There is not much point in reminding anyone about last week’s political farce that ended with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, crowing over the way she thrashed her enemies, except to note that the people she thrashed were members of her own party, which ought to redefine the word enemy.
But there may be a need to refresh readers about the gas crisis, because it is yet to hit the east coast population and industrial centres. From next year, existing gas supply contracts run out and new contracts have to be agreed at what will be substantially higher prices.
In time, what is being seen by the anti-coal seam gas brigade of environmentalists, farmers and blissfully ignorant mainstream media as a glorious victory in stopping the development of coal-seam gas fields in New South Wales will be recognised as a victory similar to that scored by Gillard – a magnificent own goal.
What is particularly interesting for anyone who has lived through the original political/gas crisis of the 1970s is that history really does seem to be repeating itself, with variations, though as The Slug reminisces, younger readers will pick up the common threads linking the two events.
In 1973 and 1974, Australia was in the grip of a hung parliament much like it is today, with the variation being that Labor controlled the lower house and conservatives controlled the senate.
Convention demands that the senate never refused to pass a “money bill”, meaning the government formed in the lower house could govern effectively because it would always get a supply of cash to keep paying its workforce.
The government of the day, however, was radical with its leader, Gough Whitlam, rushing to make social changes he believed necessary after 23 years of conservative administration.
It was a rush that shook the foundations of the country and confidence in the financial system to the point where the senate threatened to block money bills.
It was the strangle-hold on money, and a rush to do things, that infuriated Whitlam and his resources minister, R.F.X. (Rex) Connor, a man who saw as his duty the provision of energy to Australia’s industrialised east coast.
Connor’s dream was a trans-Australia gas pipeline connecting the discoveries being made off the North West coast with industry in the east. To do that he needed money and the man offering it was a Pakistani wheeler-dealer named Tirath Khemlani, who said he could raise $4 billion in loans from “friends” in the Middle East.
For Whitlam and his government, they were desperate days with money tight, the senate threatening and Rex Connor running around with a proposal to raise petro-dollar loans from an unknown.
It did, as most history students know, end in the non-appearance of the promised loans, the senate and conservative Australia furious that the country could be dragged so low, no trans-Australian pipeline, and political oblivion for Whitlam when the governor-general sacked him.
Missing, so far, from a full repeat of history, is a resurrected trans-Australian gas pipeline – with that role being played by the coal-seam gas debate – and a full-blown financial crisis of the sort that saw Whitlam and Connor holding out a begging bowl for Khemlani to fill.
May 14 is the next date to watch as the financial storm gathers, with Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan expected to unveil a horror budget on that day. A budget complete with higher taxes and an admission that the government deficit has blown out by more than $10 billion, and perhaps as much as $15 billion, which will require holding out a begging bowl to international lenders, infuriating conservative Australia.
Meanwhile, all along the east coast a gradual awakening will be taking place as industry and households realise their gas supplies are running out because of a ban on coal-seam exploration in NSW, and the higher prices on offer for Queensland gas in the international market for LNG exports.
What follows could be a government led attempt to limit LNG exports and create a two-price gas market that will eventually kill the incentive to explore and, who knows, a suggestion that Australia build that trans-continental pipeline that Rex Conner proposed 40 years ago.
For older readers, the political/energy situation emerging in eastern Australia is entertaining because we have seen it all before. It is also disturbing, because we are worried that it is all just an out-of-body deja vu experience for ageing brains struggling to believe that it is happening again.
