Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

IA () (): Recent commentary that Australia is facing a looming gas shortage deifies logic. Australia is the world's largest LNG exporter. Australia has an abundance of gas on tap. What also exists is a lucrative global gas market and gas companies making record profits while paying negligible tax in Australia. Not surprisingly, gas companies want to open up new gas fields, extract more gas and further boost their very healthy profits. Talk of gas shortages or that new gas extraction is needed to bring down prices is a ruse by the gas companies to force state and federal governments into approving more gas fields. Ninety per cent of the gas resources on Australia's east coast are controlled by a gas cartel of three multinationals that are holding Australians to ransom. Gas prices are crippling businesses and directly affect electricity prices.

Gas is an Australian natural resource. Australians should have access to it at a fair price, not at the hugely inflated prices being charged by the gas companies. Western Australia proved that can be achieved with a policy that has been in place for nearly two decades. It did not send gas companies broke, it did not stop investment, and gas companies should stop treating the Australian people as mugs