What the ground gives, and where the money goes.

The gas comes out of the ground near Karratha, near Darwin, out through the Browse Basin and the Gorgon fields. It travels a long way after that. Most of it ends up in Japan, South Korea, China. The money travels too - and it also ends up somewhere other than here.

Last year, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax raised $1.5 billion on the back of exports that some put at roughly $70 billion in value. Norway runs a comparable sector, takes about 78 cents in every dollar for the public, and has accumulated a sovereign fund now worth around two trillion. Australia is not Norway, of course. People keep saying so whenever you bring it up, as if the observation closes the argument rather than opening it.

What it comes down to, practically, is this: the extraction happens here. The disruption to land, the water questions, the flaring, the pipeline corridors, those stay. The margin, however, largely leaves. Locals in the Pilbara can tell you what a gas corridor looks like. They are less clear on what the resulting public endowment looks like, because there is not much of one to point at.

The Greens want a flat 25 per cent export levy, which they say could raise $17 billion a year. The government has declined, citing energy security and the present crisis in the Middle East, which has made gas expensive enough that the companies are doing rather well, and inconvenient enough that this is apparently not the moment to discuss their tax arrangements. In March, Treasury modelled a windfall tax. By May, the Prime Minister had ruled it out. The Senate inquiry tabled its report on the seventh - and the ground continues to give.

There is a word for a country that exports raw material at volume, negotiates a thin return, and then imports the processed product at retail prices. It is not a flattering word. Australia has been trying to stop being that country in various industries for several decades, with mixed results. The gas debate is the same debate wearing a different hat.

Qatar captures roughly 75 per cent of its gas revenue for the state. It has done so consistently, without catastrophic investment flight. The gas companies operating there have not, as far as anyone can tell, packed up and gone home. They have adapted, because the resource is there and they want it. The resource here is also there, and they also want it.

The government's alternative, a 20 per cent domestic reservation policy from July 2027, will direct some supply to the local market and may bring prices down modestly. It is a policy of managed access, not revenue capture. As a farmer might say: it is the difference between keeping a bit of the crop back for the family and actually being paid for the harvest.

The Senate inquiry is done. The budget is set. The gas will keep going onto the boats. You can see the LNG carriers from the shore at Onslow on a clear night, lit up on the water, very large and pointing north.

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The views expressed are those of the correspondent. Factual claims draw on publicly available sources.