ideally the Australian Government is representative and working on behalf of the overwhelming majority of Australians putting revenues in long term investment funds for security and into public infrastructure that benefits the health, security and economic well being of the nation.
This is not always the case for <random post-colonial African state> (or indeed any of the 190+ countries about the globe).
The Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. It has over US$1.19 trillion in assets,[1] and holds 1.4% of all of the world’s listed companies, making it among the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.[2][3] In December 2021, it was worth about $250,000 per Norwegian citizen.
Simply gifting the finite stuff in the ground to a corporation to dig up and sell for nothing is an act of corruption at best and out and out treason at worst.
Ideally the state should be hired managers of the wealth of the people that is, the citizens of a country. Kind of like the board of a public corporation, effectively hired by shareholders.
But here comes the agency problem.
Then, the state is, equally importantly, a self-defence agency, which protect citizens from threats external (army) and internal (police). Hence the state controls the tools of violence.
The agency problem intensifies.
A carefully built system of checks and balances can sort of keep it at bay. Less carefully built systems turned into tyrannical regimes many, many times in recent history, all across the world.
Basically no country with substantial resources looks at things this way except America. They all either have government owned drilling companies or the companies that do exist pay substantial royalties to the government. I agree with it but from most country’s perspective it doesn’t really make sense to let all the oil wealth which was not really invented or require any work to go to a bunch of foreigners or <20 locals who got lucky.
ideally the Australian Government is representative and working on behalf of the overwhelming majority of Australians putting revenues in long term investment funds for security and into public infrastructure that benefits the health, security and economic well being of the nation.
This is not always the case for <random post-colonial African state> (or indeed any of the 190+ countries about the globe).