The CEO of Chevron is sitting in a Perth hotel conference room, clearly unhappy. Why wouldn’t he be? He gets paid more than $20m a year and he finds himself today in front of a table of senators answering questions about the company’s lack of a contribution to Australia’s tax base. He normally doesn’t do media and, by the nature of his position, he is able to avoid public scrutiny, but today he is answering questions from the Australian Senate. He turns to the right and whispers something to his offsider before answering my question.

The treasurer's review into the petroleum resource rent tax will give Chevron everything ​it wanted

He is trying to answer the question I just asked him, which I flagged to journalists an hour before. Standing in the Perth morning sun, I was holding up a picture of my daughter Hannah. “How old will my five-year-old daughter be before Chevron actually starts paying taxes on its offshore gas projects?” I hold the picture up. The cameras click.

An hour later, the CEO of Chevron finishes his whispered conversation with his offsider and stares back at me. He knows he can’t clearly answer that question. The question doesn’t have an answer. It really comes down to how clever Chevron’s accountants can be. Perhaps 13 years. Perhaps 18. Hannah will have finished school by then.

The petroleum resource rent tax regime for offshore gas projects is a joke. In previous presentations to shareholders and analysts, Chevron has boasted about its confident position in Australia. Its cash position looks good. Yet Chevron will pay less corporate tax for exploiting Australian petroleum this year than I will pay for a single beer bought after the hearing is over.

Let that sink in for a moment. The five largest Australian offshore gas projects paid less corporate tax than is charged for a single bottle of Little Creatures Pale Ale.

Here are the facts. Chevron has paid no corporate tax in the past two years. None. Zero. Zilch.

It paid paid no petroleum resource rent tax either.

I will spend the hearing highlighting this. It will make me feel good. My supporters on Twitter will congratulate me.

It will achieve nothing. Today we will lose, again. Chevron wins the real fight.

Today is also the day the treasurer hands down a review into the PRRT, which will give Chevron everything it wanted. No change to the PRRT. Nothing that will make anything different. The report is a whitewash, but why would I be surprised? The lobbyists have been out. Working the phones. Walking the corridors of power. Both here and with Australia’s overseas representatives in the markets the petroleum will ultimately reach. The lunches. The dinners. The pressure. So much pressure.

“The world of resources in Australia will collapse if you dare make us pay any more tax,” they will say.

“But you currently aren’t paying ANY tax?” I would reply.

But they will discount that. They call that, in the corridors of power, “being anti-business”. And their supporters will nod.

'The world of resources in Australia will collapse if you dare make us pay any more tax,' they will say

“We have to protect the jobs! Why are you risking jobs by demanding more tax?” they will say.

“It is only going to create 400 jobs on the entire north-west shelf when created,” I would respond. “And that makes no sense. We tax profit. Why would it impact jobs? Yours is a false argument.”

And they will offer a patronising smile. And be polite. And move on. They won’t bother with the likes of me. They don’t need to.

At the hearing we get the information that shows how this could be changed. Three professors will front the inquiry and tell us that you can raise more than $6bn by applying the Hong Kong model that prevents dodgy deductions when corporations move money between their own firms. $6bn. From just two companies. They are brought here by the campaign director of GetUp!, Paul Oosting, so they will be discounted by the conservatives. “Aren’t Getup just a bunch of socialists?” they will say, laughing. They will keep laughing.

Jason Ward, the brains behind the Tax Justice Network, will explain how the companies tell their investors one thing and tax authorities something else. That they will will brag about how much money they make in the US and cry poor to tax authorities. That the whole thing is a rort.

Chevron will avoid these questions. Its bosses just have to get through the the hour. But they know that something like the petroleum resource rent tax is complicated. That it isn’t “in your face”. That they can get away with it all by keeping their mouths shut. That you will be angry reading this – but that if they can withstand your rage for a few weeks, nothing will change. And so it will go on.