Madeleine King is becoming something of a connoisseur of the irony that comes with being the minister for resources in a nation that often likes to pretend it is something other than an extractive supergiant.

Speaking at this week’s Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association annual gathering in Adelaide, which drew its usual army of protesters, King couldn’t help but raise a laugh over the fact that an anti-gas activist had fastened themselves to the footpath using superglue made of “petrochemicals”.