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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

This "Honest Government Ad" about Western Australia give a funny and tragically accurate explanation of how the giant gas exporters have bought up former politicians and as a result Western Australia is now pretty much owned by the gas companies.

It's systemtic corruption on the grandest scale and Australia instead of making billions for its natural resources like Norway does or Saudi Arabia or Russia do, actually pays the gas companies to take our gas. Yes its ridiculous - Australia instead of making massive money as a fossil fuel exporter, pays to get rid of the stuff. The video makes it clear why.

Which then gets sold for example to Japan, which on sells it as a higher price.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Key8y1yg2yQ

Australia is being robbed blind in broad daylight.

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Funnily enough, WA does not have the same gas supply issues as the east coast. Despite the WA govt. being in the gas producers back pocket, there are still agreements in place which force them to save a certain percent of gas for domestic use.

I work for an oil and gas producer in WA and it is absolutely shocking to me how blatant is the corruption of state politics.

WA state politics is a failed state, which is 100% captured by resource companies. When the WA EPA advised (not decided - advised, which is their remit) that state government environmental approvals should consider the CO2 emissions of the projects under approval... The resource companies got the state premier to phone the head of the EPA and instruct him to cancel the advice immediately. So the WA EPA may as well not exist.

This was all confirmed to have happened after the fact (although of course we all knew at the time). The newspapers were unanimously on the side of the resource companies.

WA is a beautiful, prosperous banana republic.

Australia is riddled with corruption from top to bottom.

And the new NACC National Anti Corruption Commission? May as well not exist for all the use it is. What could be more corrupt than the gas companies owning the former politicians of WA.

Very similar story in NZ, we're giving away our clean water for free..

Are there any estimates on how much AU is losing with it's resource policy.

Trillions lost if you compare Australia with Norway or Qatar resource tax levels.

$4.125 billion per year is one loss estimate between 2012 and 2020.

i.e. $33 billion over 8 years according to this parliamentary document (in the pdf there)

https://www.pbo.gov.au/publications-and-data/publications/co....

In this case the 2012 the Liberal party repealed a freshly enacted resources tax, after being voted back into power with scare campaigns "ax the tax" being one of them, except ironically it was actually income for the country, and a tax on the profits of resource extractors.

$4.125 Billion dollars PER YEAR gifted to extractors by the Liberals.

No wonder they all get given nice "jobs for our mates" at the resouce extractors after they get voted out.

Is there any party thats even willing to discuss breaking the gas "deals?" I see guys like Punterspolitics on Instagram who discuss this topic, but I haven't seen any solutions proposed.

Any government that had courage would simply say "nope, those deals are ended".

Politicians are weak and in utter fear of business.

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