It is good to see the amount of money gained per employee being referred to. This is the only way the average non-employer will be able to get an inkling of the costs and benefits of employing people: how much they bring in, less the cost of what they are paid. All workers are 'costs’ of doing business, just like raw materials. If you don't make more out of them than you spend on them, you don't make a profit, and you shut up shop. And, in Australia, the cost of labour is high. This 'living wage’ nonsense of the Left must be knocked in the head. All workers must produce a profit. That's why people working in the public sector are a dead weight, even though they are necessary. Big government is all loss.

This really is inane.

We are about to become the world's leading gas producer yet we are domestically paying some of the world's highest prices.

Sure "the US has a very active shale gas sector, producing masses of LNG." but it also had a ban on the export of natural gas in place until very recently which helped drive down prices and secure cheap energy for its businesses.

We need to greatly strengthen domestic reservations rather than have to squabble over chump change scrambling to frack our way across our farmland with projects only viable because of poor management of our sovereign resources.

Graham, why have you ignored the biggest source of the price difference?

The USA reserves a proportion of its gas for domestic consumption. Australia (or at least eastern Australia) does not, so domestic consumers pay international prices.

Of more interest, when looking to the future, is how can we avoid the need for so much gas. How much can kiln efficiency be increased? How much gas (and how much cost) can be saved by taking advantage of cheap electricity at times when the wholesale price is low (bearing in mind that these times are likely to get more frequent as more solar panels go up)? How competitive with bricks are stone blocks, and how much scope is there for reducing the price of those?

Note SR the lefty bureaucrat at work.

"Lets bring in some more restrictive regulations", to limit companies profits & freedom to operate in the share holders best interest.

What ever you do, let's keep the ratbag greens happy by restricting gas extraction. Don't under any circumstances let companies go for maximum production, & bring the price down, by supply & demand, as has fracking in the US.

While he's at it, he tries to use a red herring of export restrictions, when the cost reduction is supply, with restrictions removed.

One day some of these people will actually tell the truth, & many will pass out with the shock of it.

Dear Hasbeen,

Lol. You really don't have much of a grasp on this do you.

So the US always had an abundance of gas production even before the fracking boom delivering almost the same British Thermal Units (BTU's) as coal production. Coal has since declined significantly as fracked gas replaces it.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35532

But the US had restrictions in place that kept exports of natural gas to less than 5% of production meaning cheaper supplies for its industries. Even now that some of those restrictions have lifted it only represents 10% of production.

Here in good old Oz pretty well 2/3rds of our production heads overseas which is increasing all the time. As a result the Brisbane spot price for LNG raced past the Asian price for the first time last month. This is despite of the state accounting for 34% of the country's gas production well above the other Eastern seaboard states, yet your price is the highest. Why do you think that is so?
http://rogermontgomery.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-11-at-10.31.19-am.png

So when you infer what the US did was “limit companies profits & freedom to operate in the share holders best interest.” what you are saying is that they were wrong to to look after the country's interest before that of shareholders, many of them overseas investors.

Who are the stupid ones? The Yanks or us?

You really don't care one jot about struggling Australian businesses paying top dollar for a resource we have an over abundance of do you. You seem to have a pathological disregard for ordinary Australians over the interests of shareholders and it shows.

Hasbeen,
Whether or not you support copying the "lefty" policies of the USA, it's clear that those policies have brought them some significant advantages. Your claim hat export restrictions are a red herring is absolutely ludicrous. Without any export restrictions the domestic price will be determined by the international price NO MATTER HOW MUCH PRODUCTION IS INCREASED.

Whether the benefits of cheaper gas on the domestic market really outweigh those of getting the best price is a complex issue. But the arguments of both sides deserve to be heard not belittled.