11 December 2024

ALAN HAYES

 

THERE is no gas shortage – the Sydney media failed to make it bleedingly obvious that the spurious facts, contained in their ‘special reports’, were sponsored to you by major gas industry companies. A line up of greedy, fossil-fuel bandits’ who are more interested in exporting our resources for huge profits, whilst avoiding royalties and tax payments.

 

And who are these money-grubbing gangsters? - Santos, APA Group, Tamboran Resources and Jemena — all major gas companies. While Santos, APA and Tamboran are all publicly listed, Jemena is majority-owned by the Chinese state grid, with 40% also owned by Singaporean state-owned power company Singapore Power.

 

Last October the Grapevine reported on the gas debacle, a government-sanctioned invitation to rort’ – exposing how the ‘Future Gas Strategy’ allowed major gas corporations to extract our gas from the ground and not have to pay royalties or income tax.

 

As reported by us on 18 September 2024, Australia has an abundance of gas. In fact, Australia is one of the biggest exporters of gas in the world, alongside Qatar, who produces only 50 per cent more oil and gas than us. Yet they receive six times more government revenue from its oil and gas industry.

 

Putting aside the political rhetoric and government and gas industry excuses as to why we give our gas away for free, Qatar earns A$76-billion from gas while Aussies get scammed. Despite the Australian Government’s Future Gas Strategy, gas is “critical” to the nation’s economy, we continue to march downhill.

 

Yet the Government’s ‘Future Gas Strategy’, and their attempt to cap the price of gas and guarantee sufficient affordable gas reserves for domestic use, the gas industry continues to exploit a people’s-owned resource and not pay their share – no share at all.

 

And what did Energy Minister, Chris Bowen have to say? A spokeswoman said, “the government had secured an extra 600 petajoules for the eastern market and expanded the Australian Energy Market Operator’s to manage seasonal supply pressures.” Seasonal supply pressures resulting from the greed and avarice of an industry who has no shame and is out of control.

 

To add insult to the perceived lack of intelligence of consumers by the gas industry, they spin the ‘same-old-same-old’ – eager to tackle (according to them) the looming gas deficit. Any hope of success they say is that “politicians and regulation must end lengthy project approval delays.”

 

So, while the gas industry continues to shovel up mountains of ‘cow manure’ – crying unconvincingly, “we pay our fair share” – Aussies continue to get slammed.

 

Gas industry bellowing that any delay in project approvals will harm domestic supply is a furphy – in reality it is only a delay in their obscene profits, which are costing Australians in their hip pockets. A conundrum exacerbated by parity pricing to guarantee supply to domestic markets - the elephant in the room.

 

The issue with domestic supply is not the ‘fantasy’ shortage of natural gas, but more so the deluding of a nation into believing that gas supplies have dwindled to almost a point of no return. In reality, if consumers were prepared to acquiesce to the gas companies and pay the equivalent of international ‘Liquified Natural Gas’ (LNG) prices, it's likely that the gas companies would be fairly agnostic as to who they sell to. But why should Australians be held out to ransom for a resource that they own and the gas companies are exploiting for FREE.

 

Debunking the elephant in the room

 

Professor Jeremy Moss, who is a climate justice researcher at the University of New South Wales, was reported as saying that there was “no basis whatsoever to argue for increased investment in natural gas in Australia, and the reason for that is, as many people have pointed out, there is no gas shortage at all in Australia, because we export the vast majority of our gas overseas”.

 

Professor Moss was also critical of the paid for articles in the main stream media, implying essentially that consumers and government had to essentially suck-it-in and kowtow to an industry with somewhat questionable practices. “So, the argument that there’s a shortage, and because of the shortage, we need to invest in opening up more fields, is just completely wrong and mistaken as you might expect from a paid-for advertisement from the [gas] industry.”

 

“These arguments that are being run by the gas industry are just incredibly misleading and harmful to the debate about climate change, because they misrepresent the role of gas in Australia’s energy mix, and they misrepresent the need to open more gas fields,” Moss continued.

 

“We have an ample supply of gas to meet our needs, except those companies choose to sell it to other countries instead of making it available for domestic consumption.”

 

Yet while social licence for fossil fuels has slipped, gas seems to be clinging on longer than the rest.

 

You’ve probably heard things like “gas is a transition fuel”, “gas is a big employer” and “gas companies pay a lot of tax”.

 

It’s just simply untrue – they are gas industry excuses and political rhetoric as to why we give our gas away for free, making it unaffordable for our domestic market.

 

Even the Government is spreading these gas-friendly sentiments. Energy Minister, Chris Bowen has defended the “important role” of gas in the energy industry, including touting that in 2030, fossil gas will make up 18% of Australia’s energy mix. The Government has also committed $1.5 billion for the Middle Arm, so-called “sustainable development”, precinct in the Northern Territory, which will produce an emissions equivalent to twelve new coal-fired power stations.

 

A myth by any name

 

A transition fuel -  to be clear, gas is not a transition fuel, it is unequivocally a fossil fuel and burning it creates carbon dioxide. Extracting it also results in CO2 and methane being released from the ground.

 

While the argument 30 years ago that gas was a transition fuel, because it produced fewer emissions than coal, doesn’t hold sway today. The simple fact is that global warming is already at 1.1˚C, and we no longer have the luxury of making a leisurely transition, via fossil gas, to renewable energy.

 

So, kowtowing to the gas industry isn’t the answer. There is no room in the global carbon budget to approve new gas mines that won’t even start producing gas until a number of years after their approval.

 

Limiting global warming to 1.5˚C requires rapid decarbonisation, and the prevention of all new fossil fuel projects – including gas – in favour of truly zero-emissions energy.

 

Jobs, jobs and more jobs – so, to be crystal clear once again, gas does not create jobs; it’s nothing more than another ‘pearl of deceit’ to push the gas industry agenda. While much of the rhetoric around the necessity of the gas industry hinges on its importance for employment, in reality, gas doesn’t create very many jobs.

 

Because of the gas and oil industry’s propaganda machine, most Australians believe that they employ around 10.4 per cent of the Australian workforce – another furphy. The gas and oil extraction industry come in at a miserable 0.14 per cent of the 14 million people employed nation-wide – employing only 21,200 workers. Notwithstanding the fact that many of these jobs are for the construction of new projects, and do not create secure, ongoing employment opportunities.

 

Yet the gas industry lobby group, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), continues to cry that the industry is a major employer and, once again, like an old broken vinyl record with the needle stuck in the groove, continue to claim “we pay our fair share!” Deluded, they also point out that there is plenty of natural gas available in the domestic market, which has always been at odds with the government's consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

 

Money for the people, definitely not – as we have previously said, there is little or no money; royalty payments and taxes are not imposed on much of the gas industry. Yet, not surprisingly, again the majority of Australians believe that the oil and gas industry contributes at least 12 per cent to Australia’s GDP, when the actual figure is a meagre 2.5 per cent.

 

Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry’s political influence in Australia is far greater than its economic significance both federally and at state and territory level. Virtually no royalties are paid on Australia’s offshore gas projects.

 

Five of the gas industry’s most prominent companies have paid no income tax for at least the past seven years, despite a combined income from their Australian operations of $138 billion – most of the profit goes offshore to foreign-owned companies.

 

It’s clear that the rhetoric around gas in Australia is grounded in the interests of fossil fuels, not decarbonisation.

 

More spin than a child’s top

 

So, while we can expect to see reported in the metropolitan tabloids and on television news, more ‘cow manure’ propaganda, extolling the marvellous benefits of embracing a transition future from the gas industry, it is Aussies who are getting the ‘shaft’ while the gas industry gets the ‘mine’. A no ‘basis-in-fact’ spin that the government has condoned!

 

And what about the government?

 

Since the Labor Government won the election on a platform of climate and integrity, it has thrown its entire weight behind an enthusiastic PR campaign that certainly makes it look like we care deeply about tackling the impacts of climate change in our region and beyond.

 

What is missing, however, is the policy or substance behind the rhetoric. What the Government is less vocal about is that, in the year to June 2023, Australia’s emissions increased and, as reported in last Wednesday’s Grapevine, has ensured that Australia remains the world’s second biggest carbon exporter after the Putin regime!

 

Unsurprisingly, however, the Albanese Government doesn’t like to draw attention to the fact that since the 2022 election:

 

• It has approved four new coal projects.

 

• It has approved the drilling of 116 new coal seam gas wells.

 

• It has sat in court with coal companies and defended its right not to consider the climate impact of opening new fossil fuel projects.

 

• The Government has passed legislation at the request of gas companies specifically designed to expedite their expansion.

 

• The Government has stacked the agencies legislated to oversee and shape Australia’s climate policies — including the Net Zero Authority and the National Reconstruction Fund — with fossil fuel industry interests and surrounded them with a fortress-like bureaucracy, impervious to public scrutiny. It has left a former gas executive in charge of the Climate Change Authority.

 

Our governments know the difference between right and wrong but they’re lacking a moral compass; excused simply because they are building renewables; because they have a plan for electric vehicles; or because carbon offsets can justify a continual carbon future to greenwash fossil fuel expansion.

 

Unless government stops pandering to the fossil fuel industry, change for a better tomorrow is not inevitable – giving billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to mining and fossil fuel companies instead of spending it on the community is unconscionable behaviour. Is that how strong a grip the fossil fuel industry has on our government? Or is that just an indication of how weak our leaders are?

 

The metropolitan media, as we saw last week with the 'so-called truth' of descending into the Dark Ages, without further gas fields being approved, breathes life into the deliberate, circular hysteria over nuclear power, which suits both major parties. In reality, the contrived conflict over nuclear solves a number of political problems but no real problems.

 

The Coalition use their unity over nuclear energy to create chaos, conceal their internal disagreements over renewable energy, and protect their friends in the industry.

 

The Labor Government uses the highly visible and performative conflict over nuclear energy to inflate their climate ambition and distract voters from the strength of bipartisan support for subsidised fossil fuel expansion, keeping the gas industry's foot firmly inside the door.

 

But not one move on the fossil fuel chess board takes us any further to Net Zero by 2050 or a fossil-fuel-free sustainable future. It only unwittingly, manoeuvres Australians further into that carbon game of chess, where biodiversity will not be a winner – but instead become an unforgivable act of intergenerational negligence.

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