A few weeks ago for uni I had to write a 750 word policy briefing based on a report of the same name by the Australia Institute, so now that I've been assessed I figured I might as well plagiarize myself a little here.

The report estimates that across federal and state/territory governments combined, Australia provided $14.9 billion in fossil fuel subsidies during FY2024-25. These were categorized as “wholly”, “primarily”, or “partly” dedicated to fossil fuel industries. Health and environmental effects / costs were not considered.

Total expenditure is dominated by federal subsidies of $12.5 billion (83.6% of all subsidies), with federal subsidies overwhelmingly comprised of tax concessions rather than direct spending. Federal concessions are in turn dominated by $10.2 billion for the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme (81.7% of federal subsidies) – the 16th most expensive item in the year’s budget – and $1.7 billion for concessional tax rates for aviation fuel usage (13.6% of federal subsidies). Essentially all (99.5%) federal subsidies are categorized as “wholly” dedicated to fossil fuel industries.

State/territory subsidies comprise mostly of Queensland’s $1.8 billion (75.2% of state/territory subsidies), split across spending of $0.8 billion (34.2% of state/territory subsidies) and concessions of $1 billion (41% of state/territory subsidies). Contrasting federal subsidies, state/territory subsidies are a broader mix of “wholly”, “primarily”, and “partly” categorized subsidies and are less concentrated.

Total subsidies have been trending upwards and are projected to continue to rise, largely due to increasing fuel expenditure causing commensurate increases in related tax concessions. The report concludes that “Australia is not taking serious action on climate change” and suggests that “cutting fossil fuel subsidies would not only help achieve genuine reductions in emissions, but would save money that could be spent on public services”.

One part of the report I didn't love was their methodology in how they categorized "wholly" etc, as even RMIT ABC Fact Check called a similar claim "overblown" in 2022 (the beneficiaries of those subsidies is rarely "wholly" the fossil fuel industry as a layperson would understand the term in normal conversation).

The most interesting thing I learnt in my background research outside of the report is that the fuel excise -- the counterpart of the majority subsidy, federal tax concessions via the fuel tax credits scheme -- is expected by the PBO to be "effectively zero" by 2050 even though the cost of the tax concessions is expected to continue rising.

I've also infodumped some more notes about this here in a pretty unpolished form, but you shouldn't read it because I'm self-conscious and having an existential crisis over the fact I've publicly published something on a topic I'm far from an expert on.