Yabby,
I don’t have to have my way, it will happen eventually anyway but by taking early action it would eke out our rapidly depleting resources a bit longer and give us a bit more time to prepare.
By the way in Venezuela at least the population is getting some of the profits from oil, instead of all of it going to the people running the world, the oil corporations.

*By the way in Venezuela at least the population is getting some of the profits from oil*

Hang on Sarnian, since Chavez took office, he was fortunate enough
to have the price of oil go from 10$ to 100$. Despite this, we
have rising crime rates, electricity black outs, falling food
production, a massive drop of investment in new jobs, high inflation,
a 40% drop in oil production, just to name some.

Taxation is a very sensible way for Govt to source revenue from
resources. I remind you of the 40% oil resources tax which we
are paid, for any oil discovered in Australia.

So if you nationalise the industry, whose technology are you going
to use to find the oil which is still to be found? And whose capital
are you going to sink into dry holes, when 100 million $ can be
blown on a single deep hole? We frankly don't know how much
oil Australia has, as most of the continent has never seen a drill.

“We frankly don't know how much
oil Australia has, as most of the continent has never seen a drill.”
Yabby. You are suggesting that there is a lot of undiscovered oil in Australia.
OK these days the seismic survey and other methods used negate a lot of “dry hole drilling”. The oil corps has a very good idea of what is left to discover and they are not scrambling to drill “the rest of Australia”. Could that be because they know there is none to be found?
Oil discovery for the world peaked in the 1960s. I cannot believe that big oil has not been frantically searching for more with the price at new heights.
If the industry was nationalized, then the work force will not disappear in a puff of smoke but will be actively looking for more work. I would think that it would even be feasible for our government to hire a work force to continue production with suitable oversight.

global oil discovery peaked in the late 1960s, as shown in the following chart.
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/peak-oil-reference/peak-oil-data/oil-discovery/
Since the mid-1980s, the world has used more oil than it has found. The world now discovers 10 - 15 billion barrels of new oil a year, but consumes 31 billion barrels.

Hang on Sarnian, since Chavez took office, he was fortunate enough
to have the price of oil go from 10$ to 100$. Despite this, we
have rising crime rates, electricity black outs, falling food
production, a massive drop of investment in new jobs, high inflation,
a 40% drop in oil production, just to name some.

The fact that the US has targeted Venezuela because they nationalized their own oil industry and did not come to heel even though the US tried to pull one of their covert coups and reinstall a puppet government, could have something to do with that?

By the way crime rates have risen everywhere. Food production is also falling everywhere and you would hardly expect investment in the middle of the GFC?

In the 1980s hundred of drillings for oil where made at points in a grid right across both north and south Australia. A Victorian education department employee worked on that project and told me about it but when I tried to get info he clammed up about. Anybody on the list know any thing about it and the results. Another source said it was done at the request of Resource minister Rex O'connors.

*Oil discovery for the world peaked in the 1960s. I cannot believe that big oil has not been frantically searching for more with the price at new heights*

Well yes, for shallow oil, which nearly ran out of the ground and
could be pumped for a dollar a barrel. You forget that in the
late 90s, oil was only worth 10 bucks a barrel, hardly a reason to
rush out and drill for more.

The technology to drill for deeper oil offshore, ever deeper, is
quite complex and high risk. They are still finding new oil in
places like the Gulf, where they have been drilling forever, only
now deeper. Still pleny left to drill as the technology changes.
But as we saw with the BP well, its high cost, high technology and
if you get it wrong, the cost is enormous. You need a little more
then good employees to do that. You need the very latest state of
the art equipment and global specialists. As we've seen with the
Brazilian finds, its only when you actually take huge financial
risks, that you know if its there or not. So there is plenty yet
to drill.

Given that Govt can't organise pink batts, now you want them to
risk taxpayers funds on deep well drilling! Not too smart of
you, Sarnian.