I have been amazed at the dramatic rise in these fact checking...

I have been amazed at the dramatic rise in these fact checking sites. I was very pleased when the ABC started one because I believed that it might actually start to check some of wild statements made by Aunite's journals.

Alas I was dismayed to find that it apparently only wants to check the statements of others. And the ABC fact checking group seems to suffer from the same problems as the other sites, like politifact, and that is a significant lack in people with adequate knowledge.

NSW produces less than 5% of its own gas consumption and relies on sponging off gas supplies from other states, QLD, Vic and SA. Because of the current shortage of conventional gas on the east coast, all of these states are now relying on CSG out of QLD. The QLD CSG has allowed all of the available conventional gas in central Australia to be used in Adelaide with some still being supplied into NSW.

But even now, NSW is a significant consumer of QLD CSG and nobody is discovering lots of new conventional reserves in central Australia. Bass Strait in Victoria can't supply all of NSW requirements. So no matter how you cut it NSW is going to require CSG from NSW or QLD or shale gas from central Australia (QLD and SA) to meet its future needs.

NSW has no way of controlling whether that gas will be available, or more importantly, the price of the gas. So NSW is at the mercy of other state economies.

You will always be able to buy gas, but the price may be unacceptable. If the QLD LNG plants are short of gas there is no way that those companies or the QLD Government will easily allow for gas to be diverted to NSW. And everyone knows that the LNG Plants are currently short of gas.

So while people might be able to glibly say that NSW won't run out of gas, the reality is that unless NSW gets access to gas reserves it can control, it will not have access to gas at the price required to ensure that it's economy continues to function.

This will have a disastrous impact on the manufacturing industry in NSW.

So politifact is just being cute and not providing any useful information.

It is truly unhelpful when those with only the faintest understanding of an industry start to pontificat about information from those who know an awful lot more. And Ian Macfarlane has a lot more knowledge and experience of the east coast gas industry than someone politifact has just dredged up.