The NSW premier has rejected Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s claim her government has been too slow to approve the state’s Narrabri Gas Project.

September 26, 2017

All sides of NSW politics have rejected the prime minister’s criticism of the state’s gas projects, saying the problem is in Canberra.

It comes after Malcolm Turnbull received two reports showing the expected national gas shortfall for 2018 was more than three times larger than projected earlier in the year, and he pushed for the east coast states to develop more gas fields.

He said on Monday the NSW government was not moving quickly enough on approving the Narrabri Gas Project in the state’s north.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian hit back, saying the approval process was progressing.

“New South Wales is the most resilient state when it comes to all sources of energy,” she told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday. 

She called for a national approach to energy supply, which she will raise at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting.

NSW Resources and Energy Minister Don Harwin said the state had more power supply projects in the pipeline than any other.

“We believe the federal government’s Australian domestic gas security mechanism is the appropriate tool to manage the consequences of the gas export sector’s development,” he said in a statement.

Acting opposition leader Michael Daley hit out at Mr Turnbull for blaming NSW for a gas shortage he says doesn’t exist.

“Let’s be very, very clear about this. There is no gas shortage on the east coast of Australia,” he told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.

The real problem, according to Mr Daley, lies in Canberra, where the Turnbull government’s gas export policies had led to “the lion’s share of Australia’s gas resource” heading offshore.

“This means families and businesses in NSW were having to compete with steel mills in Japan and Korea,” he said.

He urged Canberra to “pull the gas trigger” and restrict gas exports while also rejecting calls for increased approvals of coal seam gas projects in NSW.

NSW Greens resources spokesman Jeremy Buckingham also rejected Mr Turnbull’s calls for more gas.

He says the Narrabri project didn’t have a social licence and even if it was approved it would not solve a gas crisis created by policy failure to protect the domestic gas market from unregulated exports.