Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

These efforts of ours, as I said, in unison with the Northern Territory government, are all about bringing more supply of gas to the market. But, in the short term, we have had an issue because new supplies of gas do take time to bring to production. Last year, given that we had a shortage of gas, this government introduced gas export controls for the first time in our nation's history through the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism. That has had a significant impact on gas markets to the benefit of Australian consumers and to the benefit of Australian businesses. Indeed, the average price of gas in February last year at Wallumbilla—which is a hub for gas in Australia—was $12.49 a gigajoule. Last month, the price at Wallumbilla averaged $9.95 a gigajoule—a 20 per cent reduction from last year. Now significant amounts of gas are flowing from Queensland to southern Australia, helping to alleviate that shortage and helping to take pressure off prices. But more needs to be done, particularly to bring on the supply of more gas.