Isn’t it peculiar that we get to this week in April and suddenly the impossible seems so inevitable that we start hearing about all the “sensible” compromises?

Six months ago, any sort of talk about a gas tax was dismissed as leftie pipe dreams.

Then came public momentum, helped along by the ACTU’s background campaign, independent senator David Pocock’s unapologetic embrace of the policy, Labor backbencher Ed Husic’s work in building support in caucus and taking the manufacturing industry’s concerns to the public and a population sick of coming in second.

Now we are hearing about “windfall” taxes and “profit” taxes and what the gas industry would accept, as fears within the fossil fuel industry start to grow that the government will be spooked enough to do something to answer the public’s anger.

The Greens-led Senate committee looking into taxing the gas industry in Australia begins on Tuesday. This is where you will see both sides try to win the information war ahead of the May budget.

There is some appetite for change within the government, given Anthony Albanese is still trying to reassure people there will be no tax on existing export contracts.

In the time since the US and Israel launched their illegal attacks on Iran, Santos’s share price has grown by 12 per cent and Woodside’s by 17 per cent. At the same time, the ASX has dropped about 2.4 per cent.

This has led to talk of a windfall or “super profits” tax as a compromise, with claims it would address the profit imbalance while not causing long term “harm” to a multibillion-dollar (profit) industry.

The issue with that is the failed Petroleum........

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