This is so dumb or corrupt that I don’t know where to look. Sky.
Shadow energy minister Susan McDonald has hit out at Labor over Australia’s looming gas crisis, declaring state and federal governments needed to “get out of the way” and allow more projects to proceed.
…Speaking on Sky News Australia, shadow resources minister Susan McDonald said the looming shortage was due to the “absolutely crazy” policies both state and federal Labor governments were pursuing despite warnings the crisis was “getting ever closer”.
“This has been a gas shortage that has been looming since Labor started their terrible gas market interventions three years ago,” she said.
“It is, not for the lack of gas, not for the lack of willing drillers and companies willing to invest.
“In fact, I spoke to a company yesterday who has been sitting on a production licence application for 10 years for gas that they know is in the ground in Victoria… but the Labor government there has absolutely refused to allow them to proceed.
The shadow resources minister said that in the Victoria and NSW gas fields, there were 143 petajoules per annum which had been identified and could be extracted.
“I’ve been speaking to those producers. They’re ready to go with the right approvals. That is all available for the domestic market,” she said.
Who are the producers, is the question. If they are members of the export cartel then the extra gas will make absolutely no difference locally. The cartel will simply shift its cheaper gas assets offshore swiftly and keep the local market tight.
In fact, even if all of the gas is outside of the export cartel (when most of it will be inside), the cartel will respond the same way with much the same result.
It’s not about supply. It’s about who controls the supply. That is, it is about market structure.
Economics is a little more complicated than supply and demand, an idea that can’t get through Canberra’s impenetrable density.
The LNP already has the gas answer. It was created in 2017, by the LNP and Labor strengthened it.
The Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM), has never been used, and the LNP has committed to scrapping.
Just pull the lever and force more exported gas into the local market. If the price doesn’t fall, then add an export levy. Problem solved.
I mean, hello. The Australian.
Australia’s eastern seaboard may experience a narrowing of the gas surplus for the third quarter of 2025, underlining the ongoing tight supply situation as major companies and policymakers ramp up a push for LNG imports to ease shortfall concerns.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is poised to deliver its next quarterly report on the gas sector and industry sources said a draft had shown a previous surplus forecast for the three months to September was likely to be tighter.
The ACCC’s report issued in January showed a 13 petajoule supply surplus for the third quarter of 2025. Sources said new data crunched by the competition regulator may show that surplus had dwindled to less than 5 PJs.
Fundamentally, the issue is not a lack of gas; it is a lack of balls, brains, patriotism, or all three.
