This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Despite the Turnbull government’s insistence that state-based restrictions on unconventional gas extraction are putting Australia’s ­energy security at risk, twice as many voters support the bans as oppose them.

A new poll, conducted by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute, has found 49% of Australians support a moratorium on fracking for gas in their own state, while just 24% oppose it.

It also found 74% of Australians support an increased renewable energy target in their own state, demonstrating support for state-based renewable energy targets is largely unchanged since March 2016.

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The Australia Institute survey of 1,421 Australians took place between 17 and 26 September. It asked voters if they supported or opposed their state governments implementing a moratorium on fracking for gas and an increased renewable energy target.

The poll ended last week just as the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, wrote to the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, and the Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, asking them to lift their “blanket moratoriums” on new gas production and warning they were putting Australia’s ­energy security and industries at risk.

The next day, major gas companies agreed to fill the domestic shortfall in Australia’s gas market next year, saving the Turnbull government from having to enact its export control trigger.

In a move hailed as a win by the government, Santos, Origin Energy and Shell agreed to quarantine additional supply for the Australian gas market following a meeting last week between the companies and Turnbull, his deputy, Barnaby Joyce, and the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg.

Turnbull did not confirm how many additional petajoules were being set aside by the companies. He said he had scheduled another meeting with the gas companies for Tuesday this week.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, criticised Turnbull’s repeated meetings with the gas bosses, saying the prime minister first met with suppliers in March and said he would resolve the crisis but little had happened.

Shorten said last week’s pledge from the gas companies to quarantine supply for the domestic gas market would not stop prices rising, and Turnbull ought to pull the gas export controls trigger to ensure more supply was available locally.



“This isn’t a fix, this is a flop,” Shorten said. “Turnbull had the chance to show the gas giants who was in charge by pulling the trigger on export controls, but he squibbed it.

“This isn’t just a supply crisis – this is a price crisis. The gas on offer is simply too high a price for Australian businesses, and that means thousands of jobs are under threat,” he said.

The Australia Institute poll also contains the results of a survey of 1,408 Australian residents in April, which asked voters what they thought was increasing energy prices.

The April poll found 52% of respondents believed exports of gas were having the biggest impact on gas prices, followed by market deregulation (31%), with only 17% saying state-based gas bans were having the biggest effect on price.

It also found half of Australians ranked moratoriums as having the smallest impact on gas prices (54%), and a majority (58%) blamed the “business practices of energy companies” for increased power prices.

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More than two in five respondents (44%) blamed gas exports for increased power prices, and less than a quarter (23%) blamed renewable energy for increase power prices.

Both polls were conducted through Research Now, with nationally representative samples by gender, age and state or territory.

Ebony Bennet, the deputy director of the Australia Institute, said with Australia about to become the world’s biggest exporter of LNG, the public wasn’t buying that there was a supply problem.

“The federal government’s twin attacks on state fracking moratoria and renewable energy are both running against the tide of public opinion,” Bennett said. “Voters continue to blame exports, not gas moratoria for gas price rises.”