The Albanese government is facing internal pressure to raise taxes on gas companies as a prominent social media influencer warns Labor not to underestimate the scale of public outrage about the existing regime.
Labor’s environment action network (Lean) used evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into the tax settings for the gas sector to encourage the government to consider a “very substantial tax” on windfall profits.
“We would definitely like to see a better return [for gas resources],” Lean’s national secretary, Janaline Oh, told the hearing on Tuesday, noting such a position was consistent with Labor’s national party platform.
“I would say that within the Labor membership, there is support for better returns to the Australian taxpayer.”
The comments came as the Labor MP Ed Husic restated his support for a 25% export levy to end the “obscenely sweet deal” he claimed the companies enjoyed under the existing petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) system.
The Greens-chaired inquiry is examining the case for a 25% export tax – which has the support of a broad coalition of politicians, unions and climate groups – along with other options to extract more revenue from the major exporters.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailThe Ross Garnaut and Rod Sims-backed Superpower Institute is pushing for a 40% cashflow levy, dubbed the “fair share levy”, to replace the PRRT.
The government has been weighing potential changes ahead of next month’s budget after tasking the Treasury with modelling a windfall profits tax and changes to the PRRT.
While the budget deliberations are ongoing, Guardian Australia understands the appetite for major interventions has diminished amid the global energy crisis sparked by the Iran war.
Senior Labor sources have all but ruled out a 25% export tax in the 12 May budget, in part to avoid antagonising the same Asian trading partners that Australia is reliant on for supplies of diesel and petrol.
Asked directly on Tuesday afternoon if an export tax was on the table, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, said the government’s policies hadn’t changed, before noting Anthony Albanese’s focus in recent weeks on striking energy supply guarantees across Asia.
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, said a 25% export tax would “close down the gas industry” and should be opposed, putting him at odds with Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie.
The Western Australian Labor premier, Roger Cook, also opposed a new gas export tax.
“I understand that it’s – for many people, it seems like an attractive proposition. But I don’t think it would be good for Western Australia, and I’ve made those views clear to the prime minister,” he said.
Supporters of a new gas tax have warned politicians on all sides that failing to respond to their campaign risks provoking a backlash from voters.
Konrad Benjamin, the former school teacher whose Punter’s Politics venture has almost 1 million social media followers, told the inquiry that MPs underestimated the depth of public interest in the issue.
“A million Australians following my content online, watching someone explain gas isn’t a success story. It’s a symptom of a government that has stopped working for the punters who elected them,” Benjamin told the hearing.
The former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, whose submission to the inquiry advocated for a 100% windfall profits tax, issued a blunt message to the committee.
“Just do it. In the national interest, just do it. And stop the crap that the Australian public have put up with for decades now in respect of the taxation of Australia’s finite natural resources,” he said.
Australia Institute co-chief executive Richard Denniss said Australia must resist lobbying from countries including Japan, pointing to new research that showed the country collected about $8bn a year of revenue from its own tax on oil and gas imports.
“If the Japanese are so worried about the cost of Australian gas and coal, they should scrap the taxes they are imposing on it,” he said.
