Andrew Bolt: Who Australians can blame when the gas runs out

When our gas starts to run out in two years it will be no accident, it will be the price of madness. Won’t someone save us from this lunacy?

It takes a monstrous stupidity — a religious mania — for Australians in this gas-rich country to run short of gas from as soon as two years from today.

How mad are our politicians? How blind with sanctimony the activists and journalists who cheered on this catastrophe?

Well, we can’t be this dumb for this long without paying a price. Sure enough, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission now predicts that somewhere between 2024 and 2034 our southern states will have just half the gas they need.

Oh, and that’s the best case. That depends on the Albanese overnment getting all of its bright and bold green energy schemes working like they should. Ha, ha, ha. Remember Snowy 2.0?

Won’t someone save us from this lunacy that could make gas and electricity a luxury for the poor? Just look now: as of Wednesday, gas bills in Victoria up another 24.9 per cent, NSW 9 per cent.

Let me give just five examples of how we’ve done this to ourselves, thanks to our elite’s self-hating contempt for western civilisation and ecstatic embrace of neo-pagan spirituality.

The Albanese government still has to get all of its bright and bold green energy schemes working like they should. Picture: Gary Ramage

First, take the strife that Santos, our biggest supplier of natural gas, has with its massive $3.6bn Barossa project, to take gas from the Timor Sea and pipe it to Darwin.

More gas! Great, right?

But no: the Federal Court has banned Santos from drilling because it didn’t consult Dennis Tipakalippa, a Tiwi Islands traditional owner.

Excuse me? The Barossa field is 140km north of the Tiwi Islands, far beyond any canoe ride most pre-colonial islanders would have ever taken. If the Islanders hadn’t been told about this project, I’d bet they’d never have noticed it, so by what odd law must anyone on the Tiwi Islands be consulted?

Still, Santos had already jumped through these legal hoops with the Tiwi Land Council and Northern Land Council, and thought it was all go. But up popped Tipakalippa to say that was still not enough. He should be consulted, too, about the environmental effects on his “sea-country”, and the Federal Court agreed, saying Tipakalippa’s cultural and “spiritual” interests should be protected.

Santos started exploratory drilling in this Narrabri field in 2013 but a decade later the project still isn’t up and running. Picture: AAP

Here’s a second example, again affecting Santos.

For nearly 30 years, gas explorers have tried to find gas around the Pilliga state forest in NSW. Santos started exploratory drilling in this Narrabri field in 2013.

Success! Lots of gas. Enough, says Santos, to give NSW half its gas supplies.

Yet a decade later the project still isn’t up and running. It’s been held up for years by bureaucrats, global warmists, Aboriginal spiritualists, green extremists and other soldiers of New Age spiritualism.

The timeline tells you why resources companies are wondering if it’s really worth investing in Australia.

The NSW government took two and a half years to agree to the project’s environmental requirements.

Then the Planning Department got involved, followed in 2020 by the Independent Planning Commission, which finally decided the obvious — that, no, this project wouldn’t do much to make global warming worse.

Three months later, the manic Environmental Defenders Office challenged that decision in the NSW Land and Environment Court and lost. It appealed and in 2021 lost again.

Then some Aboriginal traditional owners sued in the Native Title Tribunal, claiming their “spiritual and physical connection” to the area was worth more than the compensation they’d been offered. They also lost, and last year appealed.

Santos, meanwhile, is burning money, and we’re still without the gas that could be driving down these high prices.

One reason gas prices are so high is our governments are so hostile to fossil fuels that they’ve already helped to put a third of our coal-fired power stations out of business. Picture: Jason Edwards

To the third example. Green-drunk Victoria banned even onshore exploration of gas for nine years, foolishly convinced we face a “climate catastrophe”, and tiny Australia can lower the whole globe’s temperature by getting rid of fossil fuels. Even now, it still bans fracking for gas, a proven and safe technology.

Lastly, the fourth and fifth examples of our lunacy. One reason gas prices are so high is that our governments are so hostile to fossil fuels that they’ve already helped to put a third of our coal-fired power stations out of business.

That’s one reason we’ve turned to gas instead, helping to drive prices through the roof. But the Albanese government compounded the idiocy by putting price caps on the gas which producers sell domestically.

Backfire: that caused a producers’ strike. No wonder they’re reassessing operations: after all the hurdles these governments put in their way, they’re now banned from getting their big reward for persevering?

When your gas runs out, be clear: it’s no accident. It’s the price of madness.