They are the set-piece photo opportunities that prime ministers will fly across the continent to take part in.
Think Tony Abbott kicking the red dirt of the Pilbara at a Rio Tinto iron ore mine with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe or Kevin Rudd in a "Prime Minister" emblazoned hard hat meeting coal miners in Gladstone.
In a resource-dependent economy like Australia, donning a fluorescent top and gazing at a large hole in the ground is one way a leader can associate themselves in voters' minds with that elusive objective: "jobs and growth".
In April, Malcolm Turnbull became the first Prime Minister to tour Chevron's mammoth Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant since it began shipping gas to Asia in March.
A single tanker from Gorgon will power 80,000 homes in Tokyo for a year.
As environment minister in the Howard government in 2007 Turnbull had given the project approval to proceed.
A $70 billion investment, Gorgon, located on Barrow Island 70 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia, is the single-biggest resources project in the nation's history and will contribute a fifth of total export volumes as Australian production increases and the country eclipses Qatar to become the world's biggest exporter of LNG by 2021.
Surrounded by Chevron's senior executives and clad in a bright orange "Malcolm Turnbull" embroidered shirt, safety glasses and a Chevron hard hat, Turnbull hailed it "a triumph" and a "great Australian achievement".
In March, then energy minister Josh Frydenberg heralded the "golden age of gas", reeling off astonishing figures about how Gorgon would add $440 billion to the economy by 2040 and contribute $70 billion to federal government coffers.
Chevron's environmental impact statement, presented to Turnbull in 2007, made the bold claim that revenues from Gorgon alone would generate so much wealth it could allow the government to cut personal taxes.
The company was even more bullish when, in 2015, it released an economic benefit report produced by consultants ACIL Allen that claimed Gorgon and its smaller sister project Wheatstone and its one-sixth stake in the mature North West Shelf LNG venture would contribute "$338 billion to federal government revenue" between 2009 and 2040.
Remember that Gorgon and Wheatstone are just two of 10 major LNG export terminals in WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory owned among others by Shell, ExxonMobil, Santos, Woodside and ConocoPhillips.
Aside from the usual jobs bonanza during the construction phase, the LNG boom has been sold by successive governments as a huge win for federal coffers and for the wealth of Australians, the ultimate owners of the resource.
But, as the production phase continues, there are worryingly few signs of the promised riches materialising via the Commonwealth-administered petroleum resource rent tax – the only royalty-like payment incurred by LNG projects that operate in Commonwealth waters.
Under a deal cut by Labor resources minister Martin Ferguson, who now works as a consultant in the petroleum sector, the PRRT was brought "onshore" or extended to coal seam gas projects in Queensland in 2012 but they are allowed to deduct state royalties before paying the Commonwealth tax.
Tweaks to the PRRT, introduced at the same time as Labor's doomed mining tax, retained a generous "uplift rate" on exploration costs whereby the value of capital invested upfront increases by 18 per cent each year until it can be cancelled out against operating revenue before a cent in PRRT must be paid.
Australian Tax Office figures show the oil and gas industry currently holds $187 billion in this "carry forward expenditure" and the total is rising sharply.
With total annual LNG sales expected to be in the vicinity of $25-$40 billion in the years ahead it will be eight years or more before that $187 billion is written off against sales.
Even in 2010, Ken Henry's review of the tax system raised concern about the PRRT's "failure to collect an appropriate and constant share of resource rents from successful projects due to uplift rates that over-compensate successful investors for the deferral of PRRT deductions".
Experts such as Diane Kraal, a senior lecturer at Monash University who has studied the PRRT since its introduction in 1987, say the $1.8 billion paid to the Commonwealth by the multinationals in PRRT will not increase significantly "in her lifetime" if the system is not tightened by government.
She believes the PRRT, which was designed to net "super-profits" in the more volatile oil market, is overly-generous for LNG producers who hold stable, long-term supply contracts but do not experience short bursts of rampant profits.
She says a federal royalty, in use before 1987, should be reintroduced to guarantee the public begins to benefit from the LNG boom, especially from the WA projects like Chevron, Wheatstone and Woodside's Pluto venture.
"Because of oil's super-profitability the tax had been effective but is no longer effective," she said.
Fairfax Media revealed in April a briefing note prepared for the Barnett government that warned the Commonwealth would wait "decades" to receive any significant revenue from Gorgon, Wheatstone and Woodside's Pluto gas field.
And this week a rapidly growing push for a parliamentary inquiry into whether the PRRT is a dud was given impetus by research showing that in 2021, when both Qatar and Australia will be exporting the same volume of LNG, the Persian Gulf state will reap $26.6 billion through its royalty-based system.
Australia, according to Treasury forecasts, will receive just $800 million.
On top of that, Fairfax Media revealed unpublished Tax Office statistics that show just 5 per cent of Australia's 149 operational oil and gas projects paid a single cent in PRRT last year.
On Thursday, Bill Shorten's union, the Australian Workers' Union, and the Community and Public Sector Union added their weight to the push for an inquiry already supported by the ACTU, the Maritime Union, Greenpeace, the Tax Justice Network, the International Transport Workers' Federation and the Australian Council of Social Service.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen and Labor's finance spokesman Jim Chalmers are being lobbied to support action through parliament, while shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh is already on board, Fairfax Media understands.
"Key unions are lining up behind this and there's a storm brewing inside Labor," said an ALP source.
AWU national secretary Scott McDine said the chief executives of LNG companies should be "hauled before the parliament to answer questions on behalf of the gas resource owners – the Australian people".
"It's bad enough the government has allowed foreign multinationals to sell our gas offshore without limit, meaning Australians now pay more for our own gas than overseas buyers. But now they're failing to even tax these exporters for the privilege.
"Our government is literally allowing foreign multinationals to pump our finite gas resources offshore for free."
The Greens back a parliamentary inquiry and Labor could get one established with the support of senators Nick Xenophon, Jacqui Lambie and Derryn Hinch.
Treasurer Scott Morrison this week revealed that he was taking briefings on the PRRT.
"While the government supports lower taxes, companies must also be expected to pay their fair share of taxes. The Treasurer will continue to take advice on sensitive tax matters such as this," said a spokesman.
The Australian Petroleum and Production & Exploration Association, representing the industry, insisted that depressed oil prices – which broadly determine LNG contract prices – and the early stage of the biggest projects were behind the bleak state of PRRT receipts.
"The PRRT was never intended to be paid by all projects at all times," APPEA said.
"It is a super-profits tax so it only applies when projects achieve super-profits. That is not the case for many new projects today because we are early in the life of these projects and commodity prices are depressed.
"The industry has invested more than $200 billion in new LNG projects over the last six years but most of these projects are only now producing LNG. It will be many years before these projects cover their huge, upfront costs."
APPEA described the $187 billion in carried forward expenditure as accumulated investment. "These business costs must be paid back before companies turn a profit – allowing business costs as a deduction against revenue is standard tax practice for companies and individuals."
A Chevron spokesman said the company had paid $3 billion in taxes from earnings from the North West Shelf and would "pay its fair share" from Gorgon and Wheatstone.
"Chevron takes a long-term view of prices because our investments last for decades. The independent economic analysis from ACIL Allen Consulting uses long-term future oil prices that take into account commodity price cycles and short-term price volatility which are common in our business. Our current income tax profile reflects where we are in our investment life cycle with two major capital projects under construction."
Petroleum resource rent tax
- The tax collected in 2014-15 was $1.9 billion.
- That dropped to $800 million in 2015-16.
- It's projected to stay at $800 million for the next four years (2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20).
- There are 149 operating projects but just 5 per cent of them (8 projects) are profitable and pay any PRRT.
- Revenue of the LNG sector is roughly $25 billion.
- The carry forward expenditure (ie built up value of PRRT credit against revenue) has risen from $128 billion to $187 billion in three years.
Sources: 2016 federal budget papers; Australian Tax Office
