I'll admit it. Dutton is spot on about one thing when it comes to gas

Australia doesn't have a gas shortage, Australia has a gas export problem; and putting a levy on gas exports will help fix the problem.

Unfortunately, Dutton's wrong on almost everything else.

Gas is driving up the cost of living. After Australia started exporting gas, wholesale gas prices in Australia tripled.

You now pay global prices for Australian gas. For over a decade the gas industry has been pushing the lie that Australia has a gas shortage, but the problem is we export around 80 per cent of our gas.

No matter what crap the gas industry tries to feed you - Dutton has correctly identified Australia has a gas export problem.

For the first time in over a decade, all sides of politics in Australia agree that we're exporting too much gas, including the Labor government, the Liberals and Nationals, the Greens and most of the independents who sit on the crossbench.

It's a remarkable political consensus. Politicians now have the opportunity, in the middle of a cost-of-living election, to finally put a stop Australians getting ripped off by the gas industry. It would be a win for the economy, a win for your back pocket and a vote winner for politicians.

To fix Australia's gas export problem, the Coalition is proposing to tax gas exports to ensure our gas flows first to Australian businesses and households.

This, too, is a huge shift in Australian politics. For too long, governments have let multinational gas export companies get away with windfall profits exporting our gas, while paying no company tax and no royalties, and charging Australians a fortune for gas to boot.

There is plenty of surplus gas that isn't under long-term contract. Basically, if gas companies choose to supply the lucrative global spot market instead of Australian consumers, Dutton will put a levy on the exports.

Unlike Donald Trump's tariffs, which are paid for by American consumers domestically, Dutton's proposed tax on Australian gas exports will be paid by the multinational gas companies who have been ripping off Australians for years.

Gas companies will pass that cost onto other countries who import Australian gas on the spot market.

Putting a tax on gas exports is an easy way to ensure that more of Australia's gas flows to Australians at cheaper prices.

Gas companies will whinge that this will dry up investment.

Firstly, good.

The United Nations, the International Energy Agency and the world's scientists are all clear, there is no room for new gas fields on a warming planet.

Secondly, this is plain rubbish. The gas is here underneath Australia. Gas companies can't just move it overseas along with their headquarters. Where would they go? To Norway or Qatar, where taxes and royalties are way higher?

The gas industry impoverishes Australia when, at the very least, it should be making us richer.

Australia collects a pathetic $1 billion or so a year from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. In comparison, Qatar collects around $50 billion a year and Norway around $20 billion.

Multinational companies are making ridiculous profits exporting Australia's gas while paying diddly squat in taxes and royalties.

Young Australians pay more in HECS repayments than the gas industry pays in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Zero royalties are paid on over half of the gas exported from Australia.

Australia Institute research shows that over the last four years, multinational gas export companies made $170 billion - that's billion with a B - exporting Australian gas while paying zero royalties.

Gas companies $170 billion; Australia $0. It's highway robbery. Many gas export companies pay no company tax either. When Australian teachers and nurses are paying more tax than the entire gas export industry, something is seriously wrong.

As two-time Nobel prize-winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz says "As an economist, that makes absolutely no sense. The result of this is that is Australia as a whole is becoming a poorer country."

Do you have any idea what Australia could do with an extra $20 billion a year?

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, Australia could put dental into Medicare and we'd still have $6 billion a year in spare change. If we made as much additional gas revenue as Qatar, there is basically no problem Australia couldn't fix if we chose to.

The Coalition also says it will also speed up the approval of new gas projects.

To be clear, this would be disastrous for the climate, the environment, farmers, and Australia's cultural heritage. These new approvals will only increase gas exports, further exacerbating gas price problems.

Peter Dutton won't admit it, but renewable energy is far cheaper than gas, even with the cost of firming and additional transmission. It is far cheaper to heat houses, provide hot water and cook with efficient electrical appliances than with gas.

Dutton's gas export levy is probably the most popular policy the Coalition has proposed this election. Attacking working-from-home arrangements went down like a fart in a lift, especially with women.

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His nuclear power plan, always a distraction, has disappeared without a trace. Sacking 41,000 public servants in Canberra has been clocked as more cruel than efficient and few believe it won't impact on front-line services.

And all the Coalition's policies to make housing more affordable will only push up the price of housing, benefiting existing homeowners and no one else.

In the lead-up to the election, it looked like Dutton would ride the wave of Trump-led populist politics to victory. Around the world incumbent governments fell election after election and the polls had the Coalition drawing ahead of Labor.

But now that Australians have seen firsthand the carnage of Trump's policies unleashed in real time, Dutton's Trump-like policies have turned from populist to perilous. But a levy on gas exports? Dutton's on a winner.