ACCC Report on the East Coast Gas Market Highlights Competition Issues
Emily Wood | April 22, 2016
The EUAA welcomes the release today of the ACCC report into the east coast gas market. Overall, the ACCC has confirmed that there is a significant lack of competition in the east coast gas market all the way along the supply chain through exploration, development, production, transport and sale. The EUAA, which represents a wide range of large and small domestic gas users, has long campaigned on these issues. We are grateful to the ACCC for highlighting the costs of a lack of competition and making important recommendations to remove barriers to increased competition along this supply chain. As the ACCC acknowledges, domestic users could not get quotes and even when they were getting quotes they were for very high prices, short terms and restrictive conditions as the supply side exercised its market power. This market dynamic has had enormous adverse impacts on our members’ businesses and directly inhibited their ability to continue to invest and employ many people, particularly in regional Australia. The ACCC recommendations covering supply, pipelines and increased market transparency deserve to be pursued with vigour. The ACCC’s case is so compelling that objections to the reform cannot be allowed to slow the pace of reform by Federal, State and Territory Ministers in working to implement the ACCC recommendations. The EUAA recognizes that the speed of implementation is critical to the alleviation of this market dynamic and looks forward to lending its support to assist with this process to ensure the recommendations are implemented as quickly as possible.
