Price pressures push Coalition into gas backflip [IMG] The...

Price pressures push Coalition into gas backflip


The Victorian Coalition voted only last month to support the fracking ban bill.

• The Australian
• 12:00AM March 7, 2017
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• PIA AKERMAN
  
  Reporter
  Melbourne
  @pia_akerman
  

The Victorian Coalition has backflipped on its support for a moratorium on onshore conventional gas exploration, seeking instead to get the energy industry “moving” in the face of rising gas prices and intense pressure from its federal counterparts.
Senior Coalition sources have confirmed it will bring an amendment before the state parliament’s upper house today to remove the moratorium, proposed to run until 2020, from the Andrews government’s fracking ban bill.
The amendment will seek to allow a domestic gas reservation policy for conventional gas developed through traditional means, giving local industry and households first option on the resource.
It will also seek to assuage farmers’ concerns by giving them rights of veto for any conventional drilling on their property. The sources said the amendment, if passed, would help get the gas industry “moving” before 2020.
“By not having it ingrained in a legislative moratorium, it means industry can start moving now,” one said. “What this effectively does is create the opportunity for the industry to talk to the farming community and to ensure that the environmental elements are protected in all of this.”
Malcolm Turnbull and federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg have repeatedly slammed the moratorium over the past month, accusing the Andrews government of “locking up” gas supplies on an ideological basis.
The Prime Minister yesterday said Victoria had “great” onshore gas resources which were critically important for industry.
“The challenge here is how do businesses use gas if it has gone up to ... it has more than doubled in price over the last few years,” he said. “The Labor Party is not only introducing or seeking to introduce large amounts of renewables into the grid, creating instability and doing so in a way that is unplanned, but they are also opposing … creating more availability for gas.”
The moratorium on onshore gas exploration and development was originally set in place by the Napthine government, with current Opposition Leader Matthew Guy supporting an extension until 2020. The Coalition voted to support the fracking ban bill, including the moratorium, less than four weeks ago and the proposed legislation has been supported by the Victorian Farmers Federation, despite increasingly opposition from some farmers facing enormous increases in energy costs.
Australian Dairy Farmers chief executive John McQueen has described the ban on conventional gas as illogical.
The government’s bill — which will permanently ban all onshore unconventional gas exploration and development as well as enshrining the moratorium on onshore conventional gas exploration until 2020 — still appears to hold enough support to pass unamended.
The government has defended the moratorium by announcing a new geoscience investigation into onshore conventional and offshore gas, led by the state’s Chief Scientist and primarily focused on the Otway Basin in southwest Victoria.

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