On Monday, Australian Energy Producers (AEP) - the lobby group representing the foreign owned gas giants that export 80% of Australia’s gas - welcomed the Coalition’s announcement to help them export even more of Australia’s finite gas resources by cutting environmental protections and increasing subsidies.
Thu 27 Aug 2026 10.29 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
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On Monday, Australian Energy Producers (AEP) – the lobby group representing the foreign-owned gas giants that export 80% of Australia’s gas – welcomed the Coalition’s announcement to help them export even more of Australia’s finite gas resources by cutting environmental protections and increasing subsidies.
It is entirely unsurprising that global energy giants like Chevron, Exxon and Shell, who make massive windfall profits exporting Australian gas, would like the government to approve even more new gas projects, particularly as they get most of the gas they export for free because the Commonwealth Government doesn’t change royalties on most of the offshore gas they export.
The thing to note, though, is their disingenuous framing of the Coalition’s proposal to supercharge the giveaway of our gas resources as necessary for energy security and reducing energy bills for Australians.
The Coalition’s plan is mostly to hand over vast new areas of our oceans to these companies for drilling, weaken laws protecting those areas, and give them billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
This will do approximately nothing to reduce energy bills for Australians. In fact, it is more likely to increase our energy bills.
We know for certain that increasing gas production doesn’t mean more gas or lower energy bills for Australians. Since gas exports from the east coast began in 2015, even though gas production has tripled, Australian gas prices have tripled.
Prior to the opening of these big gas export projects from Queensland, Australia had decades of abundant low-cost gas. While the gas export projects certainly “unlocked new gas supply,” it was all for export, and in fact the gas exporters also take gas from the domestic market, leading to constant threats of gas shortages, undermining our energy security.
Even worse, because gas is such an expensive way to produce electricity, the wholesale electricity price is largely set by the gas price, so the tripling of domestic gas prices has caused a doubling of electricity prices.
It’s a similar situation in Western Australia, where the Western Australian Labor Government’s foolish decision in 2020 to cave to gas industry pressure and allow the export of WA’s domestic gas reserves from Woodside’s North West Shelf export terminal led to a tripling of gas and electricity prices for Western Australians.
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For good measure, AEP have thrown in ridiculous claims that the gas industry “supports more than 215,000 jobs” and adds “$100 billion to the economy each year.”
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the oil and gas industry is one of the smallest employers in Australia, employing not 215,000 people, but around 25,000 people, less than 0.2% of the Australian workforce.
What AEP doesn’t mention about the “$100 billion to the economy each year” is that this figure is largely the revenue these foreign owned gas companies receive selling Australian gas they export to overseas customers, as previously mentioned, most of which our government gives them for free. It might be counted in Australia’s GDP technically; bit it largely goes to the foreign owners of gas export corporations.
But most importantly of all, these big new gas export projects are making Australia and the rest of the world hotter, causing more extreme and frequent fires, floods and other natural disasters. Australia is the world’s second largest fossil fuel exporter and fifth largest fossil fuel producer.
These companies are fuelling devastating fires across the globe with their exports of gas from Australia, and Australians are likely to feel the devastating consequences this summer.
Australia has signed the Belém Declaration, joining more than 80 countries in committing to transition away from fossil fuels. Lobby groups like AEP are doing everything they can to undermine it, and the Coalition’s latest energy policy offering seems perfectly aligned to those efforts.
The current Labor Government is little better, having approved massive gas export projects including the 45-year extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf terminal, which will result in around 4.3 billion tonnes of emissions over the life of the project.
The irony is that increasing gas exports is deeply unpopular. Australia Institute polling shows that 60% of Australians think Australia exports too much gas (only 9% don’t) and that the overwhelming majority of Australians think the gas industry should pay more tax.
The Coalition and AEP are hoping Australians fall for the ruse that this is about reducing energy bills for Australians, when in reality it is about all about allowing more exports and is likely to raise our energy bills.
