Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Industry claims that the east coast of Australia is running out of gas and supports the funding of a pipeline to link the abundant gas fields in Western Australia to the supposedly exhausted east coast gas network. He said that even if we see major progress there in the next 12 months, because of all the time that has been lost in New South Wales, there is no way that will provide a solution to New South Wales's impending gas shortage and higher prices, which will really start to come into being in the winter of 2016 and 2017.

Before we embark on more corporate welfare that may simply enable east coast gas producers to export gas to the lucrative Asian markets—at the expense of Australian consumers—we need a proper business case and a lot more transparency about gas markets.

According to Michael West, writing in the BusinessDay section of TheSydney Morning Herald on 30 August, gas consumers face a tripling of prices as gas producers starve the local market, even as they export huge volumes of gas to Asia, and then complain they are being blocked from extracting coal seam gas, a process that could damage aquifers and water supplies.

While the gas producers claim innocence in all of this, the New South Wales Liberal Party energy minister, Anthony Roberts, apparently understands what is going on and has stated to a New South Wales budget estimates hearing: 'My message to the rest of the industry is simply that no-one will trust you until you are honest. No-one will trust you until you are transparent, be it the community or the government.'

The federal minister for industry, who has taken the side of industry against consumers, as well as his fellow party members in the New South Wales government, claims that as we have a domestic shortage in New South Wales the only realistic solution is to connect the Northern Territory to Moomba. Moomba has been an important source of east coast gas and is connected by pipeline to the gas network. In fact, demand for gas has been falling sharply and suppliers, in minimising the effect of the recent 15 plus per cent decline in consumption, have deliberately exaggerated the impending unnecessary shortfall. If prices triple and a supply crisis does develop, that situation will have been manufactured by the gas industry and by the Abbott government who are determined to put the profits of gas exporters ahead of the interests of the nation.

How do we know that there is not any supporting evidence? We have the statements of the New South Wales energy minister, who complained that he has repeatedly asked the industry to issue figures regarding the gas supply, yet, as he said:

To my great disappointment, they have continually refused to do so.

It is regrettable that the east coast gas market is faced by issues of transparency. I am not aware of any public policy-maker in Australia who has a detailed understanding of how much gas is being contracted to overseas customers. I am not aware of any public policy-maker that knows whether the east coast gas market has the ability to deliver this without causing domestic shortfalls.

In any other circumstance one might properly regard this situation as a scandal.