The plan, first floated by the late R.F.X. (Rex) Connor when he was a Minister in the Whitlam Government in 1973, sounds blindingly simple.

All that it takes, in the mind of a politician, is a large ditch-digging machine, lots of steel pipe and away we go – Australia’s liquid fuels energy crisis is solved with the country’s biggest gas reserves linked to the biggest markets.

There were, of course, a few obstacles which stumped Rex’s plan, such as 3000km of sand dunes, a glaring lack of markets along the way, and a cost of mega-billions.

Buried, but not forgotten, Rex’s grand vision for a national pipeline has surfaced intermittently over the past 32 years. In fact, it always pops up when oil prices rise, truckies stage protest drives through capital cities and motorists (read voters) get very bolshy with their members of Parliament. Times like now, in fact.

The Slug, perhaps pre-empting, or simply missing the first sighting of Rex’s pipeline during the current flush of high fuel prices, reckons it’s time for a fresh look, if only for a bit of fun.

The original concept, according to Slug’s research, dates back to 1968 when Rex was in opposition. It wasn’t until he got his feet under a Minister’s desk that it became a plan, of sorts.

By 1975 when the Whitlam Government was kicked out of office, the trans-Australian pipeline was dead, or in limbo to be more accurate.

A revised version surfaced in 1984 as pipelining took off in Australia, and The Slug’s esteemed scribbler colleague, Rick Wilkinson, was writing for The Australian Financial Review.

In 1993, Rex’s pipeline re-surfaced when chatter started about a trans-Asian pipeline linking the Shelf with Asia, a $42 billion dream that skipped lightly over the problem that Australia and Asia are on different tectonic plates which have an irritating habit of shifting in the night.

Scattered mentions of the pipe occurred through the 90s. But the last substantial appearance came two years ago when Woodside Petroleum itself started thinking about a grand plan, and a senior company executive, David Maxwell, refloated the concept during a talk to investment analysts in Sydney.

At the time of Maxwell’s talk, a figure of 30 trillion cubic feet of gas was mentioned as the reserve level in the North West Shelf and surrounding areas.

It’s a fair bet that since the string of discoveries around the Gorgon fields, and by Woodside at its Pluto field, that the 30tcf has been effectively doubled. Which comes back to those questions of timing, price, demand and opportunity.

The Slug, who has always seen a certain logic in the trans-Australian pipeline (if you can forget the small matter of cost) reckons that the moment is ripe for the return of Rex’s dream.

Fuel costs are hurting. Gas supply on the west coast is high and rising. Demand for gas on the east coast is strong and rising, and if you can build a pipeline from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea to Sydney then you can certainly build one from Dampier to Sydney.

Perhaps it is time to reach into the vault, drag out a few files, blow the dust off, and see if dear old Rex was right all those years ago.