Phoney energy crisis merely a ploy to access off-limits gas

Illustration: Andrew Dyson 

Turns out manufacturing is alive and well in Australia. Only these days we're manufacturing crises. This week's exhibit is from the gas industry, which having witnessed the energy market regulator's grave warnings that we'd all be having cold showers in the dark in a couple of years, found itself summoned to the Prime Minister's table.

"It is not acceptable for Australia – shortly to become the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas – to not have enough gas for its own families and its own businesses," boomed Malcolm Turnbull ahead of the meeting. And he was right. What was far less clear was why this arrangement had been so perfectly acceptable for so long.

Read in today’s Melbourne Age what Waleed Aly has to say about Australia’s energy dilemma - “Phoney energy crisis merely a ploy to access off-limits gas.”