Reading the article I began to wonder ..

Is the current gas mess - with it's business and government inaction - an attempt to force the Australian community to accept fracking? Is this by coincidence or design?

DW, fracking is only used where the gas is trapped, so i would suggest no.

It's our gas, we grant the mining lease and the requisite export licence. Yes we signed a trade deal with china. Since then China has found huge new gas fields in shale, And just doesn't need as much gas as the contract calls for? And would likely be amenable to a renegotiated arrangement to end this ludicrous deal well ahead of a 30 year timeline?

Anyone who doesn't understand we get more positives by keeping and using our own energy stocks to improve our ability to dominate various markets and or trade deals! Needs to go back to at lest complete junior high school economics!

I don't know who advises us on these counterproductive trade deals, but they're likely foreigners with anything but the national interest as an agenda? Which then leads to an allied subject. CEO's, their rewards and entitlements.

Which needs to be very different, starting with recruiting and mentoring from within and different treatment of share issues as reward.

These should be more generous, but loaned not given, with just dividends in play, meaning a very different mindset and vastly superior, long term management paradigms. And far less overvalued and over leveraged assets, which in turn would result in far more sane decisions and practice!

And less Ponzi and get rich quick schemes with an ultimate huge downside! Like our current energy crisis/malaise? Which to date we have responded like the proverbial rabbit caught in glare of a marksman's spotlight!

That said, I applaud a PM, who has had the guts to give our regulator some serious say or veto, in who manages our most important financial institutions and should extend into every boardroom and corporation with over a million in management?

For far too long we have allowed foreign corporations/investors to exert far too much control over our economic destiny and at our ultimate disadvantage, which presents as a 30% premium at various checkouts, unaffordable housing/energy and our energy exported to maximize foreign corporations bottom lines, to our ultimate financial and economic detriment.

Business as usual needs to end/stop!
Alan B.

Alan, we have a TINY popuation with HUGE appities and the only way we can fund our EXPECTED lifestyles is to export. End of story.

Whether it be crops, cows, sheep or minerals, including gas, we have no option other than to sell to outside markets as we simply cant use enough ourselves to keep the wheels turning.

As for the 'its our gas' comment, well one posetive proposal is to share royalties with landowners like myself which may well be the answer.

You see so many people have this attitude of 'its ours', yet spare no thought for the fact that land owners get zero support from the public for the care of and expense involved in holding the land were the gas is held. If you want a share, either buy your own land, or buy shares in the mining companies because at least then you also share the risks.

While I agree that we need to secure adequate reasonably priced gas for Australian consumption, there are a few factors that Aussies are not reminded of.

1 When the gas fields of Aus were developed, the gas supply far exceeded the local gas consumption, and vast plants were built to liquefy and export the excess. The local gas requirements have increased far more rapidly than would normally have been predicted largely due to the shutting of coal fired power stations by state labor governments with no cognisance of the replacement gas requirements.

2 Victorian Labor has banned all new gas exploration, and other states have severely restricted CSG development that could have made up the difference.

3 At the time the long term gas supply contracts were made the price of gas was much lower, and whilst gas prices have risen locally and overseas, the contract price for these multiyear contracts is not very flexible, but not reflective of the spot prices overseas consumers would pay if they were to contract now which would be closer to the prices Aussies are paying now.