It’s unclear exactly what Treasurer Jim Chalmers was saying at the National Press Club about using some kind of “mechanism, triggers, caps, other kinds of regulation” to contain sharply rising energy prices that are intensifying the cost of living squeeze that Labor promised to fix.

Could it be about diverting LNG exports from Queensland to the east coast domestic market to take the edge of the budget’s estimated 50 per cent or so increase in electricity prices? Or is it the Australian Workers’ Union plan to impose a price cap to force gas producers to sell to the domestic users at well below the global gas price?