Only days ago, the gas cartel, the captured business media, the Coalition, and neoliberal economists were deriding the Albanese Government’s $12 gas price cap, claiming it would fail to reduce gas prices and stifle investment.
Yet the below chart from Westpac tells a different tale, showing that gas prices have plummeted to $10 after the price cap announcement. From Westpac:
Australian gas prices spiked to a record high of $50/gigajoule in July but then eased to around $20/gigajoule through November and into December. But it is interesting to note that post the announcement last Friday (9th of December) that the Commonwealth Government was going to introduce a cap of $12/gigajoule the following Monday (12th of December) saw both the AMEO and Wallumbilla gas price fall to $12/gigajoule and continued to fall through December getting down to $10/gigajoule as we went to press.
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
