Ed Husic has demanded strong action to end “profiteering” among gas exporters and to force them to sell cheaper fuel for Australian use, as the former industry minister broke ranks with his Labor colleagues to support an independent MP’s motion regarding energy prices on the east coast.
In a stinging rebuke to what he called Australia’s “timid” approach to gas market regulation, Husic delivered an impassioned speech in parliament where he said “tinkering at the edges” of reform would not fix a “fundamentally distorted” gas market.
Husic said higher prices and uncertain supply for domestic use was “not because we don’t have enough gas, but because the gas that comes from beneath Australian soil is prioritised for customers offshore rather than customers onshore”.
Australia exports three-quarters of the gas it produces, and the energy regulator has warned of an east coast gas shortfall by the winter of 2028.
“Over decades, governments have entrenched this, largely by inaction, hoping the problem would go away,” Husic said.
“Our gas, our prices: that should be the bedrock of our thinking.
“The cost of doing business in this country for multinational gas firms is that they must provide a gas price in line with historic pre-pandemic levels, and this should apply to any new field that’s opened too.
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“We need strong action; a complete rethink of the terms on which Australian resources serve the Australian national interest.”
Gas prices on the east coast have tripled over the past decade, following the start of major LNG export terminals in Queensland which connected the domestic market with international demand.
The motion by the independent MP Nicolette Boele called on the government to “only allow uncontracted gas to be exported after it has been offered to the domestic market at a reasonable price”.
“We do not have a gas supply problem, we have a gas export problem,” Boele said.
“To the extent that we have shortfalls predicted on the east coast it is an infrastructure and distribution problem, not a problem of production.”
Fixing Australia’s “broken” gas market could help lower energy costs for households and businesses, according to the latest report from the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“Access to stable affordable gas is not just an industrial preference, it is a sovereign capacity necessity,” Husic said.
“It will be essential to the transition to net zero.”
Husic’s freelancing on gas regulation comes weeks out from an expected government announcement on a domestic gas reserve designed to lower prices on the east coast.
Tim Ayres, the industry minister, on Friday signalled a new gas reserve scheme was close to being announced, saying that you want a “Goldilocks amount of gas” in the system.
The gas industry lobby group has argued that it could support exporters putting aside extra gas for domestic use, but only if it was tied with new gas developments.
Rather than develop substantially higher-cost new gas fields, IEEFA said “the cheapest way to supply Australian gas consumers is instead to redirect small amounts of uncontracted LNG from exports to the domestic market”.
The independent MP Zali Steggall, speaking in support of Boele’s motion on Monday, said “we don’t need more gas”.
“We do not need more gas approvals; what we need are rules to ensure more gas stays in Australia.”
