Australian Senate Opens Inquiry Into Country’s Oil, Gas Reserves

(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s upper house of parliament opened an inquiry into the country’s oil and gas reserves.

The matter was referred to the Senate Economics References Committee, with submissions to close Nov. 1, and a first sitting day in March 2020, according to a statement on the Australian federal parliament’s website.

The inquiry will look into how Australia can maximize the benefit to the public of national oil and gas reserves, taking into consideration how other countries handle the issue.

The Australian Financial Review earlier reported that Independent South Australian Senator Rex Patrick accused oil and gas companies of short-changing the country by paying little or no tax, as he launched the Senate inquiry into the tax treatment of the industry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Garfield Reynolds in Sydney at greynolds1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, Teo Chian Wei

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