Headline quote says that the Australian #ALP government is "missing half the equation" when it comes to taking action to mitigate climate disruption.
While there is federal support for expanding cleaner forms of energy, the Australian government continues to approve new coal and gas projects, and even create new forms of indirect #DirtyEnergySubsidies (such as federal funding for the #MiddleArm industrial hub in #Darwin, representing a substantial gift to the #FossilGas industry). Hence, they are "missing half the equation".
But I would argue that they are missing most of the equation, because stopping the increase of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases from being emitted by winding down the #DirtyEnergy industry as rapidly and humanely as possible is the single biggest aspect of #ClimateAction. Doing so will require replacement forms of energy (and all kinds of shifts in how energy is used), yes, but this is actually a secondary goal required to achieve the main one: an end to humanity's dependence on dirty energy ASAP.
After giving a climate talk to a community group the other day, one guy came up to me to "give feedback" (i.e. complain that I didn't focus enough on telling people how to cut their personal #CarbonFootprint - to use the phrase that #BP really wants us to focus on).
This led into a discussion about why individual consumer choices always have the system stacked against them. As part of that point, I mentioned the enormous scale of #DirtyEnergySubsidies (>$7t globally each year, though I focused on $11b annually in Australia, which is a widely cited figure based on a narrower definition of subsidy; he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't care as much if I wasn't talking about his country.)
Upon hearing of these subsidies (which were apparently news to him), he said "yeah, but how much tax do they contribute?"
How much tax #DirtyEnergy companies pay is largely irrelevant to the question we were discussing, since a company that is both taxed and receives significant subsidies will do better than a competitor (e.g. a renewable energy company) that is taxed and doesn't receive those subsidies. I probably should have said something like that. (I could also have made a point about government funds not being derived from taxation, but I really didn't get the vibe that that was going to be particularly fruitful approach for this gentleman.)
Instead I replied that dirty energy companies pay relatively little tax due to exploiting tax loopholes (that they also lobby to put in). He scoffed in disbelief and changed the subject.
With that context, now you'll understand how embarrassed I was to have just stumbled across this table for 2020–21 and realise I was wrong.
Of the twenty-four largest dirty energy companies in Australia, only one of them paid “relatively little” income tax that year.