State bans on coal joint gas development would be ditched and the Federal Government would underwrite gas prices and enormously subsidise expenses and financial investment for gas business, under confidential prepare for a “gas-led manufacturing healing” post-COVID-19
Bottom line:
- Leaked documents expose a draft strategy requiring enormous gas aids and public financial investment
- The interim report likewise requires lowered ‘green and red tape’ and an end to all fracking moratoriums in NSW and Victoria
- The National COVID Coordination Commission has a number of members with deep links to the gas market
The draft strategies, obtained by the ABC, call for the scrapping of “green and bureaucracy” on gas advancement, including a relaxation of Australian standards for equipment used in gas facilities and a loosening of environmental guidelines and approval procedures.
They are set out in an interim report from the manufacturing taskforce of the National COVID Coordination Commission (NCCC).
The NCCC is a hand-picked group of magnate and former bureaucrats established by the Prime Minister’s Office to form the economic recovery from the infection and lockdown, and includes a number of members with strong links to the gas sector
The manufacturing taskforce consists of business representatives along with union leaders from that sector.
Its draft report supporters “financing brand-new [gas] supply with government balance sheets” to permit gas manufacturers “to invest with confidence and brand-new pipelines to be built to get the gas to markets”.
The taskforce states the Federal government should be “taking a non-operating equity position, minority share, or underwriting position” in gas jobs and “provide assistance, such as affordable capital, to existing s