Colin Barnett Right About Gas Reservation

Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with WA Premier Colin Barnett, he is right to observe that Western Australia is the only state to reserve 15 per cent of gas deposits for domestic use, and that the LNG industry in Western Australia enjoys more public support than the coal seam gas industry in the eastern states.

It may well be the case that people are more supportive of an industry if they feel it can benefit them. In the eastern states both manufacturing industry and consumers have been offered nothing except the prospect that locally produced gas will all be exported and the price will go up!

Public opposition to coal seam gas has forced a ban on it in Victoria, and projects being halted in New South Wales. Labor in the Northern Territory has said it will ban onshore drilling if elected.

The Federal Government and the gas industry would do well to listen to Colin Barnett and stop being so greedy and trying to have it all their own way. 85 per cent of something is, after all, a lot more than 100 percent of nothing.