Mmm idk about keeping most of the profits - we could have done so much more in that regard over the last two decades. Missed opportunity to create something like Norway’s national oil wealth fund. Instead of offshoring most of the gains.
The sawmills were promptly closed, and the raw logs exported in bulk to Japan and China as a form of protectionism / subsidised employment. They take the inefficiencies to keep portions of their population employed that might otherwise not be.
Then there's the fact that nearly all of our dairy exports are milk powder. It's hardly value add.
For example: Australian Gas consumers pay more to use natural gas in Australia, than people in Japan, using Australian LNG.
Would it be fair to call that blatant corruption, or could some argument be made that it is not?
In other words, only if you're lying is it corruption. Costs are not like for like, not even close. The gas itself is relatively cheap. The infrastructure and OpEx is not.
...I feel like our governments had the same neoliberal consultants come in.