Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

If only solving our gas market problems was as simple as Senator Pocock has proposed. I truly wish it was. We can see that, in the last three years, Labor's interventions have not only failed; they have made the gas market shortfall even worse. We warned that the legislation that came into this place with the ink barely dry, poorly consulted, would result in worse outcomes, and what happened? The minister had to provide exemptions to the entire market. They have made our gas market more complex, more confusing and less secure. And guess what that means. It means there is less supply, prices have gone up and investors are worried.

Senator Pocock would have you believe that Australian gas being owned by Australians can be simply and easily extracted. Of course, that's not the case. These are multibillion dollar industries. For that reason, investment, certainty and confidence determine whether we bring more gas to market. In Australia, over generations, we have seen ebbs and flows of investor confidence, and what has undermined it the most? Unfortunately, it has been activist organisations like the Environmental Defenders Office currently, the Australia Institute and others who have talked down confidence in the Australian market. Some have funded appeals that have locked up more gas coming into the Australian market.

I'm delighted that in Queensland more gas reserves are being released. We're seeing great companies producing more gas for Australians. But guess where it's not happening. It's not happening in Victoria, where activists have shut down future gas investment in that state—the place that uses the most gas. It has a long history of gas production in the Bass Strait and a great reliance on manufacturing and domestic use. Guess where those jobs are going. They are leaving Australia because they cannot compete with the gas prices because it's not being produced locally. Moving gas around in pipelines costs dollars per gigajoule. It is expensive, so it's important that gas is produced where it's needed. But activist actions have meant that Victoria is off limits. The Narrabri project in New South Wales has been slowed for a decade. This is outrageous because those activists are undermining Australia's domestic energy security.

The gas market interventions that Labor has come in with more recently have clearly failed. They have had to introduce additional regulations, the gas code, to try and fix their mistakes. The ACCC has publicly blasted the government's intervention, stating that they have failed to reduce prices. They have worsened supply and have incentivised gas companies to produce less uncontracted gas for the domestic market and the increased shortfall risks.

We know that repeated interventions will not drive down prices or secure supply. They will only worsen it. The best example I can think of is Argentina in the 1980s. They followed exactly the advice that Senator Pocock and his advisers are providing, and what did that do? It meant that Argentina had to pay people to come back later to invest and produce their own gas. This is not simple. The US, Qatar and Canada are places that have been identified as having lower prices than Australia. That is because they are producing it. They are producing it by the well load. They have a glut of gas in the US, thanks to shale gas coming up with liquid fuels. That is what has driven down prices.

The idea that we are going to start interfering in the gas market further—I can guarantee what will happen. We will see additional Australian companies invest offshore. Gas will get increasingly expensive here. We would be much better off getting the Labor government out of the way. Stop funding the EDO. Stop encouraging activists to slow down investment and let the gas run, because that is in the best interest of Australians.