Laurie Oakes: Prime Minister is too full of gas

DONALD Trump could give Malcolm Turnbull some tips on how to sell a good idea, writes Laurie Oakes.

MALCOLM Turnbull should be on a winner with his decision to introduce export control powers to safeguard Australia’s domestic gas supplies.

The move gives substance to the Prime Minister’s “Australia First” mantra that featured in earlier announcements on tougher citizenship rules and a tightening of the visa system for foreign workers.

Turnbull is right when he says it is ridiculous that Australians face gas shortages at home when the country is on the verge of ­becoming the world’s largest LNG exporter.

Malcolm Turnbull denied newspaper reports that he had said the wholesale price could come down by as much as 50 per cent.

The idea of a Domestic Gas Security Mechanism able to limit gas exports is a radical one for a government that espouses the free market.

Turnbull, along with most of his Cabinet, would have winced when critics compared it with “Whitlam-era regulations”. They would have been seriously uncomfortable hearing words such as “unprecedented”, “alarming” and “sovereign risk” from industry leaders.

But, given gas producers had ­ignored government pleas to take action, it is a sensible response to what threatened to become a crisis.

Forcing producers to reserve gas supplies for the domestic market is all about ensuring Australians get the benefit of their own resources. There are surely few messages more voter-friendly than that.

Whatever else might be said of him, Trump is a master persuader. Turnbull, to put it kindly, is not.

Like the visa changes, it can be portrayed as a measure to protect Australian jobs. And Turnbull sought to claim an extra political benefit — that limiting exports will result in cheaper domestic gas.

Donald Trump’s “America First” sales pitch served him well in the US presidential election. Turnbull’s “Australia First” rip-off should serve the Coalition equally well here.

Except, perhaps, for one thing.

Whatever else might be said of him, Trump is a master persuader. Turnbull, to put it kindly, is not.

Take the Prime Minister’s ­appearance on Neil Mitchell’s high-rating talkback radio program in Melbourne yesterday.

After a call from a pensioner unable to run her heater in bitterly cold weather ­because of the cost, Mitchell asked the PM if he could promise the woman her gas bills would come down. That ought to have been a free kick. But this was Turnbull’s response.

PM: Neil, I’m not going to promise, make a promise like that to Greta. What I can say is this: This is important to get beyond the glib and the, you know, and the one-off lines.

Mitchell: I don’t want glib but she wants an answer.

PM: Well, hang on, Neil. The ­answer is that what I am doing, what I have done with the export measures we’ve taken, will ensure that wholesale prices … there is downward pressure on wholesale prices.

But Turnbull then denied newspaper reports that he had said the wholesale price could come down by as much as 50 per cent.

PM: What I said was that manufacturers in Victoria are being ­offered right now long-term wholesale gas contracts at around $20 a gigajoule, which is a massive ­increase on where they’ve been in the past.

The last thing Australia needs is a leader who makes up alternate facts.

And what I said was that, if the market in Australia, the domestic market, is adequately supplied, and that’s what the export measures I announced are going to do, that’s their objective, then the price should be around half that or less.

Got that, Greta?

It would be understandable if the pensioner, wrapped in a blanket and shivering, had given up by this point. But just in case she was still listening, Mitchell tried one last time.

Mitchell: Greta and her mates — have they got any hope of getting cheaper gas bills?

PM: There will certainly be, there will … The measures I’ve undertaken, the government’s announced, will put downward pressure on the wholesale price of gas and that is a proportion of Greta’s bill but it’s only part of it. It depends on how the gas company makes it up.

In some ways Turnbull’s caution is admirable. He does not want to mislead, give false hope. Trump has no such scruples. Trump ignores ­reality and rational thinking in favour of emotional appeal. Turnbull does the opposite.

The last thing Australia needs is a leader who makes up alternate facts.

But there are some Trump sales techniques that Turnbull could profitably adapt in the same way he has adapted The Donald’s slogan.

Chief among them is not boring voters to death. Perhaps the PM will pick up some tips on how it’s done when he meets the President in New York next week.

Laurie Oakes is the Nine Network political editor