In the early 2010s, the federal Labor government made the fateful decision to allow liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Queensland without requiring gas companies to first supply Australians.
Gary Gray, the then-Federal Resources Minister in the Gillard/Rudd Labor governments, claimed that domestic gas reserve regulations cause uncertainty and discourage investment. This pitted the government against Australia’s struggling manufacturing sector, which hoped for cheaper gas.
“The Australian Government does not agree that domestic gas reservation would keep gas prices down or put more gas into the market”, Gray said in his opening address to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference in Brisbane on 27 May 2013.
