opinion polls<\/a> suggesting supporters of her rightwing populist party back the idea.<\/p>\nInstead, she proposed abolishing the PRRT \u2013 which she described as a \u201cfailure\u201d \u2013 and introducing a royalty regime for new projects.<\/p>\n
Appearing in a room of gas industry executives in Adelaide, Hanson also announced a Norway-inspired proposal to acquire equity stakes in new ventures and stash the profits in a sovereign wealth fund.<\/p>\n
Under the proposal, the government would offer companies a 30% rebate on the cost of exploration in commonwealth waters in exchange for taking an equity stake of up to 30% in the operation.<\/p>\n
The arrangement would give taxpayers a share in potential profits but also expose them to financial risks, which could last decades given One Nation has proposed co-ownership would start at exploration and continue until a project is decommissioned.<\/p>\n
It typically takes more than a decade for a project to progress from exploration to production, meaning taxpayers would not get an immediate return.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s stake would be overseen by a new commonwealth investment body.<\/p>\n
One Nation has just two lower seats in federal parliament but has been surging in the opinion polls, resulting in more attention and scrutiny of its policies.<\/p>\n
Speaking before Hanson\u2019s address, Liberal frontbencher James Paterson said he was sceptical about government-owned oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, that is a policy borrowed from Venezuela and Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, not Australia,\u201d Paterson told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I understand the principle that Australians want to get better return on our natural resources, that\u2019s a reasonable principle, and we can have a debate about the details of tax policy, but nationalising our oil and gas industry I don\u2019t think is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson denied the proposal was a \u201csocialist takeover\u201d, insisting the government investment body would not have a day-to-day role in running the partner gas company.<\/p>\n
The One Nation leader said there had not been any pushback from industry during private briefings on the proposal. She said mining billionaire Gina Rinehart wasn\u2019t consulted.<\/p>\n
Australian Energy Producers \u2013 the peak industry group and host of Thursday\u2019s event \u2013 welcomed Hanson\u2019s support for the oil and gas sector in a statement that defended the amount of tax it contributes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the recent federal budget confirmed, our existing tax system is already working as intended, delivering more tax revenue when international oil and gas prices are high,\u201d said AEP chief executive, Samantha McCulloch.<\/p>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779362471_475_1920.jpg\")
How Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation is changing politics: Full Story newsroom edition \u2013 video<\/p>\n
But the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) \u2013 which represents the wider mining sector \u2013 opposed government equity stakes in a \u201cmature\u201d industry such as the oil and gas sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t work. You start these things for fledgling industries, you don\u2019t start it halfway through when we\u2019ve got a mature industry. So generally, I think equity in projects is not the way to go,\u201d said MCA chief executive, Tania Constable.<\/p>\n
The resources minister, Madeleine King, made a similar argument when asked about Hanson\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best time for Australia to have invested in that part of the [gas] industry was 30 or 40 years ago. So that moment has passed. We cannot go backward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, I think there would be many people in the country that don\u2019t think Australia, an Australian government, should invest in the gas industry given the capital that it is able to bring to bear on projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his speech to the AEP conference, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, renewed his commitment to abandon a net zero emissions target, scrap the safeguard mechanism and promote more \u201cdigging and drilling\u201d to achieve what he describes as \u201cenergy abundance\u201d.<\/p>\n
Taylor urged the oil and gas industry to \u201cstart making noise\u201d and fight their detractors as he reaffirmed the Coalition\u2019s opposition to a 25% export tax.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Coalition can\u2019t take the fight up for your sectors alone. You need to start making noise. You need to use every campaign tool at your disposal \u2013 especially social media. Push back against your detractors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Nation has vowed to replace the contentious offshore gas profits tax and acquire 30% equity stakes in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-685037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}