Barnaby Joyce floats national royalty plan to dismantle coal seam gas bans

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has
 welcomed the South Australian government's
 decision to pay landholders royalties.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has started dismantling Australia's sweeping ban on coal seam gas drilling, arguing a new scheme to divert a share of government royalties to farmers will overcome furious opposition in the bush.

Mr Joyce on Friday embraced a South Australian government plan to pay farmers 10 per cent of royalties in exchange for allowing gas wells on their land, saying the scheme should be rolled out nationally, with an exclusion of prime agricultural land.

The Agriculture Minister said lifting moratoriums and giving landholders a fair price in exchange for access would equate to "a substantial turnaround in attitude and that is a very good outcome”.

"I can't see people who start making hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of dollars a year having a backlash," Mr Joyce told Fairfax Media.

Read the story in the Melbourne Age - “Barnaby Joyce floats national royalty plan to dismantle coal seam gas bans.”

Fossil fuel giants using questionable deductions to shrink tax bills: Auditor-General

Auditor-General Grant Hehir warns his
 review may only scratch the surface.

A damning investigation has found multinational companies are claiming billions of dollars in questionable deductions while exploiting the nation's natural riches, using accounting tricks allowed to flourish under a hands-off government approach that is dudding Australian taxpayers of royalties.

And in a stunning disclosure, the probe by Auditor-General Grant Hehir found nearly two decades had passed since a federal government audited the self-assessed royalty payments from the North West Shelf, a giant project located in the lucrative oil and gas region off the West Australian coast and jointly owned by Woodside, Shell, Chevron and BHP Billiton.

Read Heath Aston’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Fossil fuel giants using questionable deductions to shrink tax bills: Auditor-General.”