Australians are increasingly waking up to the raw deal we’re getting from our gas trade.
Whether it’s the federal government’s failure to secure a fair return to taxpayers from big corporations, or Japan reselling vast amounts of Australian gas to other countries across the region, the industry is increasingly finding itself on the wrong side of public opinion.
And yet we are likely to see a fresh outbreak of gas industry spin when the inaugural Australia-Japan Leadership Dialogue is held in Tokyo on 8 October.
The Dialogue takes place amid ongoing global oil and LNG supply disruptions in response to the war in Iran, and as the Australian government is expected to introduce watered-down legislation for its much-touted Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme later this month.
Perhaps fittingly, given the gas industry’s influence over Australia-Japan relations, it will be led by two Chairs with strong ties to the sector: Michiaki Hirose, a former chair and current senior corporate adviser to Tokyo Gas, and Stephen Smith, a former Labor minister and chair of the pro-gas Perth USAsia Centre.
Research by independent think tank InfluenceMap reveals that the fossil fuel sector frequently and repeatedly capitalises on periods of global disruption by deploying a playbook of misleading narratives that push new fossil fuel supply as key to global energy security and affordability.