If you're on deadline: the four headline figures below each link to a primary public dataset. There is no spokesperson. There is no embargo. Every figure on this site is built to be verified before publication, not after.
Each row has the figure, the one-line claim, the context that stops it being misread, and the exact dataset and column to check it against.
Petroleum Resource Rent Tax collected in FY 2023-24.
A three-year low, against a A$21.9 B / year industry-revenue claim.
Corporate income tax + PRRT paid by Inpex's Ichthys LNG, FY 2017-18 → FY 2022-23.
Total income reported across those six years: A$43 B.
Consecutive years Santos's GLNG project paid no corporate income tax.
Reporting period FY 2014-15 through FY 2023-24 inclusive.
The lobby's headline annual figure.
Includes PAYG withheld from employees, GST collected from customers, payroll, and franchise charges — i.e. taxes paid by other people that the industry merely remits.
One number this site does not stand behind: a single rounded "Norway taxes its gas N times harder than Australia" ratio. The comparison is real but the multiplier moves with currency, year, and which Norwegian revenue line is included. The check-the-math panel in § C lets you compute it yourself for the period you're publishing in.
If you need one paragraph of background to make a story land, this is the one most often misreported. The figures below are from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 (Cth).
Most operating costs and capital. Carried-forward losses uplift at the Long-Term Bond Rate plus 5 percentage points each year, compounded.
Spending on finding the gas. Uplifts at LTBR plus 15 percentage points, compounded, until used. With LTBR ≈ 4%, that is ≈ 19% / year — faster than most projects can grow in value.
Uplifted deductions accumulate against future PRRT liability with no time limit, and (since 2019) transfer between projects under common ownership.
Common error to avoid: reporting "the PRRT uplift is LTBR + 15%" without distinguishing the two rates. Only exploration uplifts at +15 pp; general expenditure uplifts at +5 pp. The combination is what produces the result, not either rate alone. receipts § D walks the arithmetic on a worked example.
Run the calculation yourself with the most recent figures before publication. The numbers below are the values we used; replace any of them and the ratio updates.
| Component | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Norwegian government petroleum revenue, 2023 | ≈ NOK 832 B | Net cash flow + SDFI + Equinor dividend |
| Norwegian population, 2023 | 5.55 M | SSB |
| Per capita | ≈ NOK 150,000 | ≈ A$21,500 at NOK/AUD ≈ 0.143 |
| Australian PRRT receipts, FY 2023-24 | A$1.5 B | ATO |
| Australian population, 2024 | 27.0 M | ABS |
| Per capita | ≈ A$56 | |
| Ratio | ≈ 380× | Use this if you need a single number. Recompute with current data before publication. |
Sources: Norwegian Petroleum Directorate · Statistics Norway (SSB) · Norges Bank (FX) · ATO (PRRT) · ABS (population). Recompute against the latest annual release before quoting a multiple in print.
We do not host the source PDFs ourselves — they live on the publishing institution's site, where they can be authenticated. The list below is the canon.
This is an anonymous volunteer project. The most useful thing we can offer a reporter on deadline is not a quote — it is the dataset, the column, and the page reference. Those are all on this page.
Open the page where the figure appears, follow the source link, and verify against the primary document. If your reading of the source disagrees with our figure, that disagreement is the story — please publish it. We will update or retract on the basis of the same evidence.
The named, on-the-record sources for the claims on this site are the institutions in § D. Please cite them, not us. The data is doing the work; we have only collated it.
All site content is published under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Quote, paraphrase, recompute, screenshot, embed — with or without notice. Attribution to "australiarunsongas.org" is appreciated but not required where it interferes with editorial style.
Press kit for the Australia Runs On Gas fact-check.