Still Broken, Now With a Plot Twist
Australia’s gas market has been dysfunctional for years. Despite being one of the world’s biggest gas producers, we somehow pay premium prices for our own resource. Export contracts lock supply offshore, foreign buyers secure long-term deals, and local households and manufacturers wear the cost. Meanwhile, Norway built a trillion-dollar sovereign fund from its resources; we built… frustration.
Canberra’s New Idea: Become a Gas Middleman
The latest fix is for the federal government to step in as a bulk gas buyer – scooping up supply and on-selling it to local industry. On paper, it’s well-intentioned intervention. In reality, it highlights how warped the system has become.
It also raises all the awkward questions:
- Why does the government need to compete in a market we created?
- How do export deals, gas reservation, net-zero plans, and state-level gas bans coexist without tripping over each other?
- And why do we push households off gas while not having enough reliable electricity to backfill the move?
The Real Issue: No Strategy, Just Patches
The problem isn’t this specific intervention. It’s that Australia hasn’t had a coherent, long-term energy plan in years. Different governments, different policies, no shared strategy.
Until we line up domestic supply, exports, transition tech, and pricing under one national framework, we’ll keep paying too much for something we have in abundance.
That’s the real frustration – not the middleman idea, but the fact we still don’t have a unified playbook, and we are paying significant overs for something that is in abundance.
The mind boggles
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