States with an existing domestic gas reservation must be consulted before they are included in the proposed Commonwealth scheme in an important concession to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 introduced to Federal Parliament today.
The amendment – a key point of advocacy for the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA (CME) – introduces a legal requirement for the effectiveness of Western Australia’s longstanding domestic gas policy to be considered before the new Commonwealth obligations are applied.
CME Chief Executive Officer Aaron Morey said the provision recognised WA was not facing the same supply challenges as the east coast gas market.
“We raised this directly with the Commonwealth and, to its credit, it listened,” Mr Morey said.
“The WA Government had the foresight to implement a domestic gas reservation two decades ago which has shielded our State from the issues this legislation seeks to address.
“The flexibility in that scheme has delivered a balanced WA gas market – with prices consistently well below those on the eastern seaboard – while continuing to incentivise the development of new projects that are critical to safeguarding future supply.
“As Premier Roger Cook has highlighted, the volume of gas delivered into WA’s domestic market last year exceeded 20 per cent of LNG exports.
“WA’s gas reservation has a 20-year track record of successfully addressing the very challenges this Bill was designed to solve.
“Requiring the Commonwealth to consider that track record before applying an east coast solution to WA is a sensible provision that CME strongly welcomes.”
While welcoming amendments to more explicitly exempt Western Australia, CME remains concerned about the level of ministerial discretion in the Bill as well as ambiguity over whether any carve-out for WA will apply to new projects.
“Those powers of discretion create a high degree of uncertainty, which is why our preference remains for WA’s exemption from the national reservation scheme to be directly enshrined in law,” Mr Morey said.
“The Bill also appears to hand the Energy Minister wide-ranging veto powers over decisions that rightly rest with the Resources Minister, while introducing unnecessary ministerial veto powers over merger and acquisition activity and the transfer of LNG export licences.
“These provisions appear unnecessary to meet the objectives of the Bill – to protect domestic gas supplies – and duplicate existing powers that the Federal Government already holds over investment and foreign ownership.
“Another issue that must be addressed is the legislation’s ambiguity about how a carve-out for WA would apply to future projects.
“These are fixable problems. We’ll be working with the Government and the Senate to address them before the Bill passes.”
Media contacts:
Josh Zimmerman j.zimmerman@cmewa.com / 0404 947 719
Natasha Mutch n.mutch@cmewa.com / 0435 383 382