‘Ripped Off on a Grand Scale’: Greens Unveil Explosive ‘Robin Hood’ Tax Raid on Mining and Gas Giants That Would Hand $1000 to Millions of Australians and Make the First $26,000 Tax-Free
- Greens leader David Shoebridge wants to lift the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $26,000, a move he says would put more than $1000 a year back into the pockets of almost every worker.
- Pensioners, carers, students and jobseekers would also receive an extra $1000 annually under the plan.
- The Parliamentary Budget Office has priced the package at roughly $22 billion a year, which the Greens would fund by taking $45 billion annually from gas and mining corporations.
- The Greens point to Norway and Alaska, which collect about three times Australia’s share of petroleum revenue, as proof the nation is being short-changed.
For millions of Australians watching every dollar at the supermarket checkout, it is a seductive pitch: earn your first $26,000 and keep every cent.
The bill would land on the mining and gas giants that have reaped record profits from the country’s resources. And it has set the stage for a showdown over who really owns the wealth beneath Australian soil.
Greens leader David Shoebridge will use his first major speech since taking the party’s top job to declare war on what he casts as a rigged system.
He will tell the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday that ordinary Australians are being “ripped off on a grand scale”.
The centrepiece of his address is a dramatic overhaul of the income tax system. The tax-free threshold, which has sat at $18,200 for more than a decade, would jump to $26,000.
The Senator argues the change would deliver a permanent windfall of more than $1000 to nearly every working Australian, not as a one-off sweetener but year after year.
The plan does not stop at wage earners. Those relying on government support, including pensioners, carers, university students and the unemployed, would receive a matching $1000 boost each year.
The Greens say nobody should be left out of cost-of-living relief, whatever their circumstances.
According to costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office, the combined package would cost the federal budget about $22 billion every year.
To pay for it, the Greens are targeting the resources sector, which Senator Shoebridge describes as the part of corporate Australia most awash with money. The party wants a new tax on gas exports, which it claims would raise $17 billion annually.
A further $28 billion would come from a market-linked resource rent tax on miners, modelled in a fresh report by the progressive think tank Prosper.
That adds up to a $45 billion yearly haul. The Greens say this would more than cover the cost of the handouts.
The idea behind the mining levy is that it would rise and fall with commodity prices.
When the next boom arrives, the public would claim a bigger slice of the profits instead of leaving them to a small circle of already wealthy shareholders.
The timing is no accident. Tax has suddenly returned to the centre of federal politics.
Angus Taylor confirmed this week that his own planned income tax cuts would be offset by $31 billion in budget savings.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also signalled earlier this month that further cuts are back on the table, saying an improved budget position had created more room for relief ahead of the next election.
Labor has already moved.
The legislated changes that took effect on 1 July 2026 trimmed the lowest marginal rate from 16 cents to 15 cents in the dollar, benefiting more than 14 million taxpayers.
New figures show nearly 13 million Australians shared in about $700 million of savings in the first quarter of the 2026-27 financial year alone.
Against that backdrop, the Greens are trying to outbid both major parties. They are offering a far larger cut to low and middle-income earners and naming exactly who should pay for it.
The fight over mining tax reform has a long and bruising history. The resource super profits tax proposed in 2010 sparked a multimillion-dollar industry advertising blitz and helped end a prime minister’s career.
Its watered-down successor raised little and was later scrapped. Since then, governments of both stripes have treated the sector with extreme caution.
Analysis: What This Means for Australia
At its heart, this proposal is a bet on redistribution.
It would move tens of billions of dollars from corporate balance sheets into household budgets, with the biggest relative gains going to low-income earners, part-time workers and welfare recipients.
For struggling families, an extra $1000 a year is not small change. It could cover a quarter’s power bill, a month of groceries or a crucial car repair.
In regional communities and outer suburbs hit hardest by the cost-of-living crisis, the effect could be felt quickly.
But the economic stakes are enormous.
Pumping $22 billion a year into the economy invites an obvious question about inflation, which the Reserve Bank of Australia has spent years trying to tame.
Senator Shoebridge anticipates that attack.
He argues that soaring corporate profits are themselves a driver of inflation, and that much of that money ends up on luxury renovations, yachts, private jets and high-end entertainment rather than everyday spending.
By trimming those profits and spreading them more widely, he says, the plan would cool the economy rather than overheat it.
There are also serious questions for the resources sector, one of the nation’s largest export earners and a major employer across Western Australia and Queensland. A $45 billion annual impost would be among the biggest tax shifts in modern Australian history.
The Greens insist the risk of an investment exodus is overblown. They point to Queensland’s progressive coal royalties, which they say returned wealth to the public without scaring off business.
They also highlight that Australia collects just 14 per cent of the value of its petroleum as public revenue, compared with 40 per cent in Norway and 42 per cent in Alaska.
The deeper argument is about ownership. The Greens say Australians own the resources in the first place, so they should share in the profits when prices surge.
Economic observers say the threshold increase is one of the most targeted ways to help low earners, because it delivers a flat dollar benefit rather than one that grows with income.
Industry insiders, however, warn that a combined gas export tax and resource rent tax could unsettle investors at a time when energy security and long-term project pipelines are under scrutiny.
Some fear a repeat of the bitter campaigns that sank earlier reform attempts.
Political analysts believe the policy is designed as much to shape the debate as to become law. With both major parties now competing on tax cuts, the Greens are forcing a sharper question onto the agenda: who should pay?
Fiscal watchers also caution that revenue from commodity-linked taxes can swing wildly with global prices. That could leave a permanent spending commitment resting on volatile income.
Whether voters embrace the pitch or recoil from it, one thing is certain. The battle over Australia’s resource wealth, and who gets to keep it, has been reignited.