Australians will fork out \u201cjust a few hundred million dollars less\u201d in passport fees than the government will make in taxing oil and gas exports by the end of the decade, a Senate hearing has been told. <\/p>\n
Senator David Pocock, who has long pressured the government over imbalances between the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax (PRRT) and other tax levies, quizzed the government on Thursday over revenue from passport fees.<\/p>\n
Australia has one of the most expensive passport fees in the world, costing $422 for an adult to renew a 10-year passport and $213 for a senior or child for a five-year passport as of 2026.<\/p>\n
The hearing was told the government forecast more than $1bn in revenue from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, \u201cpredominantly\u201d from passport fees, in the next financial year.<\/p>\n
That was forecast to rise to as much as $1.2bn in the 2029-30 financial year.<\/p>\n
This financial year, it was forecast the government would issue up to 2.2 million new passports, rising to as much as 2.5 million in the next financial year, officials said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seems like an extraordinary amount of money,\u201d Senator Pocock said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at (20)29-30, passports and Australians paying to have an Australian passport is bringing in just a few hundred million dollars less than the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax, which is how we are meant to get a return from offshore LNG. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, those two things just don\u2019t seem to square … that\u2019s an absurd comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong defended the government\u2019s stance on both its passport fees and gas tax, telling the hearing she understood Senator Pocock\u2019s views but that \u201cwe believe we found a better way to deal with national interest issues associated with gas\u201d.<\/p>\n
Since coming to government, Labor had improved the passport system, Senator Wong said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a high-quality, sophisticated document and one of the reasons why we receive visa-free access to over 120 countries,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Senator Wong noted the government was not considering changes to the cost of an Australian passport \u201cother than indexation\u201d baked into forecast increases. <\/p>\n
However, Senator Pocock said Australians were paying in some cases double for their passports than like countries. <\/p>\n
He told the committee a Canadian passport cost $170, a British passport $195, a New Zealand passport $225, and an American passport $250.<\/p>\n
In response, Senator Wong said she did not know why those passports were cheaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not responsible for their passports,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Senator Pocock has long campaigned for a rethink of Australia\u2019s gas tax arrangement, including after the outbreak of war in the Middle East in February. <\/p>\n
In an earlier hearing, Senator Pocock said Australia made about $1.5bn from the PRRT, according to the 2025-26 mid-year financial outlook.<\/p>\n
However, Australia was expected to make $2.7bn from taxes on beer. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we live in a country that exports \u2013 one of the biggest gas exporters in the world \u2013 and we\u2019re getting more tax from beer than PRRT,\u201d Senator Pocock said at the time.<\/p>\n
The government has defended the PRRT and its trade arrangements as being part of a broader system, especially since the outbreak of war in the Middle East, that includes the need to be a reliable energy partner as well as corporate tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australians will fork out \u201cjust a few hundred million dollars less\u201d in passport fees than the government will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23096,22,23,133,23095,21,23097,1367,23102,23100,4242,23103,547,23092,23104,23101,23094,22295,23099,2294,379,120,23091,23093,470,23098],"class_list":["post-24901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-s-gas-revenue","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-passport","tag-austrlia","tag-canadian-passport-cost","tag-david-pocock","tag-forecast-increases","tag-gas-exporters","tag-gas-exports","tag-gas-revenue","tag-gas-tax","tag-gas-tax-arrangement","tag-government-forecast","tag-government-stance","tag-governments-gas","tag-nathan-schmidt","tag-national-interest-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-newswire-news","tag-oceania","tag-passport-fees","tag-passport-system","tag-penny-wong","tag-reliable-energy-partner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}