Barry Jones said a “blinkered” approach to understanding and defining the national interest is undermining the effectiveness of the debate on Australia’s energy policy.

“This narrow assessment is not only hampering the debate, but also runs the grave risk of robbing all Australians of billions of dollars of tax revenue,” he said.

Jones also took a swing at the massive bureaucratic inertia within government and called on State and Federal Governments to ‘set their houses in order.’

Almost 1000 of the most influential players in the region’s oil and gas exploration and production companies have converged on Canberra for the 44th annual conference and exhibition.

The executive director did not disappoint those who had come to expect a few opening rockets from Jones, prior to the real fireworks at the formal welcoming event of the conference later that evening.

Jones said the upstream petroleum industry had in the past 25 years contributed revenue of more than $100,000 million ($100 billion) to the good of the entire Australian community.

“It’s time some of our policy makers removed the blinkers, adopted a more flexible approach and took up the bipartisan cudgel towards caring about the national interest.

“If they remain unbending in their ability to engender a commercially realistic debate, the big crunch will come in future years - to the detriment of our national lifestyle and economic well-being.”

Jones said the two driving issues for petroleum policy in Australia over the next 12 months would be determining if the best possible level of public good/national interest was being delivered and how can the nation’s oil and gas industry become more cost competitive?

“Bluntly, if cost issues are not addressed rapidly, the national interest will not be served.”

“It is demonstrable and unequivocal that our upstream petroleum industry makes a very, very substantial contribution to the nation,” he said.

“As our APPEA Chairman will observe in his opening address to the conference, it is doubtful if any industry in this country can match the contribution to the national interest that is made by the upstream oil and gas industry.

“In terms of improving national lifestyle and welfare, contributing to taxation revenue, enhancing the balance of trade, creating jobs, facilitating new business opportunities for service and manufacturing industries, meeting occupational health and safety expectations and enhancing environmental sustainability, this industry has a demonstrable track record of substantially benefiting the nation.

“It is therefore of great concern that the likely problem is that the debate will continue to focus on perceptions and single aspects. It will ignore the big picture. It will ignore performance. It will ignore the realities of company law and national and international anti trust law. It will ignore the realities of the market place. It will ignore the facts of Australian geography and of Australia’s resource endowments.”

Jones said a reason APPEA chose “Contributing to the Nation” as the theme for this year’s conference was to allow the industry to highlight how it does serve the nation and meet the public good.

Access to Government was another frustrating point for industry. Jones said cost came down to one single point - “how do we overcome the massive bureaucratic inertia in a number of key jurisdictions?”

“Governments have to set their houses in order,” he said. “Achieving better social outcomes does not mean more rules. It means better management within government.

“Consultation does not mean endless meetings directed at achieving lowest common denominator, consensus outcomes. It does mean taking good cost effective decisions and taking responsibility for these decisions.”

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