We live in times where politicians frequently lie or at best espouse part truths about most topics they publicly discuss or provide as answers in response to many questions. Appointed leaders at the UN wielding enormous power, such as Antonio Guterres, have no hesitation spreading untruths. Evidence is never provided in support of their claims. Instead, the presenter expects audience emotions to override the requirement to present proof. Evidence-based, rational decision making has been trumped by an emotional irrationality.

The media generally does not question or seek validation to answers provided by politicians or senior bureaucrats, with the effect that these people simply get away with spreading misinformation. This strategy of disseminating false information without accountability emboldens them. I don’t remember this being such a big issue in the past.

It would appear that today, however, we should place major emphasis with our decisions based on emotion rather than evidence-based fact. Individuals and organisations are all freely provided with wide-reaching media and internet platforms on which to present lies with impunity. Validation and correction is not required. Social media platforms readily facilitate the spread of lies.

Most of the mainstream media appears incapable or unwilling to conduct basic research that would expose, correct or prevent the spread of lies. But it seems the bulk of the media is only interested in sensational news that will sell print andf garner clicks, rather than presenting evidence-based factual reporting, which I guess is considered less than scintillating.

It takes time and money to conduct evidence-based research, so the media often avoids doing that, preferring to leave research to institutions, private individuals or NGOs. If the results of this research do not support the emotion-backed “view of the day” then it is cancelled and rarely, if ever, published. Reporting by our ABC and the SBS (both taxpayer-funded) on most topical current affairs and political issues is almost exclusively one-sided and presents as propaganda rather than balanced reporting.

Have you ever viewed or read on the ABC or SBS news sites any civil debate or material that included opposition to human causation for climate change or, for that matter, evidence-based opposition to the Voice, balanced reporting on George Pell, Andrew Laming, Christian Porter or Bruce Lehrman? The answer will  be a firm ‘no’. The current narrative about eastern Australia’s high natural gas prices and the gas-supply shortage is more of the same.

Over the past year, on far too many occasions, you would have heard federal ministers, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers, Chris Bowen, Madeline King and Ed Husic sheet home blame for the current east coast shortage, high gas bills and electricity prices solely on the “war in Ukraine”? This claim has equal validity with Anthony Albanese’s pre-election promise that our household electricity bill would be reduced by $275. The claims are not factual as a simple chronology illustrates.

Russian invaded Ukraine on the February 22, 2022. East coast gas prices began their increases in late 2020, well before the Russian set out to take Kyiv. The invasion of Ukraine did not cause the 2022 short term gas price spike experienced in the winter months. That was caused by local factors which will be examined in detail later. The winter of 2022 spike lasted only five months (May-September) before prices dropped back to near previous levels. The war in Ukraine continues.

The federal government attempted to fill the east coast gas supply shortage by retrospectively introducing new laws that forced east coast LNG (liquified natural gas – methane) exporters to sell uncontracted gas in Australia rather than into the international LNG market.

In an attempt to moderate gas prices the federal government for a second time intervened in the markets and retrospectively enacted new laws that placed a price cap of $12/Gj for domestic gas sales. The price cap mainly applies to gas sold by producers to commercial and industrial users in Australia, such as manufacturers, gas-fired power plants, and energy companies. It only applies to contracts entered into or varied after December 23, 2023 and does not effect international gas sale contracts.

The increase in east coast gas price is solely caused by a domestic gas supply shortage.

This from the ACCC: “The domestic gas contract prices offered to commercial and industrial users for supply in 2022 increased from $6-$8/GJ in late 2020 to about $7-$9.50 by mid-2021, and the supply outlook from 2022 onwards looks increasingly tight, the ACCC’s latest gas report reveals.”

The gas supply shortage is partly a result of domestic gas users being unwilling to enter long term contracts at appropriate prices to underwrite the required investment. Only international gas buyers were willing to make such commitment that facilitated the development of the coal seam gas industry in Queensland.

This from the 2022 AER Gas Markets in Eastern Australia:

“Since the last State of the Energy Market Report, east coast gas markets have entered a period of sustained high prices and tight supply. Over late 2021, and particularly since April 2022, gas prices in east coast gas markets have rose to and persisted at record highs.

Southern gas production is continuing to deplete reserves, increasing the risks of shortfalls, and the Iona storage facility dropped dangerously close to minimum reserves for its normal operation this winter.

Overlapping factors in the National Electricity Market from early May – including numerous coal baseload outages and peak gas generation units running for prolonged periods to fill the supply gap – have driven an unanticipated increase in gas demand from this sector despite the gas price increases. This interaction with electricity markets is putting further upwards pressure on gas prices at the same time as local gas markets are being used to cover short-term spot exposure over the higher demand winter period.

With higher gas market demand typical across winter, and the continuing requirement for additional gas generation to make up for supply constraints in baseload coal, gas and electricity prices are not expected to decrease until conditions ease in both local and international markets.

In combination, these market shocks have resulted in extraordinary interventions, including:

• the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) activating the Gas Supply Guarantee twice, including its first ever usage
• AEMO directing two Victorian gas-powered generators not to generate
• suspension of a market participant
• extended periods with different gas hubs in administered pricing states”

On any rational analysis, blame for east coast gas supply shortage can almost solely be sheeted at past and present State Governments in NSW, Victoria, SA and Queensland, who for more than a decade have, either banned petroleum exploration or severely limited access to new areas through regulation and an unwillingness to expedite approvals. The Labor, Liberal/National and “green” parties in those States all share that blame.

Past Federal Labor and Liberal-National Coalition Governments, in turn, failed to develop a national energy policy and which we still don’t have. The failure to develop a national energy policy in co-operation with the States and Territories who individually developed their own energy plans has exposed this failure to plan.

Absent a co-ordinated energy plan, each of the Federal and State Governments decided to subsidise the introduction of renewable energy into the supply mix. The net result of this negligence has been a shortage of reliable, low cost base load electricity, increasing electricity prices, supply outages, a requirement to build a new electricity distribution grid, natural gas supply shortages and natural gas price increases.

NSW and Victoria banned onshore petroleum exploration almost a decade ago. Both these States now claim that they are open for business but neither of those States has made available any new onshore exploration areas.

The Queensland and South Australian Governments, on the other hand, have restricted and greatly limited the supply of new areas available for exploration by way of their State controlled “licence gazettal” process.

Expenditure on petroleum exploration in Australia has declined significantly since 2014 (Figure 10) and most of this expenditure reduction has been caused by the demonisation of fossil fuel use, combined with Federal and State Government’s unwillingness to support petroleum exploration and in preference promote heavily subsidised renewable energy projects.

A false narrative developed by the UN/IPCC with claims of human causation of climate change was quickly adopted by the Federal and State Governments who introduced new laws and policies condemning fossil fuels and as a direct consequence severely limited opportunities for onshore petroleum exploration.

The finance sector withdrew funding for fossil fuel projects and business groups abandoned support for the fossil fuel industries preferring to implement crazy, expensive, evidence-lacking and meaningless ESG goals. In addition, the large petroleum exploration and production companies chose to sit on the fence, limit their level of high risk investment in this industry and failed to present any defence of their industry against what are false claims.

Federal and State Governments heavily subsidise the development of wind, solar, pumped hydro, hydrogen and wave  power generation projects without any planning for transition from reliable, fossil fuel, base load supply into what is dominantly an intermittent electricity supply. Gas and electricity prices have risen significantly as a consequence.

There is of course a place for renewables in our energy mix just as there is for electric vehicles (EV). It would be sensible for renewable generation projects and EVs to find their own place in the market, without subsidy, without prematurely shutting down cheap, reliable, fossil fuel base load supply and with an orderly transition.

Subsidies always attract rent seekers and those seeking to benefit from a new source of income. These groups provide aligned services to those areas of business receiving Government subsidy and they have “bred like flies”.

Historical gas prices at the east coast key gas trading hubs (WGSH, Victoria, Sydney and Adelaide) increased in July 2022, to more than five times the average 2021 price (Figure 2).

So why this dramatic increase in gas spot prices in the winter of 2022?

As the east coast National Electricity Market (NEM) moved into winter mode for 2022, coal-fired power generation (CPG) capacity outages reached a high of around 3.6 GW in late April and then in the second week of June peaked at 4.6 GW, in a system which has a capacity of 53 GW. Electricity prices ramped up in all the NEM states for April to July, particularly in NSW and Queensland. Natural gas fired generation was required to fill the supply gap and gas prices increased due to limited domestic supply.

There you go – the gas supply shortage was not caused by the war in Ukraine!!!!

Federal and State Governments, along with vested interest groups, developed a narrative that the Australian export LNG projects were robbing gas from domestic supply. This is not correct and the facts surrounding those false claims require explanation.

West Coast offshore (WA and NT) and Queensland onshore export LNG projects were commercially developed only because there was an existing, large, LNG export market in Asia, where prices paid were higher than domestically and international customers were also willing to enter into long term contracts and provide investment funding. There was no equivalent large market in Australia nor such high gas sale price.

Queensland, in particular for coal seam gas, required higher prices to be economic in development and local consumers were unwilling to contract on those terms.

Large annual gas production volumes and higher prices are necessary to underpin the huge capital investment required to drill and complete gas production wells, construct associated production infrastructure and to pay for construction and commissioning of the export LNG facilities. Well over $65 billion has been spent developing the Queensland LNG projects. The underlying gas reserves would have remained undiscovered were it not for the incentive of selling into overseas markets as LNG.

If those same gas projects had decided to wait and sell gas into the Australian market, they would still be waiting. The huge gas reserves associated with these LNG projects could not be sold in Australia because the existing market is too small. There was no financial basis to invest in large gas field development on that scenario. In any event, the relatively small domestic east coast gas markets (~2 TCF/year) were being adequately supplied by gas fields located offshore Victoria (Gippsland, Bass and Otway Basins), onshore South Australia and Queensland.

Queensland coal seam gas was being incrementally developed but the production costs for this gas was so high that domestic consumers would not contract that gas. The narrative at that time was that coal seam gas should have been cheap and customers held back (even waiting for Government interventions).

East Coast Gas Infrastructure

Petroleum Exploration and Land Availability

Australian is a Constitutional Monarchy with petroleum and mineral resources owned by The Crown – this in effect means, owned by each and every Australian citizen. Under the Australian Constitution 1901 (as amended) legislative power is vested in our Federal Parliament.

Before Federation, the States were British colonies. Each had been given the power to make laws for that colony by the British Parliament. When Australia became a nation on 1st, January 1901, the colonies, now States, transferred some of their law-making powers to the new Australian Parliament.

Sometimes both the Australian Parliament and the States have the power to make laws about the same issue. Section 109 of the Constitution states that a Federal law may override a State law if there is a conflict between the two. Using section 122 of the Constitution, the Australian Parliament may override a territory law at any time.

Under the Australian Constitution, petroleum exploration and production for all onshore areas, including State controlled waters (3 nautical mile limit), are governed by each of the States and Territories.

The State Governments and Territories issue licences, to qualifying companies and individuals, to explore for and develop the petroleum (mainly oil and natural gas) and minerals. Statutory fees and production Royalty payments are paid to the States and Territories so that the citizens receive their share of the production and sale of the resource.

Existing, onshore, producing gas fields in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland are being depleted. These gas fields have either reached or are rapidly approaching the end of their commercially productive lives.

Some of the depleted gas fields have been converted into gas storage to assist meeting winter peak deliverability demands, but absent new gas discoveries and sustained gas supply, these storage fields will not have access to sufficient gas to fill them for delivery in winter peak consumption periods (eg. Iona).

Previously discovered, large offshore gas fields in the Gippsland, Bass and Otway Basins are near the end of their productive life. A few new gas discoveries have been made in the offshore Otway Basin. These newly discovered gas fields will provide a limited gas supply for some years to come, but they too will deplete.

Reservoir pressure and gas deliverability decline as gas fields are produced. Reservoir pressure eventually a level where it is no longer capable of sustaining commercial gas flow rates. These gas fields require the addition of gas compression to maintain commercial production rates and sustain essential transmission pipeline pressure at operating requirements. Installation of gas compression adds to the cost of gas production and which must flow through to the gas price paid. The cost to produce gas from any gas field increases with time as the gas production rates decline.

Eventually the gas reservoir pressure reaches a level of depletion where even the small amount of gas remaining cannot be commercially produced. In the absence of new gas field discoveries being made the aggregate gas supply volume reduces and prices inevitably increase, particularly in order to cover the continuing high fixed costs.

The petroleum explorer assumes all the exploration risk including funding, which is significant. Despite all the technical advances made in recent years and our deep understanding of the science behind petroleum accumulations, failure is the norm. The large, easy to discover petroleum accumulations are generally found first and smaller and higher risk accumulations found late in the history of exploration, within any sedimentary basin. Finding oil and gas is a high risk, high cost enterprise.

Exploration companies are legally forced to manoeuvre their way through endless Government regulatory processes, community consultations, NGO interventions, media campaigns, native title and other traditional owner consultations. Not all requirements attached to the mandatory approval process are reasonable. They are often unnecessary, incur unreasonable delays and significant additional cost. New legislative requirements are added every year but none are ever removed.

Productivity in Australia would significantly increase if there was a review and rationalisation of the ever increasing requirements to meet legislated red and green tape in order to achieve Government project approvals – at all three levels of Government.

Exploration company shareholders (taxpayers, retirees) end up paying for these unnecessary costs. That cost is only recovered by the exploration company if a commercial accumulation of oil or gas is discovered and the original investment paid back from oil and gas sale. The consumer pays for the successful projects through the commodity price but the shareholders/investors are left bearing the full cost of all failed projects.

NSW

Petroleum exploration in NSW was effectively halted in 2011 when a NSW Legislative Council committee (General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5) conducted a review of activities under the Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991. The NSW Liberal Government under Premier Barry Farrell in 2014 then formally halted the use of fracking in NSW in response to that report and public protests conducted by the Greens, green aligned NGOs and some community groups.

The O’Farrell Government commissioned a review of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) activities in the State which the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer released as a Final Report on 30^th September, 2014.  The Final Report presented the Chief’s Scientist’s findings, including a conclusion that the risks of CSG development can be effectively managed and made 16 recommendations to the Government. The NSW Government accepted all of the Chief Scientist’s recommendations which were adopted in the Gas Plan. 

As part of the roll out of the Gas Plan, the Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Act 2014 (Gas Plan Act) commenced and draft State Environmental Planning Policy Amendment (Gas Exploration and Mining) 2014 (Draft SEPP Amendment) was released for public comment and then adopted.

The key regulatory changes incorporated in the NSW Gas Plan were:

• All existing petroleum exploration licence applications and applications for petroleum special prospecting authorities will be expunged and lodgement fees will be refunded to applicants.
• The NSW Government will offer a one off buy-back for the surrender of exploration licences.
• Future CSG development will be limited to about 15% of the State (including a prohibition of such development in National Parks).
• CSG proponents will no longer be responsible for identifying gas exploration opportunities and will need to tender for exploration opportunities identified by the NSW Government through the introduction of the Strategic Release Framework (Framework) on 1 July 2015. Where any area covered by an expunged application is identified by the NSW Government for CSG development under the Framework, the Minister must first invite the applicant for the expunged application to make a fresh application.
• Titleholders who do not efficiently and actively explore for or produce gas may lose their titles under the new “use it or lose it” policy.

These amendments required CSG exploration activities to be assessed and determined by the Minister for Resources and Energy (Minister) under Part 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) (EPA Act). As a consequence, CSG explorers do not have merit appeal rights in relation to the Minister’s decision to refuse an activity or impose onerous conditions.

In July, 2021 Minister Barilaro was quoted as saying:

“….. the NSW government would not be releasing new areas for gas exploration in NSW, including areas in the far west of NSW, near Wilcannia and Broken Hill.

To provide absolute certainty, the NSW government will amend the Mining State Environmental Planning Policy to reflect these changes, Mr Barilaro said.

When we came to office in 2011, petroleum exploration titles or applications covered 45 per cent of NSW – under our Future of Gas Statement, that figure has been reduced to just 1.5 per cent of the state.”

Barilaro bragged that “The NSW government will kill off the majority of expired petroleum exploration licences across the state but will leave crucial farming land in the Liverpool Plains open for exploration under its long-awaited gas plan.

The Future of Gas Statement, signed off by Cabinet on Monday, outlines plans for the gas industry in NSW as well as ruling out gas production under most petroleum exploration licences, or so-called zombie PELs.

The exception will be licences supporting Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project. The area of land available for gas exploration will be reduced by 77 per cent across the state under the plan.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Resources John Barilaro said gas had a key role in supporting access to affordable energy and business growth in NSW.”

So here you have a Liberal Government Minister bragging about the fact that his Government has almost completely extinguished petroleum exploration in NSW at a time when the NSW has no gas production, dwindling interstate gas supply and soaring prices.

The NSW Liberal Government cancelled all the existing petroleum exploration licences, except for the Santos controlled coals seam gas licences in the Narrabri region. The NSW Government retrospectively imposed these licence cancellations and all at a time when Barilaro stated “gas has a key role to play”.

The NSW Government referred to the cancelled licences as “zombie licences” claiming that they had all passed their expiry date or had not met their financial commitments. In fact, the NSW Government had applied a compulsory moratorium on exploration, in 2011. Exploration licence titleholders were prevented by the NSW Government from fulfilling their financial commitments by conducting exploration activities. Far from being zombie licences the companies holding those petroleum titles were legally prevented by the NSW Government from fulfilling work commitments!!! Talk about a Catch 22!!!

I am uncertain why there was such a lack of common sense or logic in the actions taken by Barilaro and Liberal Government. Compulsory exploration licence cancellations were enforced despite millions of dollars having already been spent in preceding years on high risk exploration. Talk about Sovereign Risk!! Maybe that was why Barilaro was generously offered the position of NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner to the Americas. A reward??

Also hindering the release of new areas available for petroleum exploration is the ever increasing levels of green and red tape imposed by the NSW Government and by all other States and Territories in this country.

Application for development approval of the Narrabri Gas Project was first submitted in 2014 with conditional approval not granted until September, 2020 – a 6 year process!!! In the meantime NSW has no domestic gas supply and is totally dependent on gas imports from South Australia, Queensland and Victoria, a rapidly dwindling gas resource.

Witness the endless interventions that have caused extensive delays for Santos in gaining development approval for the Narrabri Gas Field in north-western NSW. A recent unsuccessful court application further delayed the start of the project by twelve months.

Victoria

 In Victoria, an administrative moratorium was placed on all onshore gas exploration and development in 2012. This was done in response to community concerns and meant a temporary hold on onshore gas exploration permits and retention leases plus a suspension on approving any new applications while the moratorium was in place.

In 2017, the Victorian Government passed the Resources Legislation Amendment (Fracking Ban) Act 2017. Under this legislation, fracking and coal seam gas extraction were permanently banned and the existing administrative moratorium on onshore conventional gas was replaced with a legislative moratorium that halted all exploration and development activities in Victoria until 30^th June, 2020.

The Petroleum Legislation Amendment Act 2020 was passed by the Victorian Parliament in June, 2020 and which allowed for the restart of onshore conventional gas exploration and production. In July, 2021, the Onshore Conventional Gas sector restarted. In November 2021, the Petroleum Regulations 2021 were remade after extensive industry and community engagement, enabling operators to progress their regulatory approvals.

To date, no new onshore petroleum exploration areas have been made available for application by the Victorian Government. Victoria is clearly not open for business.

South Australia

South Australia is governed by a dual application process.

Application areas are available for a Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL), Geothermal Exploration Licence (GEL) or Gas Storage Exploration Licence (GSEL) where no licence currently exists for the relevant regulated resource.

An application for an Exploration Licence can be lodged at any time over any area of the State, which is not in a Competitive Tender Region. Applications for Competitive Tender Regions require the Minister to call for tenders nominating a specific closing date. A six-month lead-time usually applies.

As of 10^th November 2022, there are five Competitive Tender Regions within South Australia; the Arckaringa, Arrowie, Cooper, Otway and Polda Basins. These Competitive Tender Regions apply to all three categories of exploration licences under the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000; petroleum, geothermal and gas storage.

Nominations for acreage release areas in South Australian Competitive Tender Regions are required for new acreage releases in those selective sedimentary basins. Nominations may be made by either explorers or service companies. There are no limits to the number of nominations a company can submit, however non-contiguous areas require separate nominations.

The Minister for Energy and Mining will consider and must endorse release areas before they can progress to an acreage release and bidding round.

The SA Government determined that the best areas for petroleum exploration in South Australia fall within the Competitive Tender Regions. The most recent gazettal activity in South Australia within these nominated basins was in 2019 (Cooper and Otway Basins only).

Prior to that, the most recent gazettal in the other nominated basins is as follows: Arckaringa Basin – 1989; Arrowie Basin – 1993; Eromanga Basin – 1997; Officer Basin – 1994; Pedirka Basin – 1995; Simpson Basin – 1992 and the Stansbury Basin – 1986.

With no new areas gazetted for application, the existing exploration/production licences quickly reach the end of their term, are relinquished and returned to the list of vacant areas.

Surely a better system would be for vacant areas to be available for across the counter application. If an application is received then that area can be advertised for competitive bid. The gazettal process has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of licences actively being explored. No wonder the onshore gas reserve inventory is rapidly diminishing.

Queensland

Access for new areas in which to explore for petroleum in Queensland is managed by periodic competitive tendering process. The most recent gazettal was held in 2021 where the five areas released targeted coal seam gas with only two areas for conventional and unconventional gas and one area for oil. In addition, four areas were released for carbon dioxide sequestration.

Prior to the 2021 acreage release there was a release in 2020 and prior to that in 2018. In 2020 there were 12 areas put up and of those, seven of the areas targeted coal seam gas, two areas coal seam and unconventional gas, one area for coal seam and conventional gas and two areas for unconventional gas.

The Government decided to pick winners and select coal seam gas and unconventional gas areas for release rather than making available areas for conventional gas targets.

On several occasions since 2020 my Company and associated companies have nominated conventional petroleum areas for release by gazettal. The aim of that request was to provide our companies with the chance to competitively bid for those assets and if successful explore for natural gas. All the requests we made were ignored by the Queensland Government – not even a response as to why those nominated areas were not gazetted.

As a direct result of being repeatedly ignored by the Queensland Government for gazettal of our nominated areas we were forced to attempt farmin negotiations with existing licence titleholders.

In 2022 we successfully concluded negotiations on farmout terms with a Queensland petroleum exploration company holding current exploration titles. As a necessary part of that process we had direct business negotiations with the Queensland Government. The Government failed to approve our farmin transactions. It appears that the Government chose to preferentially cancel existing petroleum licences and prevent new gas exploration activities rather than promote exploration.

Preventing gas exploration by refusing to extend exploration licence terms, as provided for under licence terms, and  denying the introduction of new exploration funding partners by refusing title transfer at a time of gas supply shortage is plain stupid. I am aware of several other petroleum titles in Queensland where similar treatment has been applied.

Queensland Government failure to approve our requests has led me to the evidence based conclusion that Queensland is only open for selected petroleum exploration activities, mainly coal seam gas and unconventional exploration. My Company is now applying for petroleum titles in foreign jurisdictions where petroleum exploration and development is welcomed.

The Queensland Government makes claims that they are open for petroleum exploration but in in practise they refuse complying requests that would allow exploration activities to proceed. Areas covered by the cancelled exploration titles become vacant acreage and will wait for decades, if ever, before they will be gazetted for new application. In effect, they are sterilised!!

 

 

Conclusion

The demonisation of fossil fuels by State Governments (without scientific reason) as a reliable and cheap energy source and decision to withdraw prospective areas available for petroleum exploration has caused an east coast gas supply shortage and a large increase in gas prices.

State Government decisions to replace fossil fuels with heavily subsidised wind and solar derived energy sources absent any Government transition plan has also contributed to a gas supply shortage, high gas prices, removal of guaranteed base load electricity, grid imbalance and greatly increased electricity prices.

State and Federal Governments have demonised fossil fuel electricity generation and force closure of coal fired power stations. At the same time, these same Governments force some industrial gas consumers to load shed during times of electricity shortage. Government has created a situation where the consumer pays exorbitant and ever increasing electricity and gas prices without receiving any long term supply or price guarantee.

How can Australian businesses and our population survive this contrived onslaught solely being waged by Government? How is Australian productivity ever going to provided with an opportunity to increase?

Government sourced household energy subsidies to assist low income earners suffering enormous energy price increases have been required solely as the result of poor Government policy. Federal Labor Government is still picking winners and throwing money away by providing huge subsidies and direct investment in unnecessary and likely uncommercial projects such as solar and wind power for base load supply, new network infrastructure, hydrogen and EVs whilst demonising our cheap and reliable fossil fuel sources of energy. Fossil fuels are not altering Earth’s climate!

Dennis Morton is a sedimentary geologist with First Class Honours from Macquarie University and who has worked in the petroleum industry for 47 years. Sedimentary geologists generally possess detailed knowledge of climate and climate change because the physical effects of climate change are recorded in sedimentary rocks