largely ignored by the establishment. Despite Alan Carpenter’s example, successive federal governments have allowed Australia to become an ‘international laughing stock’ – a continent treated as a cheap dirt mine for foreign interests while our own people struggle with the cost of living.
One Nation’s policy is built on a simple, nationalist truth: Australian resources should benefit Australians first. It is time we stopped the give-away and followed the bold lead once set in the West, treating our natural wealth with the respect it deserves.
