Senator Rex Patrick slams the gas industry as a 'cartel' contributing to the energy crisis

The independent South Australian senator, who lost his re-election bid, spoke to The Canberra Times' political analyst Mark Kenny on Democracy Sausage, an Australian National University podcast released on Tuesday night. He said Australia's current energy issues can be largely blamed on commercial enterprise.

"Australia makes more gas than you can poke a stick at ... the problem we actually have is that most of that gas is exported," he said.

Senator Patrick, who was an adviser to former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon before entering the Senate in 2017, said he was involved in negotiating for an Australian domestic gas security mechanism in 2007 with Liberal minister Mathias Cormann's team.

The mechanism gave the government a "trigger" to stop the export of gas overseas if the domestic market faced supply issues.

"Except what [the gas companies] did between 2017 and 2019, they kept the supply really tight, and what that meant was the price was still high. So this is a cartel that were working to make sure they could extract as much price for the gas that they possibly [could]," Senator Patrick said.

READ MORE:

He argued the east coast should adopt a similar policy response to Western Australia, which allowed gas companies to export their product but required them to return 15 per cent to the domestic market.

When questioned by Mr Kenny on the latest comments from Labor's Resources Minister Madeleine King, who said Western Australia negotiated as the industry itself was created and refitting the gas energy sector for the east would be difficult, Senator Patrick declared he "reject[ed] that argument".

"Gas companies gave an undertaking ... to the Australian government and to the Australian public that they would not interfere with the domestic market. They have breached that undertaking and so the Australian government is open to remedy in relation to that," he said.

The gas reservation policy suggested by Senator Patrick would "put national interest ahead of any commercial interest" and ensure that Australians remained "entitled to have access to their gas at fair and reasonable prices" that he said the gas industry so far had failed to implement.

"They are making a killing here and they are going to stand their ground and try and protect it, but we have to have politicians that stand up to that and stand up for the Australian public and implement this gas reservation policy as we see has been done in WA," he said.

The senator also touched on Australia's submarine initiatives, describing them as a "total policy failure" of the previous government.

"No-one's been held accountable for the delay that we have in terms of capability to the Australian navy from a national security perspective for the taxpayer's money," he said.

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.