Securing Australia’s Energy Future – A Pragmatic Path Forward
Good morning everyone – and thank you Laura.
I too acknowledge the Turrbal and Jagera people and pay respects to elders past and present.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about one of the most pressing challenges facing Australia and our region.
The complex energy trilemma of affordability, reliability and decarbonisation.
I. The Need for More Domestic Gas Supply
Let me start with a clear and direct proposition: Australia needs to develop more of its own gas supply.
Affordable energy is quite simply the lynchpin of national success.
Without it, we pay more for everything.
From the inputs like glass, brick and cement that go into building our homes. To the food we buy that requires gas for the fertiliser and to store and transport it, to the bills we pay for lighting and heating our homes, fuelling our cooktops and heating our hot water tanks.
And the data is stark.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), wholesale east coast gas prices rose from $6-8/GJ in 2020 to as high as $11–14/GJ in 2024.
Wholesale electricity prices followed suit, increasing almost 180% on average across the National Electricity Market from 2021 to 2024.
That shouldn’t be the case as Australia has a lot of gas and yet, supply is being constrained.
Only a fraction of Australia’s known prospective gas basins are currently under development. New projects are facing increasing delays due to complex regulatory approvals and uncertainty introduced by government interventions.
Without new supply, domestic shortfalls — already forecast by the Australian Energy Market Operator from 2028 onwards — will widen, pushing prices even higher and threatening industrial demand and reliability in the power grid.
That is bad for Australian jobs, bad for energy prices and bad for consumers.
II. The Role of LNG Contracts in Unlocking Supply
Historically, long-term LNG export contracts have been the financial enabler of new gas developments in Australia.
This model works.
It has delivered over $300 billion in LNG investment in the past two decades, making Australia the world’s largest LNG exporter by 2019. While Australia has since dropped to third globally, behind the US and Qatar, the legacy of this investment remains significant.
These export contracts — particularly with Japan, South Korea, and China — have underwritten massive capital outlays, de-risked exploration, and delivered the scale needed to make projects viable.
Domestic supply has often been a by-product of these export-focused developments, benefiting from the economies of scale and infrastructure sharing.
Put simply, these internationally funded developments have benefited Australian jobs, industry and consumers.
Australia’s LNG industry has been built off the back of this international investment but those investors are now seeing worrying trends.
Policymakers have sought to decouple export markets from domestic supply through market interventions:
- price caps
- reservation schemes
- and ad hoc directives under the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM).
III. Market Intervention Has Not Lowered Prices
Let’s be candid: these interventions have backfired.
They’ve had the opposite impact that was intended.
Price caps introduced in late 2022, combined with new code compliance obligations, created investment uncertainty.
Several planned projects experienced delays or were shelved.
Capital has become more risk-averse and this includes both Australian investors and international investors, who are now half as likely to invest in Australian exploration than they are in our competitor countries.
And far from easing pressure on consumers, wholesale prices remained volatile. The ACCC’s July 2023 report stated that “there is no clear evidence that the $12 per gigajoule price cap has materially reduced average wholesale prices in long-term contracts or spot markets.”
Meanwhile, storage and transportation bottlenecks have increased the cost of supply.
This is not a theoretical concern. It is felt by Australian manufacturers in chemicals, glass, alumina, and food production, many of whom are now flagging closures or offshore relocations unless affordable gas can be secured.
IV. The Slower-than-Hoped Pace of the Energy Transition
The third element of the energy trilemma after affordability and reliability is decarbonisation.
There is a fundamental disconnect between what people say they want and their purchasing behaviour.
While we work to decarbonise, we must confront a sobering reality: the pace of the energy transition is not matching our ambitions.
The world continues to demand more and more energy, which as you heard yesterday, even though renewables capacity grew by a record 15% last year, it did not replace existing energy sources – it was additive.
Emphasising – more of all forms of energy are needed to meet ever-growing demand.
When we look at the bigger picture—primary energy consumption, which includes electricity, fuels, heating, and industrial use—renewables still make up less than 15% of the global total. So while progress is real, the challenge ahead is even greater.
Electrification of industrial heat, freight, and chemical processes remains a long-term goal, not a short-term fix.
In the meantime, gas remains a critical fuel — especially for firming, heating, and industrial feedstock.
We must therefore manage the energy transition pragmatically, not ideologically.
V. The Critical Role of CCS — and Australia’s Advantage
One of the most critical enabling technologies for a net-zero future is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Unlike many other decarbonisation technologies, CCS is not speculative.
It is here, now, and it’s proven.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that limiting global warming to 1.5°C without CCS and other negative emission technologies is practically impossible. The IEA agrees, noting that almost six billion tonnes of CO₂ must be captured annually by 2050 to stay on track — a more than 100-fold increase from today’s levels.
Australia is exceptionally well-positioned to lead in CCS. We have world-class geological storage basins and we have the project experience.
Chevron’s Gorgon CCS project has now injected over 11 million tonnes of CO₂.
Our Moomba CCS project, that came online last year, is targeting 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 storage annually. That’s the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars of Australia’s roads.
And the project has already stored more than 800,000 tonnes of CO2.
Real, large-scale emissions reductions happening now.
These numbers are what the projects are doing currently, but the potential is even greater. Those projects can be expanded to store third party CO2 – meaning Australia could become a regional leader in carbon management services to decarbonise our region.
VI. Australia’s Regional Responsibility — Supplying Gas to Asia
Let’s now turn to the global context. Australia is not just a domestic energy economy. We are a trusted supplier to our neighbours in the Asian Pacific region, who do not have our endowments of energy resources or carbon storage.
More than 70 per cent of Australia’s LNG exports go to just three countries: Japan, China, and South Korea. All three are heavily reliant on imported energy to maintain their industrial economies.
To put it plainly: we have an obligation to develop our gas and CCS capabilities not just for ourselves, but for the region. If we do not, others will fill the gap — with coal, oil, or unregulated alternatives that increase global emissions and geopolitical risk.
Asia’s growing population and energy demand require partnerships based on trust, transparency, and shared progress.
Australia can be the energy partner of choice, if we remain pragmatic and proactive.
VII. Conclusion: A Call for Balanced Energy Policy
The world needs more energy, not less.
The world has an insatiable appetite for energy. And it will need all forms of energy to feed that appetite.
The energy transition the world needs is not about less energy—it’s about “energy unleashed”.
Energy that lifts people out of poverty, raises living standards, and unlocks human potential. And in a world increasingly powered by AI and digital innovation, that energy must be abundant, reliable, and accessible to all.
The modern lifestyles of the people in this room today – along with about a billion others across the developed world – require 4 to 13 times as much energy as the other seven billion people on the planet.
Those seven billion people aspire to the lifestyles that we enjoy.
They too want access to reliable electricity for lighting, cooking, heating and cooling.
They want access to time-saving conveniences like washing machines and refrigerators, and they want access to motorised transport and air travel.
So we need energy policy around the world that does not leave people behind – energy policy focused on human advancement.
And we need climate policy focused on the right problem – reducing greenhouse gas emissions – not cutting access to affordable, reliable, life-advancing energy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are at a crossroads. The policy decisions we make today will shape the structure of our energy system, our economy, and our regional relationships for decades to come.
We owe it to our fellow Australians, our regional neighbours, and the developing world to produce the affordable and reliable energy we all need to help make a better world.
We must say yes to new gas supply — responsibly developed, properly regulated, and part of a long-term emissions trajectory.
We must support LNG as a foundation for energy trade and investment.
We must acknowledge that interventions, while well-intentioned, can sometimes do more harm than good when they suppress the very investment we need.
We must accelerate the energy transition — but with honesty about what is technically and economically feasible in the short term.
And we must champion CCS and regional energy partnerships, not just for Australia’s benefit, but for the millions in Asia who rely on us.
This is not about ideology. It is about energy realism — balancing ambition with pragmatism, emissions with economics, and domestic interests with regional responsibilities.
Australia has the resources. We have the expertise. Now, we must be enabled to get on and develop those resources to create a stronger Australia and region.
Thank you.
