It was quite startling for many to find out that Australia, a country awash with gas, has its businesses and residents paying substantially more for its own gas than those same groups in Japan to where it is exported.

But one thing seems to have slipped past to the keeper, the fact we are making so little off those exports as a country.

In 2014 the other top four LNG producers made significantly more in government revenues from oil and gas exports than Australia which collected just 1.42% of production volumes. Qatar for instance made 4.8%, Malaysia 3.07%, Indonesia 3.34% and Nigeria 3.34%.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-22/australia-government-revenue-oil-and-gas-production/8043326

Just imagine what we could have done as a country with the extra 8 billion dollars in revenue we could have made that year if we had pegged our rate at even Malaysia's 3.07%.

For all those who got sucked in by Abbott's ranting about the mining tax and guys like billionaire Andrew Forrester in a workers t-shirt crying poor well the proof is in the pudding. You allowed big multinational companies to win the day and rip us off big time, to tie our gas up in long term contracts leaving our energy companies and businesses scrambling for over priced gas supplies, to spend millions of dollars buying both our politicians and our press, and finally to reap billions of dollars for overseas shareholders.

Hope you are satisfied.

Dear Steele,

But what are we to do about it now?

The following link might have some suggestions:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/ian-verrender-how-the-free-market-failed-australia/8368032

Dear Foxy,

«But what are we to do about it now?»

1. Buy candles!

2. Cut those eucalyptus forests that are going to uncontrollably burn anyway sooner or later and use that wood for heating and electricity generation!

3. Don't repeat this mistake ever again!

Dear Yuyutsu,

I've got a house full of candles.

But unfortunately I can't read by them.

And reading is one of the few pleasures I've got left.

Dear Foxy,

Yes, the quality of candles in Australia is quite poor, probably due to lack of demand, but that's going to change...
Meanwhile, try those multi-wick braided candles of better quality:
http://www.worldofjudaica.com.au/judaica/candles#!?sort=popularityDESC&page=0&f_item_type=825

Dear Foxy,

This is not only a failure of the market but a concerted attack on what should have been our sovereign wealth going to fund infrastructure, schools, hospitals and jobs but instead it ended up going to the pockets of large multinational shareholders. I would love to review just how much they shoveled into the pockets of not only the Coalition but people like Martin Ferguson.

They came, they bought our democracy, they got the repeal of the mining tax and all the while they were cheered on by the likes of the usual suspects on this forum.

It was shameful.

Come off the raw prawn Steely, if you lot had your way, we would have no gas. You try to stop exploration & drilling with some ratbag complaint when ever someone wants to look for it, or harvest it. Both Victoria & now NSW have banned fracking at your demand, but now you want gas, so someone should supply it cheap.

You are just as crazy when it comes to pipelines to move the stuff to where it's needed. There would be none for any power generation if you could prevent it.

Then this garbage of price! Do you have any idea of the cost of developing a gas facility? Of course not. When a company is going to spend hundreds of millions on developing an industry, it needs firm, long term contracts with customers. They have to price the stuff pretty sharply to get those contracts signed.

Once they have an economic facility, they can then market the excess production to the highest bidder.

What are you actually bitching about? That the gas is harvested, that the long term contracts are at low prices, that they make a good quid selling their extra gas, or that they expect some Johnny come lately buyer like the SA government to pay at parity with export prices?

Do you forget we paid parity price for our own Bass straight oil? Guess you lot approved of that as it cost motorists, not government.

Me thinks you are simply a green bitcher looking for a reason to bitch old chap.

Foxy,

If the need ever arises, use multiple candles and mirrors, it works at Versailles!!

Dear Hasbeen,

I really do get a pervasive sense that your ideology will never let you acknowledge what is right for this country.

And as a typical ideologue you ignore the facts when they are shoved in your face.

What you are essentially saying is that it is fine that Australians should not get the equivalent royalties as other countries because you support multinationals and overseas investors pocketing it instead.

You are saying that the US can quarantine its gas supplies from export to drive a competitive economy but Australia businesses have to miss out.

You are also saying that even though we are nearly the world's largest exporter of gas you want to put at risk valuable food producing areas, vital water supplies and the health of Australians to feed your ideology.

You want ordinary farmers to have to open their gates to industrial gas harvesting without the right to say no.

Why should we ever think you care about this country and its people. To you the market is supreme, the rest of us can either like it or lump it.

There are good portions of green ideology that I have issues with but they are nothing compared to your deeply twisted views.

You sir remain one of the most dangerous ideologues on this forum.

Dear Steele,

You are absolutely right on this one.

It is shameful - and we did allow it to happen.

That needs to change!

Warning, do not light that candle for the cave. There is far too much gas about from something green and festering.

BTW, wasn't it a Green who crossed a State border to light an illegal fire in the open as a political stunt?

If the PARLIAMENT, BOTH SIDES, have been incapable up to now of identifying the simple fact that Australia was not providing for its own needs then all of those jet-setting politicians should be kept home for a while to enjoy Australia and to reflect on who is the master, the public or the politicians.

They would all be spinning like weather cocks pointing every way but at themselves for this 'oversight', more lack of care.

It's a pity so much of the federal parliament's time has bee wasted on things gay etc., etc.

Dear Is Mise,

There are two ways of spreading light:
to be the candle
Or the mirror that reflects it.
(Edith Wharton).

I agree has been is dangerous along with a few others. Their way of thinking is impregnated that deep it makes for a danger to our whole way of life.
Howard was the boy of wisdom locking Japan into a massive 5 cents per litre for gas. What did he see in his mud ball to do such a thing.

GUYS! Guys! guys!

Nothing new.

It's been happening for a very long time.

Part of Australia's defence strategy, is that it's hardly worth invading the place, because you get the commodities for, next to nothing! :-)

Cash crop country.... now we sell our housing from our kids' backs.

Stop whining, and don't tell me you didn't know.

Got to give it to you Steely, your ratbag green plan is working.

Your anti coal plan already has South Australia in the dark, with Victoria soon top follow.

You'll finally have Oz the poor white trash of the Pacific.

Do you think some of the Pacific islands might give us a bit of foreign aid after you've finished with us?

Tell me, is doog your assigned echo, or does he make his fool comments off his own bat? His comments make Annastacia Palaszczuk sound smart.

Of course, any new exploration and exploita6tion of new gas fields should be accompanied by a requirement to set aside a minimum proportion of the gas for a domestic market, and at prices specified beforehand, as a function of total production costs, if that's possible to calculate.

And of course, as Premier Weatherall in SA is planning, there should be stand-by coal- and/or gas-powered generators. The Snowy expansion, pump-it-uphill scheme is probably a dud, although development of the Clarence River along the same lines as the current Snowy Scheme makes a lot of sense, IF the water is pumped up and over the GDR [that's 'Great Dividing Range', not 'German Democratic Republic', Steele; sorry].

Joe

The whole world is just a big pile of BS.
So they get the cheap gas shipped thousands of klms, we get expensive gas, blackouts and fire coming out of taps...
From the gas that came out of our backyard.
Seems pretty idiotic, or should I say par for the course these days.

Everywhere I look its just total stupidity and hypocrisy everywhere.
Take this for today's example.

It's sexist and definitely not PC to comment on women's legs
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39416554
But liberal and PC for women and gays to comment on a man's penis.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/is-that-alexander-skarsgards-real-dck-big-little-lies-viewers-left-stunned-after-explicit-sex-scene/news-story/de7d52521486eedec7a572eec933ec3d

I blame the left wasting money with all their idiotic programs deliberately trying to run the country into the ground, and the fools that support them.

They say democracy is great...
But one might say it's crap because neither side ever gets what they really want...
Pro's and Con's...

Here's an interesting link on how the big three robbed us
of our own gas:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-the-big-three-robbed-us-of-our-own-gas-20170315-guydtp.html

Foxy, Foxy Foxy, we have plenty of gas, close to where we need it, which could be harvested & supplied quite cheaply, If the rat bag greens had not pushed the Victoria & NSW governments into banning the harvesting of it.

Blame the right people, that's the greens & your own government. It has nothing to do with the people extracting it offshore, or our further out basins.

Incredible how people fall for these greenie straw men.

Dear Hasbeen,

Do we call it wilful ignorance or self inflicted idiocy.

Don't you read anything that might inform you past Andrew Bolt's column.

Here is another fact for you to ignore, Santos has been caught short on supplying its locked in export contracts so it has been buying up gas supplies earmarked for the local market, creating scarcity and raising prices

You want our farmers to be forced to put up with industialised gas production taking over productive land so your mates in the multinationals can get their hands on even more gas to export and buy themselves even bigger yachts this year?

How about for once you look out for ordinary Australians.

Shame.

I don,t want boiling rivers with methane gas escaping. There is a place for everything and suburbia is not one of them.

As you would expect, a red herring from Steely, to avoid admitting the problem is by green design. Then an obvious idiot statement from the school boy green.

The pillaging of our resources proves the lie of border security. The two major parties did not simply raise the boomgate on our commercial borders, they blew the kiosks to pieces. The multinationals moved in and helped themselves to our resources. They told us where they would mine, who they would employ and how much tax they would pay. We have been dragged down to nothing more than a resource colony. Every single independent report shows Australia got a fraction of the profits from their resources that a first world nation should expect. And that had absolutely nothing to do with the Left. All the comments from the Right prove that old adage; the more wrong the Right are, the more they move further Right.

If you think the Labor party are of the Left, you've got rocks in your head. You only have to look at their support for Adani to see extreme Right wing capitalism at work. Rex Connor must be turning in his grave. The foresight of his gas pipeline exposes the incompetence and corruption of today's politicians. He wanted to borrow cheap money to build a national gas pipeline. Today's lot want to throw money at tax haven entities with a track record of dodgy practices.

What gas shortage? The only "swindle" is in the fevered brains of the left whingers.

The gas companies can produce more than 2x Australia's demand, so they built an export facility, and signed contracts based on their production and the expected domestic consumption of gas. Probably what they hadn't factored in was Labor vandalism of the coal generation sector, and the sudden awakening to the need to replace it with gas generation after inflicting crippling blackouts on the populace.

However, the gas companies have pledged to meet the domestic requirements, and so far have not failed to do so.