With all the inevitability of iceberg and Titanic, the crunch is coming this year for many east coast manufacturers and the gas supplies they rely upon. A doubling of prices, if they can get the gas at all, could put some of them out of business. That would be ironic in the same year that Australia is expected to become the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas. And it would be doubly ironic if eastern Australia were to try filling the shortfall by importing LNG from elsewhere, as one supplier is contemplating.

Not just ironic, but tragic. Australia has plentiful gas, but politically it is out of reach. That is partly because of bloody-minded grassroots protest movements that have turned gas developments into untouchables for governments. But it's also partly because the policy shambles on climate change at the highest levels of government has paralysed energy investment of just about any sort.