Category: Business, Economics and Finance / Oil and Gas / Industry / Federal Government / Government and Politics

Labor turns up the heat over Turnbull's gas price comments

08:40 UTC+8 April 28, 2017 | Henry Belot

The Federal Government's bid to secure a reliable supply of domestic gas has led to a war or words, with Cabinet ministers accusing the Opposition of "misleading" and "mischievous" statements.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced export restrictions on gas that could force producers to boost supply before they can send gas offshore.

When announcing the measures, Mr Turnbull guaranteed the intervention would make gas prices cheaper — by up to half on some wholesale contracts.

"It will be cheaper than the prices that are being offered now," he told ABC Radio yesterday morning.

"People in Australia are being offered prices of $20 a gigajoule, it should be around half that."

Labor seized on the comments, claiming Mr Turnbull had promised to halve gas prices for Australians.

"If Mr Turnbull promised Australians that gas prices will halve, I want to hear that from the gas companies," Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said yesterday.

The Prime Minister later emphasised he was only talking about some wholesale gas prices, not household prices.

Mr Turnbull said today he had been misrepresented by Mr Shorten and again sought to clarify his comments.

"That is actually not what I said," he said.

The Prime Minister said he was referring to some manufacturers being offered long-term wholesale gas contracts at inflated prices.

"What I said was if the domestic market is adequately supplied — and that's what the export measures I have announced are going to do — then the price should be around half that or less," he said.

"The measures the Government has announced will put downward pressure on the wholesale price of gas and that is a portion of [people's] bills, but only part of it."

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Mr Shorten's comments were "mischievous in the extreme", or misleading.

"The Prime Minister never said that all gas users will see a halving of their gas price," Mr Frydenberg said.

"What he was pointing out was the fact that some energy users are being quoted for gas at $20 a gigajoule, which is double what you should be paying."

But Mr Frydenberg said the Federal Government could not provide absolute assurances about prices.

"We can't guarantee price in relation to any industry but what we can guarantee is this mechanism will put more gas into domestic market, won't have the predicted shortfalls as the AEMO has indicated," Mr Frydenberg said.



 

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