Article by Caitlyn Rintoul courtesy of the West Australian.
The Australian PM defended an overhaul of the contentious tax ahead of the May 9 Budget at a press conference in resources-rich WA during a pit stop on his way home from attending King Charles III’s Coronation in London.
The Government will cap deductions from July 1 this year, limiting the proportion of PRRT assessable income that deductions to 90 per cent can offset.
It’s expected to net the Government a windfall of $2.4 billion over the next four years.
Mr Albanese described the changes as “modest”, “sensible”, and “appropriate”.
“We make no apologies. This is a modest change that will bring forward by reducing the deduction to 90 per cent that companies can claim this is a sensible reform,” he told reporters in Perth.
He urged the Coalition to support the changes through parliament and criticised them for their “negative” shutting down the proposal.
“How extraordinary is it that you have the gas companies and the peak organisation out there saying they can ‘live with this change’ — acknowledging the work that the Government did to work these issues through, and the Coalition is saying ‘yeah, nah’,” he said.
“We call upon the Coalition to support these measures.
“All they do is just say ‘no’ to everything. That’s why the Coalition of yesterday have become the ‘Noalition’ of today.”
His comments come as one of Australia’s leading energy analysts told The West Australian the PRRT has “lost its competitive advantage” in the lucrative LNG sector.
On Sunday, Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic said the moves would hurt investment in WA and northern Australia “to fund the Eastern States”.
Mr Kavonic had labelled the overhaul as “a Canberra tax on West Australia” and warned the changes could see the gas industry — already reconsidering Australian investment after east coast policy intervention — may think twice about the west coast now, too.
The PM stressed the importance of the gas industry for the “national interest” and said the change would bring forward taxation revenue from the resources sector sooner for Australia.
“We have chosen what we believe is in the best interests of the economy and taxpayers but also is in the interests of providing industry support,” he said.
He said the change resulted from two reviews established by the former government, and Federal Labor was “responding to those reviews”.
On Sunday, WA Premier Mark McGowan congratulated his Federal counterparts for “working co-operatively” with gas giants to arrive at a scheme that “provides more revenue but still meets the needs of the industry to invest”.
