FILE No. II / METHOD
VOLUME I · APRIL MMXXVI
Methodology — how we fact-check
Standing rules
Doc class
Standing methodology
Sources cited
11 bodies
Verdict scale
3 tags
Status
In force
§ II

Every figure on this site is footnoted to a primary document.

This page sets out the rules. What we cite. What we will not. How we tag a claim. And — using a worked example — what an audit looks like, end to end.

§ A The primary source ledger

What we cite.

A primary source is the original document where a fact was first asserted, on the record, by the body that holds custody of it. Below: every body whose published material we have drawn from, somewhere on this site.

ATO 01

Australian Taxation Office

Corporate Tax Transparency · PRRT collections

Why primary

Statutory disclosure. Lodged under penalty.

Used on /receipts to show A$0 corporate tax over 10 years (Santos GLNG) and 6 years (Inpex Ichthys).

See where → /receipts
TREAS 02

Australian Treasury

PRRT statistics · transferred deductions

Why primary

Department of state; figures published under PGPA Act.

AEMO 03

Australian Energy Market Operator

Integrated System Plan · NEM dispatch data

Why primary

Independent system operator; statutory forecasts.

ISP 2024 capacity-factor and supply-mix figures.

ACCC 04

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission

Gas Inquiry interim reports

Why primary

Independent regulator with information-gathering powers.

East-coast gas demand and netback price evidence.

ABS 05

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Labour Force, Detailed · Industry of employment

Why primary

Australia's official statistical authority.

Direct gas-extraction employment: ≈ 25,000 (Feb 2026).

NPD 06

Norwegian Petroleum Directorate

State revenue from petroleum activities

Why primary

Norwegian government statutory body.

NBIM 07

Norges Bank Investment Management

Government Pension Fund Global · annual report

Why primary

Operator of Norway's sovereign wealth fund; figures audited.

IEA 08

International Energy Agency

Net Zero Roadmap · World Energy Outlook

Why primary

Inter-governmental body; cited by Australian Treasury.

Demand-trajectory benchmarks.

HANS 09

Parliament of Australia

Hansard · Senate inquiry submissions

Why primary

Parliamentary record. Submissions made under standing rules.

On-the-record statements by ministers and operators.

TAI 10

The Australia Institute

Independent research papers

Why primary

Cited as analysis with declared methodology, not as a primary source. Bias is declared in-text on every use.

Analysis · bias declared

Used to interpret ATO data; underlying ATO figures cited separately.

IEEFA 11

Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis

LNG export tracker · royalty analysis

Why primary

Cited as analysis, not as primary source. Bias declared.

Analysis · bias declared

Volume-flow tracking and revenue projections.

Two of the entries above — The Australia Institute and IEEFA — are tagged analysis. We cite them as analysis with declared methodology, not as primary sources. Where their figures depend on ATO or AEMO data, we cite the underlying data separately, in the same footnote.

§ B The verdict scale

How we tag a claim.

Every audited claim receives one of three tags. Each is defined narrowly and applied conservatively. We do not use “true” as a tag — if a claim is supported, we don’t audit it.

01 Misleading

Built on figures that are technically computable, but selected and framed to lead the reader to a false conclusion.

Example on this site

"The gas industry pays A$21.9 billion in taxes and royalties."

Bundles GST and payroll tax (paid by consumers and wage-earners) with corporate tax to manufacture a single large number.

02 Partly true

One sub-claim is supported by primary evidence; another overstates, omits caveats, or projects a debatable forecast as fact.

Example on this site

"Gas keeps the lights on."

True historically; AEMO ISP 2024 has gas at < 7 % capacity factor by 2030 and declining. The framing reads the past into the future.

03 Unsupported

Presented as fact, but no primary or independently-replicated source backs it. Includes claims sourced only from industry-commissioned modelling.

Example on this site

"The gas industry supports 215,000 jobs."

Traces to KPMG's Dec 2024 report — commissioned by AEP — using input-output multipliers Treasury has warned against. ABS direct-employment figure: ≈ 25,000.

Where a claim contains multiple sub-claims (e.g. "$21.9 billion in taxes and royalties"), each sub-claim is audited against its own primary source. The harshest applicable tag is assigned to the bundle.

§ C Out of scope

What we will not cite as primary.

The lobby's case rests heavily on three industry-commissioned consultancy reports and a stream of op-eds and press releases. None of it is primary. The reports are listed by name, with the reason.

NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE

KPMG · Economic Contribution of the Gas Industry

December 2024

Why excluded
Commissioned and paid for by Australian Energy Producers (the lobby itself). Uses input-output multipliers — a method the Productivity Commission and Treasury have repeatedly cautioned against.
Position
Cited only when fact-checking the report's own claims (e.g. "$105 billion", "215,000 jobs"). The commissioning party is named in every footnote.
NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE

EY / Deloitte gas-economics modelling

various

Why excluded
Industry-commissioned. Methodology not independently reproducible from the published reports.
Position
Treated as advocacy, not evidence.
NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE

Op-eds, press releases, and trade-press summaries

ongoing

Why excluded
Secondary. We trace the figure back to the underlying primary document and cite that.
Position
Where a primary document cannot be located, the claim is dropped from the site rather than reported.
§ D A worked example

One claim, end to end.

The fastest way to see the rules in operation is to follow a single audited claim from capture to publication. The example below appears as Receipt 02 on /receipts.

Audited claim — see Receipt 02

"Inpex paid A$0 in corporate tax + PRRT, combined, on Ichthys LNG income of A$43 B."

  1. 1
    Capture

    The lobby's broad "contributes billions" framing on australiarunsongas.com.au is recorded with date and URL.

  2. 2
    Source

    ATO Corporate Tax Transparency reports for FY 2017-18 through FY 2022-23 — six consecutive published years — show the entity's corporate income tax and PRRT as zero.

  3. 3
    Verify

    Total income across those six years (A$43 B) is summed from the same six reports. No interpretation, no modelling.

  4. 4
    Tag

    The lobby's framing is tagged Misleading. The figure itself is published verbatim, with the ATO URL footnoted.

  5. 5
    Publish

    Appears as Receipt 02 on /receipts. The same figure is auditable by any reader against the ATO source.

§ E Independence · corrections

Funding, conflicts, and what to do if we got it wrong.

We do not accept funding from political parties, fossil-fuel companies, fossil-fuel-aligned trade unions, renewables companies, or any organisation with a direct commercial interest in the policy outcomes we report on.

Funding

This site is run by volunteers. No commercial relationships are held with any party named in our case files.

Conflicts

No contributor holds shares in oil-and-gas, electricity-generation, or renewables companies while contributing to the site. Material conflicts, if they arose, would be disclosed at the foot of the affected page.

Corrections

Found a factual error? Tell us, with a primary source for the correct figure. Material errors are corrected on the affected page with a dated correction notice at the foot of the page.