By Bevan Ramsden
“We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts…..”
So our national anthem tells us but the truth is that whilst our country has immense natural resources and potential wealth, the vast majority of Australians are deprived of a share in this wealth. And deprived to the extent that they suffer daily from the economic impact of this deprivation.
Homelessness is on the rise.
Data from the 2021 Census shows that more than 122,000 people in Australia experienced homelessness on Census night. Social housing wait lists remain unacceptably high, with more than a quarter of a million households (254,571 applicants) waiting for social housing, including 122,457 in greatest need on priority wait lists, a 12% increase.
Poverty is on the increase with one in six Australian children assessed as living in poverty according to the ACOSS report of October, 2025.
Toil is not producing the wealth to live without hardship, causing economic stress for many. Mental Health Australia’s 2023 Report to the Nation found that over half of Australians believe the rising cost of living is having a significant impact on their mental health
The Black Dog Institute has reported that mental ill health is rising at an alarming rate, with almost two in five young Australians now living with a mental illness—a 50% increase over the last 14 years.
That Australia has significant mineral wealth is not disputed.
Recent annual export figures show the export of coal was valued at $91 billion, iron ore at $138 billion, LNG $73 billion, oil and gas $76.8 billion and gold and non-ferrous metals $33 billion. Australia exports seven times as much as is imported.
But this money did not go into government treasury but into the pockets of private corporations mainly US owned. Does government, and the people of Australia get any part of this? Unfortunately, very little.
As example take the export of LNG, Qatar exports 100 billion cu m of LNG annually and gets a return to government of $26.6 billion. Australia exports a similar quantity of LNG annually but the return to our government is a pitiful $0.8 billion.
Returning to the question in the title of this article, why has a country so gifted in natural resources and potential wealth failed to share this wealth with its citizens.?
I believe the answer lies in successive government’s open- door encouragement to foreign investors allowing a virtual takeover, control and indeed rapacious exploitation of our natural resources for their benefit not ours.
Quoting from Prof Clinton Fernandes, economist, “Right now US corporations eclipse everyone else in their ability to influence our politics, through their investments in Australian stocks. Using company ownership data from Bloomberg, I analysed the ownership of Australia’s 20 biggest companies a few days after the 2019 federal election in May. Of those 20, 15 were majority-owned by US-based investors. Three more were at least 25% US-owned.” The list included the following:
“Commonwealth Bank of Australia, once the “People’s Bank” but following privatisation, now 62% US owned; BHP Group, once the “Big Australian” now 73% US owned; Westpac Bank 64% US owned; National Australia Bank 63% US owned; ANZ Bank 54% US owned; Woolworths 66% US owned; Rio Tinto 65% US owned; Westfarmers 56% US owned” and so the list goes on.
Because of their financial size and domination, decisions about industry investment and development are made not by the Australian government but in the board rooms of those corporations and most probably overseas. Those decisions are made to maximise profit for their shareholders, their prime responsibility, not in order to meet national priorities for the benefit of the Australian people
We also lose out because of tax manipulation and so-called ‘creative accounting”. Clinton Fernandes, in his excellent book, “Island Off the Coast of Asia” writes: “Recent work by investigative journalist, Michael West and the Tax Justice Network have exposed the myriad ways in which certain corporations get around the tax laws. Exxon Mobil, for instance, “paid zero tax on more than $18 billion in income” in 2014-15 although the price of domestic gas went “through the roof”. Figures analysed and released in December 2017 showed Glencore, which operates in commodity industries such as coal, copper, oil and zinc, “managed to exterminate all profit and tax on $22 billion in income”. Shell Australia “paid zero on $4.2 billion in Revenue. Chevron nothing on $2.1 billion, Viva Energy (which bought the petrol stations from Shell), zero tax on $16.8 billion and Exxon Mobil not a cent on $6.7 billion.”
In short, one Australian worker paid more tax than five giant US corporations whose combined income in that year was $51.8 billion.
Norway’s alternative approach to development of its energy resources whilst maintaining sovereign control for the benefit of its people is explained by Clinton.
“Norway harnessed its earnings from oil and gas in its continental shelf. The Norwegian government is the largest shareholder in Stat oil, its state oil company.
The Norwegian government created Oliefonder, or Oil Fund in 1990 to invest Norway’s oil revenue. The fund had more than 11 billion kroner (more than $1.7 trillion Australian dollars) in 2021. This was a handsome investment for a country with 5.5 million people.” Norway has one of the highest living standards in the world.
Successive Australian governments have lost sovereign control of the economy and the ability to set national economic priorities. And Australians have lost their share in the wealth of our country.
The defence against foreign ownership and control is publicly-owned enterprises. That ownership can be regained using the compulsory acquisition powers under the constitution, using the existing power of the legislature (s51 xxxi) to acquire property on just terms.
Parliament does have the powers to nationalise, in whole or in part, critical national industries and provide compensation for the acquisition over a long period of time. It’s just a question of whose interests are to be served and having vision, intent and some Australian backbone to do what is needed.
Summing up, we are being ripped off. We are not getting a fair return of the immense wealth of this country which could otherwise provide us with world-class infrastructure including affordable housing and transportation, free health, education and child -care, removing the economic stresses that cause mental illness and also help us address the existential issues associated with the climate crisis.
Stated simply we need to break free of US and other foreign domination of our economy, regain ownership and control of our strategic and wealth-generating industries and use that wealth for the benefit of the Australian people.
